"What is it with the goddamned batteries, Aedham?" Not knowing was driving Sammi nuts.
"We need them," he said. "Do you have any money?"
"Yeah," she replied cautiously. "Why?"
"I'll explain in the car." Then, to the empty space behind him, said, "Come on, Llan."
* * *
Where the hell is Yuaroh Dhu? Mort thought angrily, as he let the Foevor into his chambers. He should have put one of his warriors here to deal with these visits.
The Foevor Dubh entered Mort's chambers, head down, with a nervous shuffle; that alone would have roused Mort's suspicion. Only recently he'd felt a surge of node power that might have been a Gate, but because it was so brief had assumed it was only a fluctuation caused by the new weapons. Yet without the shipment of batteries that hadn't arrived, the weapons were inert. Or so he had thought.
Dubh made a puzzled gesture with his hands; like the Clapperleg clan, this clan was learning to speak like their leader Mort, but the transition was moving slowly. The Green clan was hairless and humanoid, with smooth greenish skin that looked like formica. They resembled gargoyles, yet they had no eyes, just a toothless mouth that spoke, and tiny, circular ears that listened. They saw with a third eye located deep in their brains. Telepathic communication was possible only among themselves; Mort kept himself shielded, insisting on verbal communication only. With training some could shapeshift, but only Mort had mastered this skill enough to use it easily.
"Speak," Mort commanded gently.
"The Unseleighe have g-gone," the Foevor said, with some difficulty.
"Yes, they must have gated," Mort said patiently. "All of them?"
"All have left. Some Gated. Some . . . set off across the realm."
All.
"Unseleighe took Overworld weapons. All gone."
Mort stared at Dubh; the temptation to reject his message as mistaken or uninformed was strong. Yet, he had to investigate.
"Show you," Dubh said, pointing to the chamber's exit, and moving towards it. "Show you now."
On the long walk to the armory, Mort remembered why he had found the Green clan unfit for battle, and had opted for the human kids for his supply of raw grunts; they moved awkwardly, visibly unfamiliar with their physical form. They tended to live like wraiths or lost human ghosts, with no hierarchy or sense of territory. In short, they were unambitious. In the brief time Mort had risen to conquer Underhill, he had spread his vision to all Foevorian clans, reawakening a common racial memory. Now their glorious past was no longer just a part of their past; it was their future, as well. With time Mort knew he could breed and train a whole army of pure Foevorian soldiers to fight alongside the Clapper clan; until then the mercenaries would have to do.
As he drew closer to the armory, he wondered if using the mercenaries had been a bad idea. The Unseleighe guards who were supposed to be protecting the horde of new weapons were nowhere to be seen. Mort opened the armory's cold iron door and walked into an empty room.
The racks were still there—that was the only thing that told him he was in the right room in his enormous, unfinished palace. The weapons, whose delivery he had personally supervised mere hours before, were not.
He looked back at Dubh. "All gone," Dubh said, sadly.
"The Unseleighe took them?"
"Over here," Dubh said, and led Mort to the other end of the long, empty room. "Here."
The unmistakable residue of a Gate lingered, but that was all he sensed. Clues to its destination had already vanished.
Only a Mage can cast a Gate. His thoughts darkened. Aedham?
With Dubh following meekly, Mort set off for the dungeon to see if his Seleighe prisoner was still in his cell. And if he wasn't, what did that mean? The Unseleighe and Seleighe working together? Impossible! It contradicted all he had learned about the elven clans.
Even so, it took everything he had to keep from killing the messenger on the spot.
* * *
"Battery powered levin rifles," Sammi said, turning into the Homeland supermarket parking lot. It was the third store they'd stopped at since leaving the Wal-Mart. "Doesn't the concept seem, well, inherently goofy to you?"
"It's based on Niamh's analysis," Aedham patiently explained. "We know in principle that it works. The same configuration of elvenstones on the front wheel and fork of a motorcycle had the same effect as tapping into a node. The steel of the motorcycle dampened the field quite a bit—these weapons, which are made from composites, won't have that problem."
