Terri Windling

by Borderland

  “Do you need a place to stay?” Mary asked.

  “No, I’m okay.”

  “Look, we don’t mind if you hang out for a few days. But there’s a couple of things I’d like to know.”

  “Like?”

  “You’re not from the Hill, are you?”

  “Why?”

  “Runaways from the Hill can be a problem. Up there, they’ve got ways of tracking people down and we don’t need any trouble with elves.”

  “They’re not like the Bloods up on the Hill,” Manda said. “But like I told you, I’m Maggie’s little sister. We grew up in Soho.”

  Mary smiled. “And so you know your way around.” “I lost my shades—that’s all. Those Bloods were out to kick ass and when they caught a glam of my eyes, that was it.”

  “Stick told me—three to one are never good odds.” Manda shrugged. “I’m not a fighter, you know?” “Sure. And what about your folks—are they going to come looking?”

  “I’m on my own.”

  “Okay. We just like to know where we stand when irrate people come knocking on the door—that’s all.” She stood up from the bed, then fished in her pocket, coming up with a pair of sunglasses. “I thought you might like another pair—just to save you the hassle you had last night from being repeated.”

  “Thanks. Listen, I’ll just get dressed and be on my way. I don’t want to be a pain.”

  “It’s no problem."

  “Yeah, well..She hesitated, then asked: “Where can I find Stick?”

  “You don’t want to mess with him, Manda. He’s great to have around when there’s trouble, but when things are going fine . . . he just gets antsy.”

  “I just want to thank him, that’s all.”

  Mary sighed. “You know the old museum up by Fare-you-well Park?”

  “Sure. That’s his place? The whole thing?”

  Mary nodded. “But I don’t know if the whole place is his. I’ve never been there and I don’t know anyone who has. Stick doesn’t take to visitors.”

  “Well, maybe I’ll wait and check him out on the street sometime.”

  “That would be better. I’ve porridge still warm, if you want something to eat before you go.”

  The idea of porridge first thing in the morning reminded Manda of too many mornings at home. She'd never even liked porridge—that was mom’s idea of a treat. But her stomach rumbled and she found a smile. “That’d be great.”

  Mary laughed. “Look, don’t mind me, Manda. The Hood always says that I’ve got a bad case of the mothering instinct. Why do you think Stick drops off his strays with me?”

  “Who’s the Hood?”

  “Toby Hood—our bowman.”

  Manda shook her head. “There’s a lot about you folks I don’t know.”

  “Well, if you shake your leg, you’ll be able to find out some—we’re just getting ready to ride. If you want, you can come along.”

  “No kidding?” Wouldn’t that be something, riding around with the Horn Dance?

  “Well . . . ?” Mary asked.

  “I’m up, I’m up.”

  She threw aside the covers as Mary left the room and got out of the bed to put on her clothes. There was a mirror by the dresser. Looking in it, she studied her face. The bruises were already fading. She didn’t feel so sore either. That was one good thing about having elf blood—you healed fast.

  Riding with the Horn Dance, she thought. She gave her reflection a wink, put on her new shades, and headed out the door.

  “This sucks, man.” Fineagh Steel stared out the window onto Ho Street, his back to his companion. When he turned, the sunlight coming through the dirty win-dow'pane haloed his spiked silver hair. He was a tall elf, with razor eyes and a quick sneer, wearing a torn Guttertramps T-shirt and black leather pants tucked into black boots.

  Slouching on a beat-up sofa, Billy Buttons took a long swig of some homebrew, then set the brown glass bottle on the floor by his feet. Taking out a knife, he flicked it open and began to clean his nails.

  “Hey, I’m talking to you, man,” Fineagh said.

  Billy eyed the current leader of the Blood, then shrugged. “I’m listening. What do you want me to say?”

  Fineagh’s lip curled and he turned to look out the window once more. “Stick’s got to go.”

  That made Billy sit up. He ran his fingers through his black and orange mohawk, scratched at the stubble above his ears. “Hey,” he said. “It was their own fault— bashing on his turf.”

  “Our turf,” Fineagh said sharply. “And anyone that comes into it takes their chances. If you were to listen to Stick, you’d think the whole fucking city was his turf.”

