Eric forced a smile. He clasped Kory’s shoulder companionably. “Don’t worry so much about the future, Kor’. It gets here no matter what you do.”
“Yeah,” Beth said. “And I’m the one that’s going to be having the baby. All you have to do is pace outside the delivery room door looking worried. And think of names for her.”
“She will be a great warrior and Bard,” Kory said seriously. “We should name her Maeve. Queen Maeve was a great warrior in the human lands of long ago.”
Beth laughed, and the moment of sadness passed. “Maeve, it is, then. Who knows? Maybe someday Maeve Kentraine will have her own rock and roll band!”
At last it was time for Eric to go. Time in Underhill ran parallel to World Above time this close to a Gate, and though tomorrow—today, rather—was Saturday, Eric still had studying to do over the weekend. He ought to make time to check in with Jeremy to see how Lydia was doing, too.
He called Lady Day back from frolicking with the other elvensteeds, and reluctantly prepared to depart. He walked Kory a few steps away from Beth, who was gathering up the remains of their picnic and tucking them tidily back into the basket.
“I don’t want you to worry about me—or anything,” Eric told Kory. “I promise I’ll stay out of this Sidhe Lord’s way. And who knows what tomorrow may bring?”
“‘Don’t borrow trouble, they give so much of it away free’?” the Sidhe quoted wistfully. “A true saying, O Bard. But the future is where mortals live.”
“‘Never their minds on where they are, what they are doing,’” Eric misquoted, smiling. “Yeah. I heard all about that from Dharinel, lots and lots. But it’s the way we are.”
“And I would not change you,” Kory said seriously. “Even if I could. Fare you well, Eric. Visit us again soon.”
“I will,” Eric promised, hugging Kory forcefully. Kory raised his hand in salute, stepping back. Beth blew him a kiss from where she knelt beside the picnic basket.
Eric swung his leg over Lady Day’s saddle and reached for his helmet, settling it on his head. The elvensteed wheeled and turned back the way she’d come, taking Eric through the Portal and back into the park once more, into the sudden darkness and wintery chill.
It was nearly two in the morning when Eric arrived back at the apartment house, so it was no surprise that Toni Hernandez’s first-floor front windows were dark, but what surprised Eric was the sense of absence he felt as he walked into the lobby, as if all the building’s tenants—not just the Guardians—had packed up and left while he’d been gone.
That’s ridiculous. After all, he’d seen a few lights on the upper floors as he came up the walk. Artists and writers tended to be a solitary, nocturnal bunch, given to working in odd scraps of time stolen from day jobs. So he knew that there were still people here. Had to be. It was just that . . .
It’s just that this place feels like Sleeping Beauty’s Castle, all of a sudden.
It had started to rain on the ride back—thick slow drops on the edge of becoming snow—and Eric rode Lady Day right into the courtyard, leaving the elvensteed to find her parking spot while he rushed inside. His leathers had turned most of the rain, but his dress slacks were soaked and his shoes were wet as well.
Impatient with the usual glacial pace of the elevator, Eric elected to take the stairs at top speed. He was panting and out of breath from his climb by the time he reached the top, but he’d shaken the fey humor that had possessed him in the lobby. No matter where his other friends in Guardian House were tonight, Eric knew someone who was always here and never slept.
“Greystone? Hey, buddy?” Eric called, flipping on the lights in his living room. He kicked off his shoes and tossed his jacket aside. It was still the same mess it had been when he’d left for the concert at four this afternoon: clothes, CDs, and empty bottles of designer water scattered around like the debris of a small whirlwind. Housekeeping had never been Eric’s strong suit, and he supposed if he was going to keep on living here he’d need to hire some kind of cleaning service, assuming he could find one that would pick up and put away his things . . . before he needed to hire an archaeologist to find the bedroom.
Maybe a house-brownie would like to live here and do the dishes. They’re supposed to come if you put out a bowl of milk for them, but with my luck, I’d probably just end up feeding half the neighborhood cats.