Parking the Caprice, Sammi still seemed unconvinced. "How do you know the levin blast won't melt the weapon?"
"We should test it before marching into battle. That was next on the agenda anyway."
At Homeland they bought out the entire supply of D cells. From this and the earlier shopping visits they had around three hundred batteries, enough to power fifty rifles. Out of a possible three hundred this didn't seem like enough until the King reminded himself that if the weapons performed as expected, this was the equivalent firepower of fifty Mages.
Faith in Niamh's work was one thing. Risking Seleighe lives on unproven technology was something else. The King saw the wisdom in her words.
"Let's take this load back to Underhill and see how these weapons work," Aedham said, grateful for Sammi's input.
* * *
"You'll stay here," Morrigan said from the bedroom doorway, dressed and ready to go out. "That should give you time to reconsider your feelings toward me."
From the bed Dobie managed a hostile glare before she left—at least he could look angry, even if he didn't really feel it. He knew he was bespelled; he also knew he couldn't fight it. During the night he was unable to keep from getting aroused, or from feeling some level of warm feelings toward this goddess. Now he felt like a prostitute who had serviced a client. She had complete control over him, and could rape him at leisure.
And when she comes back, she'll do it all over again.
It was all part of her power.
And I can't do jack about it!
Dobie listened for the suite doors to shut; when they did he leaped out of the bed and ran to them, finding them in the same unworking state as before. He banged on them with both fists to get the attention of anyone in the hall, but his efforts made no noise. Some kind of voodoo magic shit, he surmised. And again, he tried the phone. Nothing. He tried throwing the phone out the window, but it just bounced back, unharmed.
I'm a prisoner.
* * *
Aedham remembered the canyon from his childhood. A tributary of the Aranann river had carved a deep groove into the Avalon landscape, leaving behind a sheer cliff topped with boulders. From a distance it looked like a castle perched atop a hill, and Avalon Mages had wondered if it was indeed a legacy from an earlier clan.
Whatever its historical origins, Aedham thought with mixed emotions, today it becomes target practice.
With the entire Seleighe army watching with rapt attention, Petrus handed him Madame Photon, Aedham's first laser rifle, which had been hanging with the rest of the rifles in Mort's armory. The battery was dead. In their frenzy of battery purchases he had neglected to pick up some twelve volt cells for this particular gun. But unless the war spread to the Overworld, he would not be using it here anyway; the rifle didn't work in Underhill. While Niamh's research had not made the rifle usable in the elven realms as hoped, it had produced the levin rifle technology.
He set Madame aside and donned one of the Lazerwarz vests. Inserting six batteries had brought the pack to life, including an LCD display with a gauge of some kind.
"One button here starts the generator spinning," Petrus explained as he pressed it. Short of actually firing the weapon, Petrus had gotten a jump on deciphering the weird technology as soon as the batteries arrived. "Then this gauge starts climbing."
"It's measuring the level of node power," Aedham observed, recognizing the power immediately as it coursed through his soul. He hefted the short rifle with one hand,
noting the thick wiring connecting it to the vest.
"Now it's live and charged up," Petrus said nervously. "Are you sure you don't want someone else to test this first?"
"Certain," Aedham said, taking aim at the canyon formation. "I wouldn't ask any of my people to do something I wouldn't do myself."
"So be it," Petrus said, backing away from the rig nevertheless.
The LCD gauge had reached its maximum reading; node power hovered behind him, poised for release.
"Banzai!" the King shouted, and pulled the trigger.
Aedham felt the rig pull on the node power, guiding it over the vest through the thick wire and into the gun. With no recoil, the short rifle blurted forth a large sphere which ripped into the cliff wall. The impact sent a loud report, quickly followed by a shock wave that knocked Aedham back a pace. The blast had taken out half the visible canyon wall; the sequence of events took maybe a second. Rock and debris continued to rain down into the Aranann. A carefully administered levin bolt from a Mage would have performed similarly.