  Maybe it is, Billy thought, but he didn’t say the words aloud. There was something spooky about Stick—but Billy was in the room with Fineagh right now and he wasn’t into messing with Fineagh either.

  “So what do you want to do?” he asked.

  Fineagh left the window and went to where his jacket lay on the floor by the door. From the inside pocket he took out a vintage Smith 8c Wesson .38. Billy’s eyes went wide.

  “Where the hell did you get that?” he asked.

  “Lifted it—in Trader’s Heaven.”

  “You got bullets?”

  “What do you think?”

  “Does it still work?”

  Fineagh pointed it at Billy. “Bang!” he said softly.

  Billy jumped as though he had been shot.

  “Oh, yeah,” Fineagh said. “It works all right.”

  Billy stared at the weapon with awe. The hand guard, the gleaming barrel, everything about the gun made him shiver. It was obviously in mint condition.

  “Where are you going to do it?” he asked. “On the street?”

  Fineagh shook his head. “We’re going to beard the bastard in his den, my man. Maybe when we’re done we’ll turn that old place into a club—what do you think? We’ll call it Fineagh’s Place.”

  “How’re we going to get in? That old museum is like a fortress.”

  “We’re going to play a tune on Stick’s heartstrings,” Fineagh said with a tight-lipped smile. “There’ll be this runaway, see, getting his fucking head bashed in right in front of old Stick’s digs. . ..”

  “Your sister’s a drummer, right?” Big Will asked.

  Manda nodded. “She plays skin drums.”

  Big Will was one of the Horn Dance’s riders, a huge black man with a buzz of curly black hair and a weight-lifter’s body. Manda had been introduced to them all, but the names slid by too quickly for her to put a face to every one and still remember it. A few stuck out. Oss, with his mohawk mane like a wild horse and wide-set eyes. Teaser, all gangly limbs, hair a bird’s nest of streaked tangles and his jester’s leathers—one leg black, the other red, the order reversed on his jacket. Mary, of course. Johnny Jack, another of the riders, a white man as big as Yoho and as hairy as a bear. And the Hood, dressed all in green like some old-fashioned huntsman, a tattoo of a crossed bow and arrow on his left cheek and his hair a ragged cornfield of stiff yellow spikes.

  “What about you? Do you play an instrument?” Manda turned to the girl who’d spoken. A moment’s thought dredged up her name. Bramble. One of the band’s musicians. A year or so older than Manda’s sixteen, she was a tall willowy redhead, with short red stubble on the top of her head; the rest of her hair hung down in dozens of beaded braids.

  “I used to play guitar—an electric,” Manda said, “but someone lifted my spell-box and amp. I can’t afford another, so I don’t play much anymore.”

  Bramble nodded. “It’s not much fun when the punch is gone. I know. I got ripped off a couple of years ago myself. Went crazy after a month, so I waitressed days in The Gold Crown and played nights on a borrowed acoustic until I could afford a new one.”

  Teaser rattled a jester’s stick in Manda’s face to get her attention. “So are you any good on yours?” he asked.

  “Well, Maggie said we’d put a band together if I can get a new amp
.”

  “We could use an axe player right now,” Bramble said. “The pay’s the shits, but I’ve got a spare amp I could lend you.”

  “But you don’t even know me—you don’t know if I’m any good.”

  “Bramble’s got a feel for that kind of thing,” Mary said.

  “And I’ve got a feel that we should be riding,” Big Will broke in. “So are we going, or what?” He thrust a patched and ribbon-festooned jacket at Manda. “Here. You can wear this today. Consider yourself an honorary Horn Dancer.”

  “But—”

  “You ride with us, you need the look,” Will replied. “Now let’s go!”

  In a motley array of colors and tatters, they all crowded outside to where the bikes stood in a neat row behind their house.

  “You can ride with me,” Bramble said.

  Manda smiled her thanks. “What’s this all about?” she asked as they approached Bramble’s bike. “What is it that you guys do?”

  “Well, it’s like this,” Bramble said. “On one level we’re like any other gang—the Pack, the Bloods, Dragon’s Fire, you name it. We like each other. We like to hang around together. But—have you ever heard of Morris dancing?”

