"I am going to be sick," she heard Dylan enunciate crisply behind her, and recalled guiltily that Dylan wasn't terribly good with heights.
"Sorry," she said, half turning on Felba's back to talk to him. Dylan's face was a greenish color and he clung to the leather strap about his mount's ribs like grim Death. "Just close your eyes and try not to mind. We'll be at the top soon." I hope.
Dylan followed her advice and addressed several feeling remarks to the ambient air, of which "insensitive Colonial trollop" was perhaps the most complimentary.
Glory spent the rest of the ascent worrying. She started with the probable and likely perils: the enemy forces, the weather, the state of their supplies, and then with enforced leisure, moved onward and outward: the possibility that one of the ponies would slip and hurl itself and its rider over the cliff, the prospect of a sudden ice storm or monsoon, the chance that they would be set upon by giant killer eagles or radioactive mutant bats. Somewhere in the middle of her worries she dug around in her bag and pulled out Gordon. Cuddling the stuffed elephant made her feel better, and it hardly mattered if she looked ridiculous.
When she had exhausted all the possible and improbable disasters that could happen during their ascent, she prepared to start in on what would happen when they got to the top of the mountain, but then she realized she really didn't need to. Her imagination was exhausted. When they got to the top of the mountain, they were all going to die. She believed that absolutely. She was certainly going to give interfering with that outcome her best shot, but she knew that so far she'd only seen the Warmother's warming-up exercises, and even those were good enough to squash her like a bug.
Still, giving up wasn't in her. You went out there and tried—and tried your best, because anything less was cheating yourself and your opponent. Winning wasn't as important as doing your best—the lessons of a thousand gymnastic competitions, drummed into her from the time she could barely walk, came back to her now. Outgunned, but never outclassed, that was what her coach Ross always used to say to her. "C'mon, Glory-gel, y'wanna live forever?" And the answer she'd learned to give—if only inside her head—as she grew was always the same: "I choose glory over length of days . . ."
They'd been climbing steadily for what seemed like ages, but with the switchbacks and the angle of the trail, it was impossible to see any distance ahead, and hard to tell how much farther they had to go. It was only when she reached the last of the switchbacks that she realized it was the last one, or near it, because ahead the trail was blanketed with a dense fog. Clouds. She remembered that the top of the mountain had been shrouded in mist.
She hoped Dylan still had his eyes closed.
She reached out her left hand and let her fingers brush against the rock. It was wet. They ought to dismount and lead the ponies, but the trail now was too narrow and much too slippery even for that. She didn't know if Felba would walk on if he couldn't see the trail in front of him, or how slippery the mist would make the bare stone beneath his hooves, but this was no time for second-guessing. She wound her free hand in the pony's mane, clutched Gordon tightly against her side, and held on, wishing she could pray, but she couldn't bear to close her eyes.
Felba walked on into the mist at the same placid unhurried pace at which he'd covered the rest of the ascent. The mist settled around her, wet and chill, until she could see nothing—not her outstretched arm, not the animal beneath her. The sound of the ponies' hoofbeats, so clear and sharp a moment before, jumbled and faded away into an echoing arrhythmia.
"Glory!" Dylan's voice boomed out of the mist somewhere behind her. She heard something else—maybe Ivradan—but couldn't make out the words.
"It's all right," she shouted back, though to her own ears, her voice sounded flat and muffled. "I reckon we're near the top. Hang on!"
As if he'd do anything else. Fair strangling the poor beast, he probably was.
Water beaded up on her skin and began to run down it in rivulets, trickling beneath her corset and soaking the lining. Glory shivered as the chill of the sodden fog began to make its presence felt, and spared a wistful thought for all those other blankets they'd had to abandon. Her hair was braided back, but even so, she could feel it getting heavier as it wicked up moisture from the air around her just as if it were raining. She hoped that whatever that purple sword was made of, it wasn't something that could rust.
Through it all, the little pony plodded on doggedly.
Glory didn't know how long they spent in the cloudbank—it was strange how the destruction of all visual referents destroyed the time sense as well—but suddenly she was aware of a peculiar brightness ahead. Then the mist thinned further, and she realized it was sunlight. Bright afternoon sunlight.
