A Host of Furious Fancies

by Mercedes Lackey

  “But that’s a matter for another day,” Ria went on, seeing his face. “Come on, Kayla. It’s time to get you home and settled in.”

  “No way. I’m staying here.” Kayla got to her feet and walked to the middle of the room, glaring at Hosea and the other Guardians. “You people need a keeper, you know that? If I hadn’t blown the whistle on Aerune, he woulda slurped you all up like a Coffee Coolata—and where’d you be then? You’re great at taking care of everyone else, but who’s taking care of you? You need me, and I’m staying. End of discussion.”

  Her speech took the Guardians by surprise. “You?” Toni asked.

  “You see anybody else applying for the job?” Kayla shot back.

  The Guardians looked at each other, and back at Ria, who shrugged, looking almost as tired as Eric felt.

  “I’m not her mother. And I think it would be okay with Elizabet if Kayla lived here, so long as someone was keeping an eye on her.”

  “I think we can arrange that,” José said, with the ghost of a smile. “And I think I speak for all of us when I say that your offer is most welcome, munequita.”

  “Well, good,” Kayla said. She’d obviously been expecting more of an argument, but by now Eric was used to the speed with which the Guardians made decisions. And as for Ria, having seen Kayla’s taste in clothes, he was pretty sure Ria was a little relieved not to have Kayla on hand to redecorate her Park Avenue apartment.

  “Then it’s settled. I guess you can have the basement apartment, now that . . .” Toni said. She took a deep breath and went on. “Why don’t you go home with Ria tonight, and tomorrow we can see about getting you settled in. And there will be the . . . funeral arrangements for Jimmie. She died in the line of duty. There will be a Department funeral, I think. I’ll have to check.”

  “That can wait,” Paul said, putting an arm around her shoulders. “Now it is time to rest, and to gather our strength. There will be time enough to say our proper good-byes.”

  But how much time was Aerune—and his unknown allies—going to give them? Eric wondered.

  TWELVE:

  CELTIC HOTEL

  “Welcome to Glitterhame Neversleeps—and the Tir-na-Og Resort Hotel and Casino! I’m your friendly neighborhood VIP greeter, and you two are certainly VIPs.”

  Beth blinked, looking around herself as the Portal dissolved behind her. She and Kory stood in the center of a pristine greenwood of towering oaks—a Node Grove—and beneath her feet, the ground was covered with thick emerald moss in which violets and tiny blue starflowers bloomed. But beyond the trees she could see neon in every shade of the rainbow, and the light overhead was filtered through the glass skylight of the casino atrium, ten stories above.

  “I’m Geraint mac Merydydd, but you can call me Gerry—Meredith, as it were. Prince Arvindel told us you’d be coming. It’s November, the temperature is a balmy 50 degrees Fahrenheit, and sunset is at 4:33 today to be followed by a waxing moon. Please adjust your calendars and watches and return all tray tables to an upright position before exiting the heartwood.”

  Though two days ago it had been August, Beth’s time, in the world two months had passed, as she and Kory had used the Gates at Everforest and Neversleeps to arrive both when and where they wished to. In essence, it was time travel, though the elves rarely used the gates in that fashion, and Beth’s mind had been boggled the first time she’d understood that it was possible.

  “But why don’t you use it? Go back in time and change things that went wrong? You could keep Perenor from buying the Node Grove, keep Susan from building the Poseidon machine—”

  “The web of the world is woven as Danu wills,” Kory had told her, “though we may affect some small threads of Her weaving, we dare not unravel the design. I am but a Magus Minor, with small gifts, and so I do not perfectly understand the why of these things. Our wisest Adepts could explain, though they might not choose to. But it has always been so.”

  “But how do you know when ‘now’ is?” Beth had asked, frustrated. “If there’s no time in Underhill, and you can go back and forth in the time of the World Above as you please, how do you know?”