  Manda nodded. “Sure.” When Bramble gave her a considering look, she added: “I like to read—about old things and what goes on . .. anywhere, I guess. Across the Border. In the outside world.”

  “Well, what we are is like one of those old Morris teams—that’s why we’re set up the way we are—the six stags, three white and three black. Oss is the Hobby Horse. Teaser’s the fool.”

  “And Mary?”

  “She’s tike the mother in the wood—Maid Marion. Robin Hood’s babe.”

  Manda smiled. “I’ve heard of him.”

  “Yeah. I guess he’s been around long enough. Anyway, what we do is. . . .” She gave a little laugh. “This is going to sound weird, or crazy, but we’re like Border-town’s luck—you know? The dance we do, winding through the city’s streets, the music . . . it’s all something that goes back to the stone-age—in Britain, anyway. It’s really old, all tied up with fertility and luck and that kind of thing. We make our run through the city, at least every couple of days, and it makes things sparkle a bit.

  “We get all kinds of good feedback—from the oldtime punks, as well as the kids. And it makes us feel good, too. Like we’re doing something important. Is this making any sense?”

  “I .. . guess.”

  “Are we riding or jawing?” Big Will called over to them. Bramble laughed and gave him the finger. “Come on,” she said to Manda. “You’ll get a better idea of what I was talking about just by getting out and doing it with us.”

  “What would happen if you didn’t make your ride?” Manda asked.

  “I don’t know. Maybe nothing. Maybe the sewers would back up. Maybe we’ll all go crazy. Who knows? It just feels right doing it.”

  Manda climbed on the back of Bramble’s bike. “I think I know what you mean,” she said. “I always got a good feeling when I saw you guys going by. I never caught any of your gigs, but—”

  “Yeah. There’s a lot of bands in this city. It’s hard to catch them all.”

  “But still,” Manda said. “Ever since Mary asked me if

  I wanted to come along—I’ve felt like I’ve just won a big door prize.”

  “The Wheel of FortuneBramble said.

  “What?”

  “It was an old game show.”

  “You mean like on television?”

  “The entertainment of the masses—in the world outside, at least. Did you ever watch it?”

  “No. Did you?”

  “Yeah. A friend of mine had a machine that recorded the shows. It was great. We used to watch all kinds of weird stuff on these old tapes of his. But then someone ripped it off.”

  The bikes coughed into life, up and down the line, cutting off further conversation. Bramble kicked her own machine awake. The bike gave a deep-throated roar as she twisted the throttle.

  “Hang on!” she cried.

  Manda put her arms around the slim girl’s waist and then suddenly they were off. Before they got to the end of the block, she found herself grinning like the fool’s head on the end of Teaser’s jester’s stick.

  Sitting in The Dancing Ferret, the two men made a study in contrasts. Farrel Din was short and portly, smoking a pipe and wearing his inevitable patched trousers and a quilted jacket. A full-blooded elf, born across the Border, he still gave the impression of a fat innkeeper from some medieval chanson de geste. Stick, on the other hand, was all lean lines in black jeans, boots and a leather jacket. With his deep coffee-brown skin and long dark dreadlocks, he tended to merge with shadows.

  The men had the club to themselves except for Jenny Jingle, a small elvin penni-whistle player, who sat in a corner playing a monotonous five-note tune on her whistle while Stick’s ferret danced by her feet. From time to time she gave the men a glance. She knew Stick by sight, though not to talk to. Trading off between waitressing, odd jobs and the occasional gig in the club, she saw him often enough, but tended to spend the times that he came into The Ferret amusing Lubin who had developed a firm interest in Breton dance tunes.

  Stick wasn’t one that you could cozy up to. Though he seemed to know just about everyone in Bordertown, the only person one could definitely call his friend was Farrel Din. The two seemed to go back a long way, which was odd, Jenny’d thought more than once. Not because Farrel Din was a full-blooded elf and Stick was definitely human—and not that old a human at that if appearances were anything to go by—but because Stick seemed to remember the times before Elfland returned to the world as though he’d been there when it had happened.

