A Host of Furious Fancies

by Mercedes Lackey

  Eric blinked, taken by surprise. Ria took the hesitation for disapproval.

  “Oh, come on! Do you think I think you’re going to just let this slide? You’re planning something, and I can help.”

  “I, um . . .” He hadn’t really thought about involving Ria. He’d gotten used to thinking of this as his fight, and the Guardians’. But Ria was a trained sorceress. And someone with her high-level Real World contacts could be a lot of help in unraveling the human end of Aerune’s plot. “Are you sure? This isn’t really your battle.”

  “As much mine as yours,” Ria pointed out, with a certain justice. “Leaving aside the altruistic—that he’s coming after everyone pretty much equally—let’s descend to the selfish: if Aerune does what Banjo Girl says he wants to, I’m going to be persona non grata on either side of the Veil.”

  That much was true: Ria’s mixed blood would make her as unwelcome with Aerune as it would make her a target for Aerune’s human allies.

  “I know,” was all he said.

  “And for that matter, I’m already involved. You know I’ve been chasing down the people Lintel was selling Threshold’s black-ops drugs to. What do you want to bet that some of them are the same people Aerune’s dealing with?”

  “It’s kind of you to wish to help . . .” Paul began.

  Ria snorted. “I’m not kind. Ask Eric. But I’m not stupid, either. You have a better chance of success with my help than without it.”

  “We don’t generally involve outsiders in what we do,” Toni said, her voice neutral.

  “I’m not an outsider, any more than Kayla and Eric are,” Ria shot back. “You Guardians think you’re special because you have abilities most people don’t, and know more about the way the world really works than most people do. Well, surprise, so do I.”

  This had all the earmarks of degenerating into a nasty fight. Eric spoke up quickly.

  “If this were just a problem like you’ve faced before, Toni, I’d be glad to stay out of it, and Ria too. But Aerune’s my problem too, and Ria’s. This involves both Underhill and the World Above, and you’re understrength at the moment. Hosea’s untrained, either as Guardian or Bard, and from what I’ve found out, Aerune eats guys like you for breakfast, no offense.”

  “None taken,” José said gravely, glancing toward Toni and Paul.

  “So let’s wait till we get back to my place and hash things out. I’ve got the maze-seed. It might take Aerune out, but it’s going to take teamwork to use it.”

  “That?” Toni Hernandez said in disbelief an hour later. “That’s our weapon? What next, a sack of magic beans?”

  There had been no chance for Eric to talk with the others before the funeral, so this was the first opportunity they had to hear the tale of his visit to Chinthliss. He’d produced the box containing the maze-seed and passed it around for the others to examine.

  “All the old fairy tales have their roots in truth, maybe more so than we imagine,” Paul said musingly. “So . . . yes. Magic beans are not impossible.” His eyes sparkled with the excitement of a scholar on the trail of hot new information. Toni passed the box to him, but Kayla grabbed it next.

  “Hey,” she said, holding the silvery seed in her closed fist. “It tickles. Weird.”

  Ria frowned at her firmly, and she passed the seed to Paul. José took possession of the box, examining its craftsmanship with pleasure.

  “If this will not be needed afterward, may I have it to keep? It is a beautiful thing.”

  “Sure,” Eric said. “I only hope we’re going to be in a position to want souvenirs after this is over.”

  “Hear, hear,” Ria drawled. “Okay, you’ve got your prison, and it shouldn’t be hard to get the six of us into the Wild Lands to plant it. But how are you going to get the genie into the bottle?”

  “Hey,” Kayla said. “Can’t you count? Seven—Hosea, the other three Guardians, you, me, and Eric.” The others looked at her. Kayla glared back stubbornly. “Oh, no. You’re not cutting me out of this deal, pat me on the head and leave the poor little girl on the sidelines to see if you come back. You need me! Who’s going to put you back together when you come to pieces? Who’s going to sucker this Aerune into coming after you in the first place?”

  Eric shot Ria a guilty look. Involving Kayla would be an enormous help in bringing off the plan he didn’t quite have yet. But it wasn’t fair to involve a teenager in this. The danger was too great.

