Summoned to Tourney

by Mercedes Lackey; Ellen Guon

  “With the proverbial bells on,” Craig added, as a dejected Melisande approached from the door of the meeting room. “Listen, I know Mom. This is going to work. If she can make the Kingdom Seneschal back down and apologizefor screwing up the demo we had for the science fiction fans at ConDiego, that earthquake hasn’t got a chance.”

  * * *

  CHAPTER 14:

  The Light in the Window

  Eric’s head was spinning from everything that had happened, and all the concentrated magic lore that Dharinel had rammed between his ears. He leaned against the cold glass in the window seat, wishing he could wake up, pretend that it was just a nightmare, that all of this would go away and never trouble his thoughts again.

  It didn’t matter to him that the elves thought his actions were justified. It was the look of horror in Dr. Sheffield’s eyes that kept coming back to haunt him, that look that said one word:

  Murderer.

  So he’d sat quietly through the remainder of the war conference, as an amazingly recovered Beth and the others left on their various errands. No one had noticed as he slipped away from the gathering of elves in the living-room, continuing a discussion of whether or not the humans should carry firearms, or if the magical firepower would be enough.

  The war plan seemed straight-forward enough: gather the elves and the human magical/psychic talent of the Bay Area to use in case the earthquake device was triggered prematurely, to try and redirect the energy wave. Meanwhile, an elven hit squad would deal with Blair himself and destroy the machine and the other equipment in Dr. Susan’s lab, so it couldn’t be used again, at least not until they were certain that Blair was no longer a threat.

  A great plan. Except that he remembered the security levels of that laboratory complex, and could guess what it’d be like with increased paranoia about a break-out. Translation of that formula: someone, or more than likely several someones, in that elven assault team were going to die.

  He couldn’t deal with that thought. There were too many deaths in his memory and on his conscience: the elven warriors lying still and lifeless in Griffith Park, Dr. Sheffield’s colleagues.

  Death follows me like a watchdog.

  Maybe it didn’t have to be that way. He thought about alternatives. Like running away. They could still do it—gather their friends and run. But then something else intruded. Not a memory, but a vision.

  San Francisco in ruins, the Nightflyers gliding noiselessly through the streets, drifting over the corpses lying on the cracked sidewalks…

  No. He couldn’t leave, not now. But maybe he could arrange things so that no one else was in danger. I started this whole mess; I can finish it. Just me, alone.

  “Eric?”

  He looked up to see Kayla standing in the doorway. She walked in and sat down on the edge of the waterbed. “Back already?” he asked.

  She stretched like a cat, and yawned. “Look at the clock, Bard. It’s after midnight. Everyone’s downstairs, still making war plans, but I wanted to do something other than that for a few minutes.”

  He glanced at the clock involuntarily, surprised at how much time had passed. It seemed like just a few minutes ago that the others had left on their various quests. “Did you have much luck?”

  “Oh, yeah. We’ll have a United Wiccan Liberation Front to go up on Mount Tam tomorrow, no problem.” She yawned again. “Wish I could understand all this Wiccan witchcraft stuff. Doesn’t make any sense to me… what good is magic that you can’t see?”

  He blinked at that. “What do you mean, that you can’t see?”

  She gave him a tired but wicked grin, and held out her hands. Faint traceries of blue light appeared on her hands, brightening and moving in flickering patterns over her skin. “Elizabet taught me how to work without showing off, as she put it.” The fine blue lines faded away as suddenly as they appeared. “gut this Wiccan stuff, you just kinda pray and hope something happens. At least, that’s how it seems to me.”

  “Me, too.” Eric thought about his own magic, that quiet pool of—something—that he drew upon with his music. “But it seems to work.”

  “Sometimes. I’ve seen Elizabet cuss a mean streak ‘cause it didn’t, though.” She grinned and sprawled out on the waterbed. “I prefer the kind of magic that I can do. I know it’ll work, every time.” Her face clouded. “Well, almost every time,” she said in a low tone.