  “And what else is a Node Grove for, but to anchor the hames into the ‘now’ of the World Above?” Kory had answered, smiling. “And that anchorage is vital if we are to come and go between the two worlds in safety and ease. There are worlds as real as your own, places in the World Above, where there are no Node Groves, no Portals, and no Elfhames. Such worlds are difficult to reach, and easy to become lost in forever, nor does magic work so well in such worlds as it does here. And so we accept time as the precious gift it is, and do not make light of it.”

  “After all, it does keep everything from happening at once,” Beth had quipped, and let the subject drop. As far as she could figure, the Sidhe used time the way humans used magnetic north: as a useful aid to navigation, but something they could ignore if they chose. Still, they were in November now, and in a day or so they’d go back Underhill, and if she stayed there long enough, everything would sort itself out. So long as she didn’t think any more about it, her head wouldn’t hurt. And meanwhile, there was their host to consider.

  Gerry Meredith looked as if the description “lounge lizard” might have been invented just for him, and his glamourie made him look human—though far more handsome than any human had a right to be. He was wearing a white sharkskin suit with the casino’s logo—a Celtic dragon coiled around a tower—embroidered in gold over the suit pocket, and a black satin shirt open to the waist. His short black hair was slicked straight back; he wore an ornate gold hoop in one ear, a host of gold chains around his neck, and jewel-studded rings on every finger.

  “We’re, uh, pleased to be here,” Beth said, taking the proffered hand. Gerry’s smile broadened into a conspiratorial grin.

  “Quite a shock, isn’t it? We like to think of our little casino as a teensy bit of home here in this great big desert—and where better to hide something than in plain sight? The tourists think that the Grove is just part of our lovely Celtic ambiance, and with the trees indoors instead of outside, we aren’t disrupting the local ecology either—which is more than I can say about some people, with their seventy-five-thousand-gallons-a-day-lost-to-evaporation waterfalls. Well! No point in weeping over what can’t be mended, is there, dear ones? Let me get someone to take your luggage, and we’ll show you to your suite. If there’s anything you’ve forgotten, you can probably find it in one of our tragically-trendy concourse-level shops. All on the house, of course. Nothing too good for our honored guests.”

  He snapped his fingers, and two bellhops dressed in tights and doublets arrived. Gerry pointed at the two small bags—Beth and Kory didn’t plan to be here very long, but each had brought a few things just in case. “Those go to the Lady In The Lake Suite in Tower Four,” he said. Each man picked up a bag and walked off through the wood, and Gerry turned back to Beth and Kory.

  “Now if you’ll come along with me, you can see a bit of the casino on the way up to your rooms,” Gerry said. “I understand you’ll be attending Comdex along with 250,000 other lovely people? A very busy time of year for us. We have your passes and badges all taken care of—we can pick them up along with your keys when we get to the desk—but of course you’ll be wanting to take care of all the teensy details yourself—we don’t pry. Discretion is our watchword here at Neversleeps—after all, if we told everyone simply everything, what would there be left to gossip about?” Still chattering, Gerry ushered the two of them through the little greenwood.

  Beth could see that there were colored floodlights ringing the base of each tree—the place must look amazing at night—and in the distance she could hear the splashing of a small fountain.

  Neat. They can use magic practically openly, and the mundanes’ll think it’s just another special effect. Nobody ever really expects to be told the magician’s secrets, now, do they?

  At the edge of the heartwood a red velvet theater rope marked off the trees fr
om the rest of the casino floor and discouraged casual wanderers. There must be five acres under this roof, Beth marveled, looking around. When Kory had told her that elves were running a casino in Las Vegas she hadn’t been sure what to expect, but she sure hadn’t expected . . . this.

  The motif here in the main casino was Celtic kitsch—as if Liberace’d had a heavy date with the cast of Riverdance, with a lot of Camelot and some Robin of Sherwood thrown in. The carpet beneath their feet was a multicolored Celtic knotwork pattern, dizzying to look at for very long. Half the wait staff wore kilts and poet shirts and looked like demented Highlanders, while the other half wore diaphanous—and very short—glittery togas with sequined Celtic motifs and sparkly “fairy” wings.