As simply as that, they were through the fog. Somewhere back in the mist the trail had widened, or ended, or whatever. They were here, at the top, in daylight, looking down at the tops of clouds.
The top of the mountain was absolutely flat, as though someone had decided to construct a king-size scenic car-park in the middle of nowhere. It was large—you could drop Melbourne Cricket Ground in the middle of it and have elbow room to spare—and completely covered with short, velvety, utterly weed-free lawn.
And in the middle of it there was a genuine size-extra large Mad Enchanter Stronghold. It looked like it had been designed by Perky Goths, or maybe by Martians who'd seen one too many episodes of Beverly Hills 90210. It was at least five stories tall—the towers were taller, and there were a lot of them—and apparently chiseled out of one giant piece of mother-of-pearl. It was carved and ornamented over every inch of its surface, and polished to a fare-thee-well. It flashed and glittered iridescently in the sun, and the whole thing gave Glory a headache to look at it. Banners and pennants flew from every place a banner or pennant could fly from, all of them as soap-bubble glistery as the palace itself.
"What the bleeding 'ell is that?" Dylan demanded, reverting to the vowels of earliest youth. He slid stiffly off Fimlas' back and staggered toward Glory, giving his inoffensive mount a backward look of venomous dislike.
Ivradan made a sound very like a groan of despair, slipping easily from Heddvi's back. Both animals stood stolidly, neither dipping its muzzle to browse at the greensward.
"Turn them loose," Glory said in a low whisper. She stroked Felba's neck, stripping cloud-water from the coarse hair. She didn't like this place. She liked it less with every passing moment, and she didn't know why—other than the obvious. It was storybook-pretty; cloyingly, exuberantly sweet, like a Precious Moments version of Middle Earth. It shouldn't leave her feeling the way Ivradan looked.
"Turn them loose," she repeated. She swung her leg over Felba's rump with some difficulty and stood up, letting her tote-bag slip to the ground. "Send them away, if you can."
She was here by choice. Ivradan and Dylan hadn't exactly had a choice, but they were able to consent. The ponies could neither choose nor consent to their involvement, and Glory wanted to save them if she could.
"That won't be necessary."
She'd been looking toward the others. The voice came from behind her. Glory swung around.
She was staring at a woman who might even be taller than she was. The woman was wearing a long heavy robe of turquoise blue gold-shot silk that resembled the robes of the Allimir mages the way a showroom-new Maseratti sports car resembles a battered old Ford truck. Her hair was entirely hidden beneath a silk caul in the same color, and she wore a high elaborate jeweled headdress with sheer floating veils that brushed the grass at her feet. Her eyes were brilliantly blue, her beautiful face serene in the way of a statue's or a saint's.
"If you want them gone, then they shall go." Her voice was like low music, kindly and amused.
Before Glory could say anything, the woman raised one arm in a sweeping gesture. The rings on her fingers flashed: the stones were a rich and toxic azure, a brighter blue than the sky. The robe had long batwing sleeves; they fell back as she gestured, revealing a tight underslee
ve as brightly gold as if it were made of the liquid metal itself.
The horses were gone.
Glory stared numbly at the place where Felba had been, unwilling to look back and see that the other two were gone as well, though she knew they were. Even her tote-bag was gone. She clutched Gordon tighter.
She'd be a thousand kinds of fool not to know what was happening here. This was the Warmother, up close and in person. This was the monster the Allimir had sent her to whack. She was pretty—more than that. Beautiful. Glory wasn't deceived. She was entirely certain the Warmother needed whacking, no matter what the bitch looked like.
But what she couldn't do was just haul out her sword and start swinging, because that wasn't what heroes did. There were rules for being a hero, and Glory knew very well what they were (especially after a whole season as Vixen of playing straight man to Lilith Kane), even if she wasn't altogether fond of them. The rule in this situation was very clear: the villain had to attack first. Glory could reproach her with her wickedness, but she couldn't just walk in and clobber her. That just wasn't what the hero did.