  The girl’s calm seemed nearly supernatural to Eric. How does the kid manage it? he wondered. All I can think about is how many people are probably going to get killed tomorrow, and she seems so calm. Maybe she doesn’t know enough to be afraid. “Are you scared of what’s going to happen tomorrow?” Eric asked.

  The kid shrugged. “Yeah. A little. I hope it’ll be quick and easy, but I know it probably won’t turn out that way. But that’s my job, to make sure everyone gets out okay.” She gave him an odd look. “Hey, Bard, don’t you want to be in on the war conference downstairs? They could probably use your input.”

  He shook his head. “They’ve got half the army of Middle Earth down there, they don’t need me.”

  “What’s eating you, Bard?”

  He glanced up to meet her wry dark eyes. “Is it that obvious?”

  “Only to someone standing within five miles of you. Up close, it’s even more obvious.”

  He looked out at the street, at the cold glow of the streetlights. “What do you think it is, kid? Do you think I’m used to killing people? Fourteen people died in those labs the other night, and a lot more could die, and it’s all because of me, because of what I did. Knowing that doesn’t make me feel like dancing in the park, y’know?”

  “I know. I was there, remember?” Kayla’s voice was quiet. “It was scary, Eric. I didn’t know what you were going to do, but I knew this much—you weren’t in control. That’s why those—things—went on a killing rampage through the building.”

  Cold settled around his heart. “Are you scared of me, Kayla?”

  She didn’t answer for a long moment. “I don’t know. Maybe.” A flash of a grin, her teeth bright against the dimness in the room. “All I can say for certain, Eric, is that life is never boring when you’re around.”

  “Thanks,” he said grimly. “Welcome to another war zone, kid. Sorry, I didn’t intend to screw up your San Francisco vacation this way.”

  “Hey, I already saw a war before that mess in Griffith Park, thank you very much.” There was an odd catch in her voice ... Eric saw something strange in her face, a shadow of an old pain.

  “I never heard about that.” It occurred to Eric how little he knew about this girl, other than the fact that she was Elizabet’s apprentice.

  She spoke quietly. “It was in L.A. I was running wild on the streets— this was before Elizabet adopted me. Things got a little hot between two street gangs, and I was caught inthe middle—see, they both wanted me, and I didn’t want any part of either of them. So I played ‘em against each other. A lot of people died in that one, too, Bard. And you could say it was my fault, sure.” She clenched her hands into fists, staring down at them, then looked up at him, her eyes bright. “I think it’s a curse we have to deal with, Eric. We’re different, unusual… you have to learn how to deal with it.”

  “How do you deal with it?”

  She grinned. “I try not to hurt people, unless I want to. I try not to do anything that’s unethical, or will put someone else into danger. I just try very hard.”

  Not put anyone else in danger…

  “What would you say,” he asked, choosing his words carefully, “if I said I had a solution to this situation that didn’t involve a lot of people risking their lives in a major assault on the Dublin Labs?”

  “I’d say I’d like to hear more about it,” Kayla answered cautiously.

  “I think it might be possible for me to slip myself and maybe one other person into the labs, undetected. Then we could go down to the level with that earthquake gizmo, take a couple sledgehammers to the machinery, and g
et out of there again.” Well, getting out would probably be a lot more difficult, but…

  “It’s a better idea than taking fifteen people in there, guns blazing. I can handle the heavy magic, you can make sure…” Make sure that I don’t kill anyone else by accident… Make sure that my back is covered, and that no civilians get hurt this time.”

  “That’s very true.” She gave him a sidelong glance. “You keep surprising me, Bard. I never know what to expect with you.” Her voice took on a more businesslike tone. “I’m guessing that you don’t want the others to know about this, since they’d definitely try to stop you.”

  He blushed. “Well, yes.”

  “It sure beats watching Elizabet go back into that place,” the kid said, apparently thinking out loud. “I don’t want her to go back there, ever. Not after…” Her voice wavered a little. “Not after what those bastards did to Bethany Kentraine. I don’t want to risk that happening to Elizabet.”