A cheer erupted from the army, and Petrus came forward to examine the King and his weapon. The gauge had dropped down to zero, but as they watched, it recharged. In less than a minute, it was back to full strength. Before the cheers faded, Aedham let loose another blast at the formation, with the same results.
His highest ranking men clustered around the King and the new weapon. Aedham looked the rifle over, feeling the barrel, the wires, and then removing the vest for Petrus to examine. While warm, the barrel certainly wasn't hot.
The realization that his weapon was intended to be used against the Seleighe tempered his otherwise joyous mood; if they were to defeat Mort, they needed to attack before he could resupply his human and nonhuman troops with the damned things. Other advantages to the weapon came to mind; Aedham could use his freed-up Mage resources for making Gates for the army to travel through, a strategy that was until now impractical. A Mage had to spend quality time to recover from gatemaking, in some cases up to a candle mark, before being able to blast anything with a levin bolt.
Now, there was no downtime.
How convenient, Aedham thought, unable to suppress a triumphant smile.
Now let's clean up Underhill for good.
* * *
From a balcony overlooking the palace grounds, Mort regarded what remained of the nonhuman segment of his army. Cikal Clapperleg was now his commander, and was addressing the army with much pretended enthusiasm. The Foevor balanced perfectly on his single leg, and gesticulated wildly for effect; the demon had been studying Hitler's oration techniques. Mort hoped it would be enough to get his army back on track.
The Unseleighe's betrayal had shot morale to hell. He still had twenty-five armed Clappers, and a hundred or so from the Green clan, and as many more in wraith form drifting beyond the perimeter. With so large a gathering Mort knew he shouldn't feel the loss of thirty-five Unseleighe, but he did. The Green clan was a wild card; he wasn't sure they could even fight. And the wraiths . . . he wasn't even sure they wanted to fight. It seemed they were lurking in the background to see what the outcome of all this would be, a revelation which did not improve his mood at all.
Ah, but we do have the Clappers. And they have the arms, Mort thought, grateful that the large levin rifles, the Mort Longs, had not been stolen. The shoulder-mounted weapons had roughly three times the power and range of the Mort Shorts, and could punch holes in thick palace walls . . . not to mention what they could do to the elves themselves. Mort's own Short remained stashed behind his throne in his royal chambers. The shipment of batteries from the Overworld had arrived, so powering the weapons was no problem. But his attempts at cheering himself up fell flat. Without the three hundred weapons for his human army, victory was no longer guaranteed.
Indeed, he'd found Aedham gone from his cell when he had investigated, confirming the Foevor's belief that the King of Avalon had made the Gate. Mort would never have thought cooperation between the two elven groups possible; in his long existence, nothing had surprised him more. If the elves were combining their forces, he had much to worry about. The Seleighe courts had at least three hundred warriors, and half as many nonwarriors for support. He suspected that less than a hundred Unseleighe remained. The numbers are rather lopsided, he considered. It just doesn't fit that the Seleighe would throw in with the Unseleighe when their numbers are so few. The Shorts must have been their bargaining chip. And what of Morrigan? She has been conspicuously absent during all this. Did she have a hand in the weapons' disappearance?
Behind him, from the other side of his chambers, he detected another Gate forming. He recognized the node signature as Morrigan's. Speak of the devil. He returned to his chambers and awaited her arrival.
As usual she entered his royal space without so much as a knock.
"So tell me, what's new on the home front?" she asked, without a hint of sarcasm. "Are we ready to start a war?"
"We've received the batteries," Mort said, feigning boredom. "The Gate didn't zap their charge like you thought it would," he said. She seemed uninterested. Does she know there's nothing here for the batteries to power now?
Mort took a seat on his throne and studied Morrigan through steepled fingers. Does she know anything?
"So what's the problem?" she said, evidently sensing his grim mood. For once, she seemed genuinely concerned for the project—and anything out of the ordinary was suspect.
"The problem is," Mort began, with an amazing level of calm, "the Unseleighe have made off with the entire armory."