And nothing less than textbook heroism would save the Allimir. If she wasn't a hero, she'd at least better try to be what she was—an actress—and act her part. Act like a hero, suck it up and do this according to Hoyle, and maybe when she bought the farm it would make a difference.
"Just what did you—" she began.
"Well, now, I'd say you've got something going for you a good deal better than smoke and mirrors," Dylan said, striding forward. He bowed to the Lady with a Shakespearian flourish. "Dylan MacNee—artist, thespian, student of the Bard. And who might I have the pleasure of addressing, dear lady. . .?"
The woman smiled, a cool smile of utter self-possession, and looked at Glory. "She knows. But for now, it pleases me for you to address me as . . . Charane."
She said the name as though it ought to have meant something to them, and Glory glanced back at Ivradan, but he was plainly and simply terrified, not up to fielding the in-jokes of Hell Incarnate. She stepped back and put a hand on his arm. She could feel faint shudders coursing through him, a trembling he could not control, though he kept his face impassive.
"Gracious lady, dear Charane," Dylan cooed ingratiatingly, and Glory realized what all this tiger butter was in aid of. Dylan might not have grasped much else about the situation he found himself in, but he did realize that magic had gotten him here, and only magic could get him home. And the monster in the fancy blue hat was the likeliest source of it available. "You see before you a lost and weary traveler, a long way from home—"
"And so I have made plans to greet all of you properly," Charane said gaily. "I bid you welcome to the castle of Arlinn, where there is a great feast prepared in your honor. Come. Join us. Let me receive you properly—and I promise you . . . all your desires shall be fulfilled," she finished in a meaningful purr.
"Well, this is something like!" Dylan said happily. Charane tucked her arm through his and led him toward the castle.
Glory looked back at Ivradan.
As she watched, he sank to his knees with a low moan of absolute terror, covering his face with his hands.
Glory knelt beside him, still clutching Gordon. She put her arms around him awkwardly, patting his back. Everything she could think of to say seemed inadequate—and worse, patronizing. Of course he was terrified. He wasn't a hero. He wasn't even an Allimir mage. If the Warmother scared her, what must Ivradan be feeling right now?
"I know I told you I wouldn't bring you here," she finally said, "but I couldn't leave you down there. The army would have killed you. And they might have made you do something that would hurt Belegir and the others first. I can't leave you alone here, either. I know you won't be safe. You won't be safe with me, either, but I don't think she means to do anything just yet. I think she wants to play." Now that the first shock was over, Glory was starting to get angry again. "Just like she's been playing with you lot all along." She shook her head and went on stroking his back. She could feel his muscles quivering, but Ivradan made no sound.
Glory looked around. There was no one in sight now—just the blue sky, the green grass, the white clouds stretching out level with the top of the mountain, and that ridiculous fairy-tale palace smack in the middle of everything. Like a deserted amusement park, or a stage set.
And it was a stage set, in a way. This was where the last act in the farce was going to be played out, wasn't it?
Glory faced it down, believing in her future enough to see it clearly at last. What if it had been the Warmother who had brought her here, all along? What if she'd done it to raise the Allimir's hopes, to make them think they'd found a hero, so that when Glory failed them, their disappointment would be all the more crushing? Like the cat that lets the mouse think it can escape, over and over again; that was how the Warmother was.
Glory gritted her teeth. I don't care. She regarded the glittering castle with narrowed eyes, a dull purposeful anger filling her heart to the exclusion of everything else. I don't care who brought me here—Erchane Incarnate, or the Warmother, or that Dreamer of Worlds bimb. It doesn't matter. The end result is the same.
She was here for the Allimir. It was just too bad for Earth, and whatever test Humanity was about to flunk for the eleven-hundredth time, but she'd been asked to this party by the Allimir, and now they had her. They had Vixen the Slayer, Vixen the Red, Scourge of the Night, Harrower of Hell, Doomslayer, Koroshiya, Hell's Own Harpy. And she had the Sword of Cinnas. That couldn't have been part of anybody else's plans!
Win, lose, or toes-up: she'd come to these games to compete. Stone the rules and stone the judges. She had the playbook. She was going to play.