  “No,” Ria said flatly. “Elizabet would skin me with a dull knife.”

  “It might not be necessary,” Eric began reluctantly. Kayla made a rude noise.

  “Perhaps it would be simplest if you began by telling us what you had in mind,” Paul said, handing the maze-seed to José. The other man placed it back into the box and handed the closed box back to Eric.

  “The plan is to keep Aerune from being able to meddle in the World Above ever again,” Eric said. “The method is to trap him inside a magical labyrinth—he won’t be able to get out, and no one else will be able to get in. So we decoy him into the Wild Lands, and distract him while we plant the seed. When it grows up, he’ll be inside, we’ll be outside. Simple.” I hope.

  “Nothing in life is ever that simple,” Ria commented.

  José frowned. “I see two weak points in this plan. How do we get him to come to us in these Wild Lands—and how do we distract him until the labyrinth is complete?”

  Hosea fingered the strings of the enchanted banjo, listening intently. “Jeanette says that Aerune’s fief is carved out of the Wild Lands—would that be about right, Eric?”

  Eric nodded. The borders of some Underhill domains actually touched, but more of them didn’t.

  “So if we raise up a great big magical fuss just outside his front door, he’s bound to come and see who’s out there,” Hosea said.

  “Then all we have to do is fight him to a standstill for long enough for your magic beans to grow.” Ria looked at Eric. “Do you think it’s possible?”

  “If anybody has a better idea, I’m open to suggestions,” Eric said grimly. “What we’ve got going for us is that the Guardians’ powers are going to be as unfamiliar to Aerune as they were to me. And we don’t have to defeat him. Just hold him for however long the maze takes to sprout.”

  “Then you definitely need me,” Kayla said. “You’ve said that Aerune likes to eat Talent. Well, I’ve got Talent. He’ll come after me.”

  Eric expected an immediate objection from Ria, but she actually appeared to be considering Kayla’s suggestion. “You’re right that we need bait to draw him out, someone chock-full of tasty Talent. We can’t use Eric—Aerune’s met him before, and Aerune might not want to antagonize the Elfhames by openly attacking a Bard. But he offered me an alliance, once. I could say I’ve changed my mind.”

  “But wouldn’t he be suspicious? You turned him down once, and he’s seen you with us now,” Paul said.

  “It doesn’t matter if he’s suspicious, so long as he comes,” Ria said simply.

  The talk went on—arguments, objections, attempts to plan for a situation that none of them could really predict. Ria pointed out that they would need armor and weapons of Cold Iron. The Guardians had swords, and Ria promised to provide them with chain mail shirts similar to her own, which would at least deflect any levin-bolts Aerune chose to throw. Kayla continued to argue for her inclusion in the mission, and Ria was just as firmly opposed.

  “I think we’re all forgetting something,” Toni said at last. “The other night, when Aerune attacked Guardian House, Kayla was the only one who noticed. I think she needs to come.”

  Ria opened her mouth to protest. Toni raised a hand.

  “I don’t think she should be the bait. But I think she should be there. We’ve planned for the fight, but we need to plan for losing it, too. If we lose, what happens to Kayla?”

  “Aerune will naturally return to Guardian House,” José said, “seeking to complete his revenge. If Kayla is here alone—forgive me, qu
erida—she will be easy prey.”

  “Whereas if she’s with us, and things go bad, we can put her on a fast horse out of Dodge—Eric, is there somewhere you can send her that would be safe?” Toni finished.

  “Lady Day could take her to Beth and Kory at Elfhame Misthold,” Eric said. “Quit glaring, Kayla. Somebody’s going to need to tell them that things went wrong, and how, and who was responsible, and an elvensteed won’t be able to.”

  “And, meanwhile, she might be able to keep Aerune from pulling the wool over our eyes,” Paul said. “I’m afraid I’m in favor of including her. She’s not so much younger than Toni was when Toni became a Guardian.”

  “And I’ve already been an elvish blue-plate special once,” Kayla pointed out. “And if something happens to you, Ria, Elizabet will kill me. So it’s settled. I’m going.”