  He licked dry lips and considered the other half of the unlikely pairing. “You two go really far back, don’t you?”

  Kayla gave him a little half-smile. “She saved my life, and then gave me a real life, off the streets. And a future. I’m not going to let some monster outtake from the movie Aliens play with her mind, no way.” She rubbed her hands together. “So, Bard, what’s the plan? Go there ahead of the crowd tomorrow, beat the rush?”

  “Yeah, we’d have to. Probably leave here in the middle of the morning, so we don’t have to fight the traffic, too.”

  “Good plan, good plan.” Kayla stretched again, and stood up. “I probably should go get some sleep, if we’re going to do this tomorrow for sure. G’night, Bard.”

  One moment an ancient, the next moment a kid. “Good night, Kayla.”

  The kid left the room. Eric turned back to the window and the view of the street beyond. It could work, he thought. It could work, and I wouldn’t have to watch Beth and Kory die, like in my nightmare.

  He much preferred risking only his own life, not others. Though taking a seventeen-year-old kid along was an idea that still made him twitch… he needed her, though. If only to make sure that he didn’t go nuts and kill off most of the city.

  He could feel them in the back corners of his mind, a shadow of drifting blackness. The faint whispering, the voices calling to him…

  :Do you hear us, Bard?:

  :Go to hell,: he thought at them. :Get lost. Get out of my brain. Take a hike.: He mentally pushed them away, with about as much success as someone trying to push a shadow with their hands. The whispering drew closer, echoing in his mind. He shoved at them again, feeling the creatures drift through his mental hands again.

  Then, annoyed, he closed his eyes and called light, surrounding and filling himself with incandescent illumination. The world seemed to explode with light, searing the inside of his eyelids. It was too bright to see, but still he increased the light, filling his thoughts with it, pouring it into every corner of his mind. “Chew on that, scum,” he whispered to himself, hoping it would work. If it didn’t, he’d probably have to get used to having this evil Greek Chorus lurking in his brain—an awful thought, that. He crossed his fingers and held onto that image of pure light within his mind.

  The whispering Nightflyers scattered with a strange skittering noise, vanishing off… somewhere, he didn’t know where. But they were gone, which was a relief. He grinned, feeling a little more confident for the first time in days.

  Still smiling, he headed downstairs to join the others.

  Kayla rolled over on the sofa bed, pulling the blanket tighter over her to ward off the chill of the attic room. Sleep was a great idea, but somehow it didn’t seem to be in the cards, at least not for tonight. Too many thoughts, plans, running through her mind… too many memories.

  Hey, I already saw a war…

  No magic in that war, not like this—no elves in bright armor, no Wiccans, no cheerful Bard Eric with a simmering magical presence that she could sense from miles away. None of that magical stuff, just a darkened room in Los Angeles with half a dozen dying boys lying on the torn mattresses and the bare floor…

  I don’t want to think about this, I don’t…

  The smell of blood as she worked, trying to save one boy’s life, then another… the colors of pain and terror, knowing that if she failed, she’d probably die as well… Carlos standing in the doorway, watching her with that terrifying cold gaze of his, watching as she tried to work harder and faster, as everything blurred around her and she couldn’t stop, couldn’t escape from the pain, feeling her own life fading away with each passing moment…

  Don’t think about it, don’t torture yourself It’s over, you survived, it won’t happen again.

  Unless she lost control again. What if they went into the Labs tomorrow and all hell broke loose? She wasn’t worried about catching a bullet her self—there were ways to avoid that, if you knew the bullet was coming— but she envisioned a hallway of wounded people, herself moving from person to person, caught up again in that nightmare of not being able to stop, not being able to disengage, to pull herself back and keep a little life energy for herself, watching her own life drain away into the bodies of those she healed.