Despite the season, he’d left the living room window open so that his gargoyle friend would know he was welcome to come and go as he pleased when Eric was out. “Hey? Greystone?” Eric called softly. The curtains billowed, and Eric heard the soft click of stone against iron as the gargoyle climbed down from its perch.
“Well, if it ain’t O’Banyon,” Greystone said, in his odd mixture of Irish and Bronx. “And how was the concert, laddybuck? Hmpf—you smell like you’ve been rolling in magic.” The gargoyle wrinkled its nose and looked disapproving, much as if Eric had come home reeking with beer from the corner speakeasy.
“I took a little trip through the looking glass.” Eric shrugged. “The concert went okay, but the ending was a real killer. I’ll have the tapes in about a week and you can hear it then for yourself. At least I didn’t screw up my solo, so Rector must be spitting nails; half the school saw me on stage and there’s nothing he can do about it but give me a fair grade. And something really weird happened tonight—I saw Beth and Kory, and Master Dharinel asked me to pass on a message—and now that I get here, it looks like something really weird has happened here, too. Where is everyone? I kind of need to talk to Toni, but I’m not sure what I’m going to say.”
As he spoke, Eric walked into the bedroom. He pulled off his slacks and shirt, and shrugged into one of Bethie’s finds: a bathrobe of heavy cashmere. He began to feel warmer almost at once. From there he went into the kitchen and came back with two bottles of spring water. He offered one to his guest—Greystone was already crouched in his favorite spot in front of the TV—and flopped down on the couch, exhausted.
“What sort of a weird thing?” the gargoyle asked, ignoring the rest of Eric’s speech.
“Two things, actually. First, I ran into an old friend of mine,” Eric said. “Or else it was a really convincing hallucination. Either way I wanted to run it past some friends I could trust.” It’s not that I think Ria’s out to get me. It’s just that I . . . well, I don’t know. It’s Ria. I never could think straight when I was around her the last time.
A sudden tactile memory, vivid as a kiss, intruded in Eric’s mind: Ria in bed, wearing nothing but a seductive smile, her blond hair fanned out against the red silk sheets as she reached for him. . . .
“Yeah, well. . . .” The gargoyle seemed oddly embarrassed. “Toni and the guys . . . they’re going to be out for a while.”
Eric looked at him, jolted out of the unbidden erotic reverie by the tone in Greystone’s voice. “‘Out.’ Is this one of those things that Bard was not meant to know, or can you tell me something more? Dharinel sent me to warn them, so I’m wondering if this is tied up with that.” And did Dharinel pass on his warning too late?
Greystone shrugged noncommittally. “Might be a false alarm. It just seems that Something’s loose in the city, and they’re out there trying to find out what. I’ve seen a lot of cases like this before. Sometimes you never do find out what spooked you. Other times, it’s Gotterdammerung with a full orchestra.” The gargoyle shrugged again, unable—or unwilling—to tell Eric anything more. “But tell me what your mentor said. Ms. Hernandez will want to hear it directly from you, but it can’t hurt to tell me as well. And that way, I can tell her the minute she comes in. You might be asleep, you know.”
“More than likely,” Eric admitted with a yawn. Now that he was feeling more relaxed, the tension and stress of the earlier evening was catching up with him in the form of an urgent need for sleep. “Well . . .” Eric marshalled his thoughts. “You know how there are Good Elves and Bad Elves?” Unbidden, a scrap of one of his old movies came to the surface of his mi
nd, Glinda the Good, in Oz, asking, “Are you a Good Witch or a Bad Witch?” “Well the short version is, it looks like one of the Bad Elves has the idea of moving into New York and setting up a Nexus here.”
“Can’t be done,” Greystone said promptly. “Too much iron—and everything else—here. New York goes down as far as it goes up—did you ever take a good look beneath the surface of the streets? There’s a whole city under the city!”
Eric shook his head. “I know. That’s why the closest Nexus is up in Elfhame Everforest in Rockland County. But what Dharinel told me is that this guy—he didn’t give me a name, but I guess that doesn’t really matter—really doesn’t like anybody very much, elves or humans, and thinks he can use humans to take over the local territory. To top it off, he’s supposed to be pretty powerful. So I’m supposed to tell Toni and the gang to be on the watch for something . . . er, unusually elvish.”