  Ria sighed, recognizing defeat. “Maybe we’ll be lucky and all be killed,” she said sardonically.

  “I guess it’s settled, then,” Hosea said. “We all go. And the Good Lord willing, we all come back. The only question left is . . . when?”

  “Soon,” Eric said. Aerune had boasted that he was in no hurry to implement his plans, but that didn’t mean he would leave them alone. If they were going to attack at full strength, it had better be a preemptive strike. “How soon can everyone get things ready?”

  FIFTEEN:

  THE EAGLE AND

  THE HAWK

  The funeral and war council had been on Wednesday, and Ria said it would take a few days for the armor to arrive, and for her to make arrangements to be away from her office for a few days. The others also had real-world commitments, and arrangements to make—fortunately, Caity had one of José’s birds, and could be trusted to take care of the rest of his little ones for a few days. Toni would send Raoul and Paquito to her sister in Brooklyn for the weekend, and none of the others had any dependents to be harmed by a few days’ absence.

  Eric was particularly glad to have the extra time to prepare. Hosea needed to know everything Eric could teach him, and he needed to know it fast.

  Eric remembered Prince Terenil, who had been the first to show him what magic was. Terenil had done it by loaning Eric his own memories—a quick-and-dirty form of training worlds apart from the slow, disciplined instruction he had suffered later under Lord Dharniel. But that had been a desperate time, with Perenor set to destroy all of Elfhame Sun-Descending and its inhabitants. And it had given Eric the first insight into using his power. If they were to face down Aerune in his own back yard a few days from now, Eric owed Hosea at least as much help as Terenil had given him.

  Little good though it had done Terenil, in the end. He had died in the battle for the Sun-Descending Nexus, though at least he had taken Perenor with him. And the rest of us are still here, and so are the elves, so I guess we have to count that as a victory, even if it doesn’t feel much like one when I think about it.

  “I don’t know if this is going to work,” Eric said. The two Bards were sitting in Eric’s apartment the morning after the funeral, Hosea with his banjo, Eric with his flute. “I’m not even sure I can do it.”

  “I reckon you can,” Hosea said in his slow Appalachian drawl. “I reckon it’s like quilting—if you trace out the pattern, and I follow it, I’ll end up with something that’s mine alone.”

  “I guess,” Eric said dubiously. “I hope. This isn’t the way I wanted things to work out.”

  “We can’t always have what we want, Mister Bard,” Hosea said with a smile. “And I guess, if I came all this way to have you kindle up my shine, I can’t kick about how you do it.”

  “I . . . yeah. So let’s get started.”

  The first thing Eric did was summon up some heavy duty shields to insulate them from the rest of the House. It had been a rough week for the psychics who lived there, and he didn’t want to add to their troubles, especially if something went wrong.

  The healing circle Kayla had organized at the wake last night was a good start to healing the damage Aerune had done to the psychic fabric of this place. The more Eric saw her work, the more impressed he was. Kayla had good instincts. And if her Gift wasn’t as flashy as Bardcraft or as initially impressive as that of the Guardians, in the long run, it made a lot more difference to the quality of life for ordinary people.

  I guess that’s what Jimmie meant about the Guardians’ job being to let other people get on with their lives. It’s all that, and about making a safe space for people like Kayla to use their gifts. She’d make a great battlefield medic for the psychic wars, but the important thing is to make a world where she can do something else instead. And I’d better get on with my part in arranging that.

  He didn’t think he could do what Terenil had done—there were advantages to being as long-lived as the Sidhe, and having a thousand years to practice your craft—but he could try to do something that had the same effect. Raising his flute to his lips, Eric began to play: long slow tones, not yet a tune. No one would be able to hear it but Hosea, and as he played, Eric tried to will his experience into the music, letting his mind rove over every time he’d used his magic, over all his lessons with Dharniel. As he did, the slow notes slowly evolved into music, a slow wandering tune of nothing in particular.

  He risked a glimpse at Hosea’s face before closing his eyes to concentrate upon the tune that he wove. The other Bard’s expression was one of wide-eyed concentration, as though he listened to more than the music.