  She thought about warning Eric, telling him that this could happen. That she didn’t know any way of stopping it, once it started, unless someone else intervened. The first time, the intervention had been because Ramon didn’t know not to touch her when she was working, and that had cast her out of the endless cycle, kept her from killing herself. Next time, she might not be so lucky.

  And she had been lucky, so far. Just the fact that Elizabet had found her, and had helped her escape from Carlos, that had been pure luck. If Elizabet hadn’t been in the neighborhood, close enough to sense Kayla’s near brush with death, she would never have returned to try and track down the “little powerhouse” she’d detected.

  In another lifetime, without that luck, Kayla probably would’ve stayed with Carlos and his gang, stayed until one day when Carlos couldn’t protect her anymore and someone else had tried to “acquire” her instead. And that she probably wouldn’t have survived. Not with Carlos having made it very clear that he’d rather kill her than lose her.

  But that’s over with, over and done. I don’t have to worry about Carlos, not anymore. Now we have some other minor problems to deal with…

  Eric wasn’t talking about it, but she knew something was wrong. He wasn’t quite as… obvious… about his problems as Bethany, but there was something going on there, under the surface. She’d considered trying to “read” him without letting him detect it, and decided it was too risky. After a stunt like that, he’d never trust her again, and with good reason. It had taken Elizabet several months, but she’d finally convinced Kayla that listening in on people’s thoughts without their knowledge was unethical. Tacky, like peeping through someone’s window blinds.

  So she hadn’t taken the direct approach of just looking to see what was bothering the Bard. But she could tell it was something. There was that way that he’d look away, as if listening to something that no one else could hear. Very strange, and rather disturbing.

  Still, he’s my best chance for solving this situation without Elizabet getting killed. I don’t think he’s going to completely “lose it,” at least not in the next few days. After that, though, all bets are off.

  Beth was the one that Kayla didn’t want to trust right now. She knew how fragile that “patch” was, the only thing that was keeping Bethany Kentraine from a long downward slide into insanity. What that bastard Blair had done—Kayla’s fingers tightened into a fist, remembering—was inhuman. To deliberately try to break another person’s mind…

  They’d stop him. They would. He wouldn’t be allowed to do that to another human being, ever. Whatever was animating his body, Nightflyer or otherwise, Eric would get rid of it. She wasn’t too certain how that would happen, but she did have confidence in Eric on that count.

  She just hoped tha
t Elizabet would understand. Sure, this was dangerous, what they were planning to do, but it was something that had to be done. And Eric was right—better two people, alone, than a whole army trying to infiltrate that security complex. A neat, clean surgical operation.

  But Elizabet would be very… angry… when she found out that they’d gone off on their own. Kayla reconsidered; maybe this wasn’t such a good idea, after all…

  What the hell. She’d survived life on the street, and Carlos, and a street war in Los Angeles… she’d survive this, just fine.

  She smiled, clutching that thought to her like the warm blankets, and drifted off to sleep.

  Korendil, Champion of Elffiame Sun-Descending, Knight of Elfhame Mist-Hold, sat in the living-room of his San Francisco home and tried to pay attention to the conversation around him, without much luck. His thoughts were elsewhere, not on the war council that he had called and that he should be concentrating upon.

  “Kory, what do you think about the main entrance? Should we try to draw the guards out with a distraction, or just have Eric go in and do some kind of mass hallucination on them? Kory?”

  He shook himself out of his reverie, and nodded at Beth. “A distraction is best, milady,” he said.

  Distractions were all he could think of now. Once, he’d known exactly what his life should be, the life of a near-immortal elven warrior, but then he’d been distracted—distracted by a lovely dark-haired woman named Beth, and a handsome young man with all the powers of an ancient Bard. Because of them, his life had changed, and he had changed, into someone that he would not have recognized many years ago.

  They were mortal. That thought could never leave him a moment’s peace now. Dharinel had asked him that, in a quiet moment tonight when they were alone in the kitchen, refilling their glasses with dark red wine. “Why do you care so much for these humans?”

  Kory had only smiled, knowing there was no answer he could give to the elven lord that the other would understand.