Abruptly, Glory wasn't afraid, not the way she had been when she first saw the castle. She was still afraid of pain, and afraid of dying, certainly (though she hoped she was just a little more afraid to fail), but she wasn't afraid of the Warmother, not his/her/itself. You had to respect something on some level to be properly afraid of it, and Glory had never respected a bully. There was no self-discipline in being a bully.
She stroked Ivradan's hair. Poor little bugger. He didn't deserve to be here any more than the ponies had.
"I can't leave Dylan alone in there, thick as he is. And this is what I came for." To be murdered in an alien dimension by a crazed demon just to get out of a publicity tour? "To try to make her stop. So I reckon I've got to go in there after her. I can't say what's going to happen then. I'm sorry. I reckon I'm not too good at making other people's choices for them. I did my best, but maybe it isn't much of a best. I won't ask you to do anything you don't think you can do, Ivradan. I reckon you could try to make it back down the trail alone, if you want . . ." She stopped, unable to finish the sentence. She knew he wouldn't make it to the bottom alive, and if he did, the army would be there.
Either way—stay or go—he'd be dead.
"But you . . . you will go on?" Ivradan whispered, at last. He sat up, and brushed his hair back out of his eyes. His cap had fallen off, and his burnt-chestnut hair was as unkempt as the mane of one of his own horses. He looked hollow-eyed, like a man who had faced down Death and accepted his mortality.
"I'm stupid that way," Glory said with a faint wistful smile. She offered him her elephant.
"This is Gordon. Ever since I was a little girl, I carried him with me everywhere, especially when I thought I was going to places I wasn't going to like."
Ivradan regarded the stuffed blue elephant with an unreadable expression.
"A doll," he said at last.
"Hey! This is a genuine interdimensional stuffed elephant from the world of Vixen the Slayer, which has accompanied her to the very wellspring of the Oracle," Glory said, desperately hoping to make him smile.
Ivradan regarded Gordon with more respect, and picked him up as he'd seen Glory do. "I will go with you, Slayer," he said, getting to his feet.
"No worries," Glory said automatically, standing as well. After all, we're
dead one way or the other, seems to me. Maybe we can really piss this Charane bint off before we die.
She put her arm around Ivradan's shoulders, and side by side they started across the lawn toward the Warmother's castle.
Was this the worst idea she'd had in a long history of having not terribly good ideas? Glory wondered to herself. She knew a sane person would be peeing themselves in terror at this point, but the strongest feeling she was conscious of was irritation.
She had a lot of time to wonder about her own sanity in the time it took to cross the lawn and lead Ivradan up the steps of the castle.
The inside seemed to be much larger than the outside.
There was a short entry hall and the walls were mirrored. In their flawless reflection, Glory could see herself clearly for the first time in many days.
Though her hair was braided and still wet from the clouds, it still managed to be frizzy and unkempt, and it was several days late for a wash. The bruise on her cheekbone was fading to greens and yellows, showing through the pancake she'd hastily applied this morning. Her eye makeup was smudged and runny, ringing her eyes in a sloppy raccoon mask, and she'd eaten off all her lipstick hours ago. Her leather was scuffed and battered, desperately in need of a good polish and some decent care. She'd torn a couple of the chrome studs off here and there, and the crushed velvet panniers were crumpled and dusty. Her shoulders were peeling, and the bandage Tavara had put on her arm was grimy and tattered.
Dylan had been right. She was a mess. A joke. A—
"Don't look," Ivradan said urgently. She turned toward him. He was staring fixedly at the floor. "You will lose yourself if you look into her mirrors."
They're only mirrors, Glory wanted to say, and didn't. There was nothing "only" about any of this. Back at the Oracle, she'd had one taste of how sneaky magic could be. Who was to say that this wasn't another? She nodded, saying nothing, and kept her eyes fixed on her boots (not all that scuffed, not really) as she walked forward toward a set of silver doors even larger than the golden ones. They stood open, framing the entrance into what was obviously the place Charane had been taking them. The mirrors stopped a few feet short of those doors, and Glory looked up.
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