Morgan uttered a forced, shrill laugh. "Oh, Mort. Such a flair for drama. What is it . . . really?"
Mort studied her further, looking for some sign, any sign that would give her away.
She said, "Are you serious? The weapons are gone? All of them?"
Her words sounded sincere, but her eyes, that was a different matter. As usual, they mocked him; that was all he needed to see.
"Don't play games with me Morrigan!" Mort shouted, his words ripping through the palace like an explosion. His vehemence caught her unawares, and she stepped back a pace. She seemed genuinely frightened, for a moment. Then she was back to her old mocking self.
"Don't get snippy with me, your nastiness," Morrigan chided. "I am in the same sinking ship as you, in case you haven't noticed."
Are we really? he wanted to ask, but gave her time to finish.
"The Unseleighe," Morrigan said. Her words became distant, "How very strange that they would do this. But with all those guns, they would be formidable, indeed."
"Aedham assisted them," Mort said. "He set the Gate up, and they left with the goods. As near as I can tell the elves have decided to set aside their differences and take me on." His dark thoughts took control of his expression, and he made no effort to fight it.
"Then you'll have to make more," Morrigan pointed out.
"There's no time!" Mort spat.
"The Seleighe are sticklers for protocol," Morrigan pointed out. "It is a weakness we have exploited before. Perhaps we would do well to do so again."
"Out with it, then! If you have an idea let's hear it."
"Well," she began, apparently unperturbed by his foul mood. "Do we still have the human children under our control?"
Mort nodded.
"Then we'll use them as shields. To force their hand. To play our game for a change."
"Do tell."
"Single combat, you silly Foevor!" Morrigan tittered. "One of ours against one of theirs in the Lazerwarz arena. No magic. Just the game. Winner take all. And if it doesn't turn out the way we want, we can go back on our agreement and be right where we are right now. Don't you think it's worth a chance?"
Her optimism was infectious; Mort perked up. We own the arenas, and we have the best players. "Perhaps it is worth a chance, at that. Who did you have in mind to fight for our side?"
She smiled that evil, condescending smile, and Mort's hackles got right back up. "Who do you think I've been
grooming for such a possibility?"
Mort's calm evaporated. So that's what the bitch is after! A monopoly on our champion. The lad she's been fornicating with for the last week! I should have known.
" 'For such a possibility,' " Mort echoed. "It sounds like you planned for it. Sounds like, maybe, you had a hand in this fiasco," Mort said, his words dripping with acid.
Morrigan waved the accusation aside. "How ridiculous, Mort. I would no more want those pretentious elves in control of Underhill than you do." She took a few steps forward, regaining the territory she forfeited during Mort's initial outburst. "You spent too much time around the Unseleighe, Mort. I have never seen them trust each other. Their suspicion is rubbing off on you."
"Where are you keeping this rodent?" Mort asked. As much as his pride wanted him to turn down the offer, his rationality wouldn't let him: Mort had seen what the kid could do in an arena. He was invincible. Single combat would afford drastically better odds, at no risk to himself.
"He's at the Doubletree, downtown. In the suites, top floor. I dare say the wards I put on my rooms there are better than the ones King Aedham managed to slip through."
Mort ignored the jab; he'd seen it coming since the beginning of the conversation, and would have been surprised if she hadn't reminded him of his failure. But it would be the last time she would remind him of anything; he realized now that finally, challenge or not, she had outlived her usefulness to him. Now she was a traitorous pain in the ass, and Mort was not going to let that stand. He couldn't afford to trust her any longer; he had a realm to conquer.
"Excuse me," Mort said politely, and went behind his throne to retrieve his levin rifle, and turned it on. The batteries were new. It came online right away. Haven't really tested this on an Underhill entity yet. Now is the time.
He stepped out from behind the throne and aimed it at her. The sight of the levin rifle froze her sneer in place. Mort felt her reaching for power, and pulled the trigger before she could summon it. The rifle belched a fireball from the barrel and struck her head on, picking her off the floor and sending her into the opposite wall, quickly, violently.
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