  The air was filled with sound—piped-in Celtic music (rather good, to Beth’s surprise, and not the potted Muzak one usually heard in public buildings), the ching! of slot machines and the clatter of jackpots being paid off, the low calls of the croupiers, the hum of a thousand conversations, and over it all, the ring of other bells and chimes she couldn’t begin to guess the reason for. Despite the fact that it was broad day, there were plenty of customers, both at the banks of gleaming slot machines and clustered around the tables. Las Vegas was a true 24-hour town. “Neversleeps” indeed. For once, that Sidhe quirk must come in really handy, Beth thought.

  While the table games were pretty standard—poker, blackjack, baccarat—even the slot machines carried out the theme of the casino, with leprechauns, pots of gold, rainbows, castles, and dragons prominently displayed on the faces. But the wackiest thing, in Beth’s opinion, was the twelve-foot-high vertical roulette wheel that towered over the rest of the casino floor, prominently captioned “Arianrhod’s Silver Wheel of Fortune.” It promised a $100,000 payoff on double zero, and the most frequent payouts on the entire Strip.

  “Oh, my,” she murmured to Kory, pointing circumspectly. “Have they no shame?”

  “None at all, my lady,” Gerry said brightly. She’d forgotten how acute elves’ hearing was. “We give the tourists what they come to see—and if we have a bit of fun with it, too, where’s the harm? We run the quietest, safest, friendliest house on the Strip—only the people who need to lose do so here, and the people who need to win do that too. It all works out.” He beamed at them happily.

  “Friendly, perhaps. But how honest?” Beth wanted to know. This whole place was too big, too gaudy—and too good to be true. It made her suspicious. What were they really up to?

  Gerry grinned at her conspiratorially, obviously aware of her reservations. “Devil a bit, m’lady, but does that matter? The good are rewarded, the wicked are punished—and as for those who are sick beyond our power to help them and wish to lose themselves in games of chance as others do in drink or Dreaming, why, somehow they never come in our doors—or if they do, it’s for a quick drink, a pull of the slots, and then they’re on their way. We harm no one here, nor allow anyone to come to harm. This is Tir-na-Og, the Land of Dreams, and all our dreams are pleasant!” Gerry swept his arms wide, indicating the casino floor with a proud flourish.

  “But surely more need to win at your tables than need to lose,” Kory pointed out. “If more money is paid out than taken in, how do you survive?”

  “As to that, Prince Korendil, it’s a fine old Vegas tradition to cook the books, and really, we don’t even need to do much of that. More people need to lose money than you’d think—for one reason or another. We get a lot of convention traffic, and with two five-star restaurants and three shows nightly in Merlin’s Enchanted Oak Room, we do quite well. And if there are any shortfalls . . . well, there’s fairy gold aplenty here in Tir-na-Og!”

  With enough kenned gold to back it, Beth supposed, any business could afford to run at a loss. And casinos had traditionally been used to launder funds . . . though somehow she suspected that Tir-na-Og was one of the few casinos in Clark County without a Mafia silent partner hovering in the background.

  “I do hope you’ll be able to make the time to stop in and see one of our shows. The prettiest girls, the most toothsome boys, and more. Magic. Real magic. Stage illusionism—prestidigitation in the grand tradition of Kellar, Maskelyne, Houdini—the very best in the business!”

  “Real magic?” Kory said, delighted. He turned to Beth. “We must—we could see the show tonight!”

  “Why not?” Beth said. It was strange, when even a Magus Minor like Kory could perform feats of magic that no human could hope to duplicate, that most of the elves she’d met were bonkers for stage illusionism, which involved no “real” magic at all, just misdirection and sleight of hand. It was just another aspect of their endless fascination with human creativity, she guessed, but it did seem odd. Like their obsession with microwaves. And their lust for pretzels.

  Elves were pretty strange when you got to know them.

  “Splendid! I’ll get you tickets for the midnight show—and you can have dinner beforehand in the Merrie Greenwood. You’ll see us at our best, I assure you!”

  It seemed to Beth that they’d been walking for miles. It was hard to tell, with all the mirrors and flashing lights, and the casino floor was laid out in a labyrinthine path that required anyone passing through it to loop around and double back, passing the maximum possible number of temptations, to reach their destination. But at last they reached the hotel desk.