  She finished the gavotte she was playing with a little flourish and Lubin collapsed across her feet to look hopefully up at her for more. Watching them, Farrel Din smiled.

  “Seems like just yesterday when we put this place together,” he said.

  “It’s been a lot of yesterdays,” Stick replied.

  He nodded as Farrel Din offered to refill his glass. Amber wine, aged in Bordertown, but originating in Elfland’s vineyards, filled his glass. They clinked their glasses together in a toast, drank, then leaned back in their chairs. Farrel Din fiddled with his pipe. When he had the top ash removed from its bowl, he frowned for a moment, concentrating. A moment later, the tobacco was smoldering and he stuck it in his mouth.

  “There’s a Blood out on the streets with a gun,” he said around the stem.

  Stick gave him a sharp look.

  “Oh, it’s the real McCoy—no doubt about that, Stick. The sucker’d even work across the border. Mother Mandrake had it, only someone lifted it from her booth yesterday. She didn’t see it happen, but she had a bunch of Bloods in that afternoon.”

  “Who told you this?” Stick asked.

  “Got it from Sammy Tucker. He was in to see Magical Madness playing last night.”

  “Shit. Any idea who’s got the gun now?”

  Farrel Din shook his head. “But there’s an edgy mood out on the street, Stick, and I think there’s going to be some real trouble.”

  Stick stood up and finished his wine in one long gulp.

  “That’s no way to treat an elfish vintage,” Farrel Din told him.

  “I’ve got to find that gun,” Stick said. “I don’t mind the gangs bashing each other, but this could go way beyond that.”

  “Maybe they’ll just use it for show,” Farrel Din said hopefully. “You know how kids are.”

  “What do you think the chances of that are?”

  Farrel Din sighed. “I wouldn’t take odds on it.” “Right.” Stick gave a quick sharp whistle and Lubin left her dancing to join him. “Thanks for amusing the brat, Jenny,” he told the whistle player, then he left, the ferret at his heels.

  Jenny blinked, surprised that he’d even known her name. At his own table, Farrel Din put down his pipe and poured himself some more wine, filling the glass to its brim. Aw
, crap, he thought. He wished he hadn’t had to tell Stick about the gun. But there was no one else he could think of that could track it down as quickly, and what they didn’t need now was the trouble that gun could cause. Not with tensions running as high as they were. So why did he feel like the gun was going to come to Stick anyway, whether he looked for it or not?

  Farre! Din frowned, downing his glass with the same disregard for the vintage that Stick had show'n earlier. Maybe he could dull the sense of prescience that had lodged in his head. Since leaving Elfland, the ability had rarely made itself known. Why did it have to come messing him up now?

  He poured himself another glass.

  Manda had a glorious time that day. The Horn Dancers took turns having her ride on the back of their bikes and she wound up renewing a childhood love affair with the big deep-throated machines. She’d always wanted one. She’d even settle for a scooter if it came down to that, but given her druthers, she’d take one of these rebuilt machines—or better yet, a vintage Harley like Stick had.

  Johnny Jack had given her a mask at their first stop so that she could really feel a part of the Dancers. It was like a fox’s head, lightweight with tinted glass in the eyeholes so that her silver eyes wouldn’t give her away. The mask had been collecting dust, he assured her when she tried a half-hearted protest. Whether that was true or not—and Manda was willing to lean toward the former if he was—she accepted it greedily.

  Masked and with her ribboned jacket, Morris bells jingling on her calves, she happily joined in on an impromptu dance at the corner of Ho Street and Brews, hopping from one foot to the other along with the rest of them while Bramble played out a lively hornpipe on a beat-up old melodeon. Then it was back on the bikes and they were off again, a ragged line of gypsy riders leaving a sparkle as real as fairy dust behind in the eyes of those who watched them pass by.

  That night the Horn Dance had a gig at The Factory, the oldest rock-and-roll club in the city. Manda was too shy to play, but she enjoyed standing near the stage in her new gear and watching the show. The audience was fun to watch, too, an even mix between pogoing young punks and an older crowd doing English country dances. By the time the second set was over, there were kids doing the country dances, and oldtimers pogoing. The main concern seemed to be to have fun.