  Eric drew his consciousness inward, focusing entirely on the Bard-ness of the music. Music is magic. The whole world is made out of music, if you can just hear it. Shape the tune, and you shape the thing . . . and yourself. Feel the music of the world. Hear it. Play it.

  Slowly, Hosea began to join in the music. At first only a note here and there, the plink! of the banjo’s strings like pebbles thrown into a swiftly-running stream. Then more—scraps of music woven around the song of the flute, blending perfectly with the unplanned melody. The tune Eric played was faster now, more urgent, more insistent. Hear this. Hear what I have to tell, hear what I have to teach. He found he was playing the story of his life, all its disappointments, cowardice, and false starts. A part of him cringed at stripping himself so naked before another human being, showing himself so utterly open and defenseless. But another part was stronger. That is what I was, not what I am. I am stronger now, wiser, but I do not hide from the mistakes I’ve made.

  And slowly, as Hosea’s music joined his like two streams running together, Eric could see into the other man as well—every pettiness, every failure, every moment of cowardice . . . but love and courage and greatness as well. Then the music carried them onward, away from self and selfishness alike, carried them on into the bright world of Creation of which Underhill itself was a mere shadow, into the place where the wish and the deed were one. Both men were playing flat-out now, blending their power as they blended their music—Eric’s with the power of a trained Bard, Hosea’s full of promise and power yet to be, power that Eric could shape to his own ends, or twist, or destroy.

  Those were easy traps to avoid, but there was a greater and more subtle one waiting. Eric could teach Hosea the way to call his magic. He could teach him that Eric’s was the only right way, teach Hosea to do only as Eric had done and could do, and no more.

  But that was not what it meant to be a teacher. Hosea must grow to be all that Hosea could be, not what Eric could foresee for him with the limitations of his human personality. And so, somehow, he found himself able to step aside now that he had shown Hosea the way into his power, to stand beside him as an equal and a friend in the face of that ultimate source of their shared magic, letting Hosea drink his fill from that wellspring and learn all that he could learn. Hosea had trusted Eric to lead him here, and now it was Eric’s turn to trust—in Hosea’s kindness, his goodness, his essential decency. If the pupil was worthy to be trained, there came a time when the master must allow the pupil to train himself, to use and become all that the maste
r had seen in him, fulfilling his true potential.

  Letting go like that was the hardest thing that Eric had ever done. Every instinct screamed that he was the one with the training, that his experience and wisdom must control all that Hosea learned. But that was a trap, one that every teacher must confront and defeat. If Eric gave only what he thought was best, Hosea would never be more than a pale reflection of him, touching the magic only through Eric’s understanding of it, not forging his own. He played more softly now, supporting Hosea as his magic soared, as the Bardic fire within him kindled and flamed, letting him make his own choices, shape his own path.

  I wonder if it was this hard for Dharniel? Eric mused. As the thought clothed itself in words, he tumbled down out of the moment, out of the realm of endless light, and the sharing was over. The two of them were nothing more than two musicians, having an impromptu morning jam session in a New York apartment.

  He opened his eyes.

  Hosea played on alone, jamming with the melody Eric could no longer hear. He . . . glowed, bathed in a white radiance of power that flowered within. The banjo’s strings burned like silver fire, the white doeskin of the soundbox glowing like the moon seen through clouds as Hosea’s fingers flew, drawing music out of silver and bone, skin and wood. There were tears on the big man’s face, and Eric was surprised to find that his own eyes were wet.

  This was the power of the Bard, the power to sing things into creation, the power that caused the Sidhe to venerate them above all others.

  Slowly, Hosea drew the melody to a close. It seemed to echo in the room long after he hushed the strings with one massive hand. He opened his eyes and looked at Eric.

  “Is . . . that what I’m supposed to be? What I am?”

  “That’s right.” For a moment Eric was able to forget the deaths that had brought them to this place, the deaths that might be yet to come. This was the most important thing he had ever been taught—that the magic wasn’t for something, that it wasn’t a means to an end. It simply was.