  It was an imposing structure—the desk itself, nearly as wide as it was tall, was pure white Carrera marble with gilt accents—and was carved with fierce warriors and mythical beasts in an antique style, sort of Xena Meets the Monks of Lindisfarne. The space behind the desk was paneled in a good approximation of golden English oak, and all the informational signs were done in uncial script, with illuminated initial letters after the Book of Kells. But the staff behind the desk was courteous and professional, all wearing matching white Tir-na-Og blazers with nametags. Beth supposed that none of them were Sidhe; though she couldn’t be sure. The Seleighe Sidhe had the weirdest notions of what was fun, sometimes.

  Gerry stopped at the end of the desk, under a sign that said “VIP Services,” and spoke to one of the staff.

  “The Misthold party is here. Be a good little elf and fetch me their check-in package.”

  “Of course,” the woman behind the counter said. She flashed Beth a dazzling smile. “Welcome to Tir-na-Og. We hope you’ll enjoy your stay with us.” Her name tag read: Hi! My name is Galadriel and her slitted pupils were narrowed against the dazzling lights.

  Beth blinked. Gerry had spoken no more than the truth when he’d called her a “good little elf.” She was probably Low Court, one of the host of Sidhe linked almost symbiotically to the anchoring Node Grove and its Gate. Low Court elves could not travel any great distance from the trees to which they were linked, either in Underhill or in the World Above, and would die if their parent grove was harmed. Unlike their High Court brethren, the Low Court elves were unable to completely disguise their Sidhe nature. They were also said to be more scatterbrained and mischievous than their High Court brethren, with less of an interest in the future—it was from encounters with members of the Low Court over the centuries that most of the tales of “mischievous spirits” had entered human myths, while the High Court figured predominantly as shining heroes and sometimes gods.

  But that was a long time ago, Beth thought, watching the saucy Sidhe tuck envelopes, keys, maps, and coupons into a white leatherette folder with the hotel logo stamped prominently on it in gold. From gods to resort owners. Wonder if they miss the olden days? Galadriel handed the folder to Beth with a cheerful smile. Probably most of the people who stopped by her counter didn’t even notice her eyes, or thought they were costume contacts.

  “Will you be needing anything else, Ms. Kentraine, Mr. Korendil?” Galadriel asked.

  “Uh . . . not right now,” Beth said, taking the folder. This place was as strange and unworldly in its own way as the Goblin Market and Rick’s, and at that, the Tir-na-Og wasn’t that different from most of the oth
er A-list casinos on the Strip. I guess the guy who said that truth is stranger than fiction knew what he was talking about. . . .

  Galadriel wished them both a lovely day at the Tir-na-Og Resort Hotel and Casino, and Beth and Kory followed Gerry past a row of shops selling souvenirs and sundries—the high-priced designer boutiques were on the other side of the casino—and over to a bank of elevators. The doors were golden, showing the castle-and-dragon logo being dive-bombed by a number of scantily-clad fairies with jeweled wings. He led them to an elevator at the end that was marked “Penthouse Suites Only.”

  “You’ll need your room key to access the elevator, and it only stops at the top two floors,” Gerry explained. He took Beth’s portfolio from her and extracted the room key, fitting it into a slot beneath the row of buttons. When he did, all the buttons lit up, and he pressed one of them. Beth immediately felt the sensation of weight that told her she was in a high-speed elevator.

  “How many floors does this place have?” she asked.

  “Twenty-five,” Gerry answered promptly. “The top two floors are for Paladin-class guests such as yourselves—and most of our Underhill guests, of which we’re seeing more every year, I’m delighted to say. You’ll find no Cold Iron anywhere in our Paladin-class accommodations, and of course you’ll have noticed there’s very little deathmetal on the casino floor. Why, even the flatware in our restaurants is silver, not stainless.”

  “You must lose a lot of it,” Beth said.

  Gerry smiled. “Not really. Most of our guests think it’s plate, not worth stealing. And it’s enchanted to come back, anyway, if someone tries to take it out of the building. Much easier that way.”