“Hrumph. Been down to the Village lately?” Greystone snarked. “But what has this got to do with that old friend you said you ran into tonight? From what you’ve said, this Master Dharinel of yours doesn’t exactly qualify as an old friend.”
“Not quite,” Eric said, grinning as he tried to imagine his mentor here in his living room hanging out with his new friends. “I don’t think the two events are connected, but you never know.” Although he doubted that Ria’s presence in the city, even if she did mean harm, would be enough to set off the Guardians’ alerts in the way that something obviously had. “I told you about a woman named Ria Llewellyn, right?”
“The half-Blood that kept that elf-lord from doing in all the Sun-Descending elves and ended up in a coma?” Greystone asked helpfully.
“That’s the one, yeah.” Suddenly he couldn’t even keep his eyes open. He leaned his head against the back of the couch, half-mumbling with tiredness. “Only I saw her at the concert tonight, and I’m wondering—if I didn’t imagine it all—what she was doing there. All her corporate stuff is out in L.A.”
“I take it she isn’t a music lover?” the gargoyle said drily.
“No. I mean yes—I used to play for her. But . . . I don’t know.” Eric sighed, and reached up to pull the tie out of his hair. He shook his head, making the long chestnut strands—his natural color, restored by the same elven magic that had once turned it black as a disguise—spill across his cheeks.
“Yes, you do,” Greystone said unexpectedly. Eric opened his eyes and looked at his friend in surprise. “You’re a Bard. You see into people’s hearts. You know whether she’s a threat or not.”
“But what if I’m wrong?” There, at last, was the thing that had been bothering him all evening, brought out into the open. What if I’m attracted to her for all the wrong reasons? What if I can’t trust my own judgment? Leaving aside, for the moment, what HER reasons were for coming to the concert tonight. What if she’s working WITH this Unseleighe guy?
“Do you think she could fool you that easily?” Greystone asked.
Yes. No. Maybe. Dharinel once said that stage illusionism and true magic have this much in common—that the glamour only really works if the subject WANTS it to on some level.
I guess it’s not really that I don’t trust her. I guess, deep down inside, I don’t trust myself. Maybe all this growing up makes me nervous. Maybe I’m looking for some way to pack in all this maturity and adulthood and go back to being what I was. Even if that isn’t what I want on the surface, who knows what I want underneath? Caity’s always saying “your mind is not your friend.” Maybe this is what she means?
“No,” Eric said with slow reluctance. “Not if I don’t want to be fooled.”
“You’re a Bard now,” Greystone pointed out unnecessarily. “That might not have been true the last time you two tangled, boyo, but it is now. ‘Trust your feelings, Luke.’”
“So you think I should believe in myself?” Eric asked, yawning again. “Is that the answer, Master Greystone?”
“I think you should go to bed,” Greystone said. “You look all in. You can tell me the rest of your troubles tomorrow. Because if there’s one thing I do know about mortals, it’s that they don’t function well without sleep or food.”
You can say that again, buddy. Eric got to his feet, conscious of how tired he was. Sleep sounded like the best idea anyone’d had in quite a while.
“Don’t wait up,” Eric said, stumbling toward the bedroom. He heard Greystone chuckle as he closed the bedroom door.
* * *
He discovered that he was walking through a forest. No, not walking. Almost like swimming; pushing the branches out of his way and pulling his body along afterwards. The slippery black bark was cold and silky against his fingers, reminding him unpleasantly of polished bone. The association was so peculiar that he stopped, holding the branches away from his face as he tried to clear his thoughts. How had he gotten here, to this weirdwood, anyway?
I’m asleep, Eric realized. Dreaming.
With the ease of practice, he held himself in the lucid dreaming state, not intending to wake up until he found out what had summoned him here. Was this another warning message from Underhill? Half the elves he knew would have just sent him an e-mail, and Master Dharinel had already told him everything he was going to.
So this must be something else—one of those odd visions-cum-premonitions that Bards apparently got from time to time. But who was warning him . . . and about what?
Ria? But even as he thought the name, Eric realized this was none of her doing. Ria had always been more straightforward than this in her dealings with him. This was something else, and he’d better find out what. Feeling a great reluctance to do so, Eric forced himself to study his surroundings.
The bonewood he was in was lit with the sourceless silvery illumination that Eric associated with all things Underhill, but there the resemblance to the familiar Elfhame Misthold ended. Everything around him was in shades of silver—even the bark on the trees was not truly black, but the deep grey of tarnished silver. Swags of what looked like Spanish moss festooned their bare branches. Mist lay on the forest floor like a thick carpet, and in the distance the bone-trees faded to a pale grey in the hazy air before vanishing entirely.
There was no life in these woods. No birdsong, no small scuttling forest creatures, none of the playful life he associated with Underhill. Yet this was Underhill, his instincts told him, even if it was an Underhill much different than any he’d ever known.
This must be what Underhill would be like if the elves were all dead. But that can’t be. Dharinel and Kory both told me that without the elves, there is no Underhill, just Chaos Lands, so some of the Seleighe Sidhe must be around here somewhere or this place wouldn’t have any shape at all.
Cautiously, but with renewed determination, Eric forced himself onward through the dreaming wood. The sense of artifice—of being an actor moving across a well-dressed but artificial stage—was very strong, and Eric wondered once again what purpose had summoned him here. It wasn’t that he was in the least worried about being able to defend himself. If things got hairy, he could just force himself to awaken. The dream had only as much power over him as he allowed it to have, but he did feel the need to find out why he was having it, especially coming as it did on the heels of Ria’s appearance and Dharinel’s warning.
It seemed as if he had walked for hours, when slowly Eric became aware that the character of the weirdwood had changed. He began to hear faint scuttlings behind him—they stopped each time he turned around—and now there were faint ghostly shapes flitting about at the edges of his vision: things with eyes that gleamed like faint red embers. And at last Eric realized why this place seemed so familiar to him.
“The sedge is withered by the lake/and no birds sing.”
This was Keats’ haunted wood, home of La Belle Dame Sans Merci. With a lagging sense of danger, Eric remembered that the Bright Court weren’t the only elves inhabiting Underhill who might be sending him messages. The Unseleighe Sidhe had their home here, too . . . the Da
rk Court that had been the stuff of human nightmares ever since humankind had crawled out of the caves.
Okay. Fun’s fun, but this isn’t going anywhere I like. Time to wake up now, Eric told himself.
But he couldn’t.
Jeanette Campbell came back to Threshold late that afternoon, and spent several hours in her private lab mixing up enough T-Stroke to waste a large percentage of the population of New York and the five boroughs. When it was finished, she trundled the cart and its several pounds of white powder—all neatly packed in large brown plastic pharmaceutical jars—to the Dirty Lab, where Threshold drones would have the unenviable labor of packaging it up in five-gram doses for the street. There was little need to bother with laboratory protocols or sterile conditions down in the Dirty Lab; it was used mostly for scutwork and mass production, and the people who administered the drugs Jeanette made weren’t overly concerned with sanitary conditions or the safety of their users. By tonight, T-Stroke would be the new hot ride in everyone’s pocket. By tomorrow morning, Robert would be able to start harvesting the Survivors.
And then they’d start getting an idea of how it worked.
Afterward, too keyed-up to sleep, and not willing to go back to her high-priced high-rise crackerbox, Jeanette went down to her office. Her guitar was waiting for her there in its shiny black case. She sat down in her chair, not bothering to turn up the lights, and took it out, running her fingers over the strings. Maybe a little time spent here would help her shake the headache she’d been running all day. Like many former users, Jeanette scrupulously avoided everything, even aspirin. She forced herself to concentrate on her instrument.
It was acoustic, strung with silver, just like the instruments in all the old legends. Once upon a time she’d thought that would make a difference. Now she knew that all she could reasonably expect from silver strings was a brighter sound and a little decoration. But maybe that was enough.
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