Mad Maudlin

by Mercedes Lackey

  Some of the rooms looked as if they were long-deserted, cluttered with ancient junk. Some looked as if they'd been used, at least until recently. Some of the rooms had more doors leading off them, and there might be closets as well. She hesitated, considering searching them. Try the main rooms first, Kayla told herself. You can come back here later if they don't pan out.

  It took her quite some time to finish checking the main rooms of Eric's mind, though she knew her subjective sense of time was no indication of how long had passed in the outside world. No matter how many rooms she passed through, and how fantastic their contents, all of them were dark and empty. Deserted.

  At last she found herself standing before a gate—all lacy wrought silver, with touches of gold. It wasn't locked. She pushed it open and went inside.

  The room beyond was huge, giving the faint impression of a cathedral, though, looking around, Kayla couldn't quite say what it was that gave her that notion. The chamber was round, the arching ceiling a fantasy of interlocking vaults. When she shone her flashlight up there, the roof sparkled.

  She shone the light on the floor beneath her feet, and discovered it was a mosaic, each tile no larger than her smallest fingernail. The pattern was something elaborate and geometric in blues and greens, as detailed as the finest Persian rug. All around the edges of the room was a young forest of miniature flowering trees, every one in bloom, each in an elaborately painted pot that echoed the colors of the floor.

  In the center of the room was a fountain.

  This isn't like anything I've ever seen, Kayla thought, puzzled. But the images she saw when she Healed could come solely from her subject's mind as well. She wondered if there was something in Underhill that looked like this.

  She also wondered what the room was for. Every "room" in a subject's mind was keyed to a talent or memory. She looked at the fountain again. Wasn't water supposed to have something to do with creativity, at least according to some symbol systems?

  She walked over to it.

  The fountain towered twenty feet in the air, and covered a good portion of the floor. From what she could tell, it was one of those things that ought to be spitting out jets of water in all directions, and possibly even play tunes—water harps, they were called.

  But the water in the basin lay still and unmoving, and the fountain was silent.

  If this is the symbol of Eric's creativity, we are seriously screwed.

  She hesitated for a moment, then passed on to the small doorway on the far side. It was barely wide enough for her to get through, but no gate blocked it. It led down a steep flight of stone steps.

  Going down. Sub-basement, collective unconscious, repressed memories, childhood traumas, right this way . . .

  The stairs were steep and slippery; not a place Eric visited in his own mind very often, if she had to guess. But—if she was right about what the fountain room symbolized—a place intimately connected to his creativity.

  Have I mentioned lately how much I really hate pop psych?

  At last she reached the bottom. Wherever she was, whatever this place was to Eric, it looked to Kayla like the basement of a very old building. It was walled off in places by hastily built brick walls, now dusty and crumbling with age. Some of them had been torn down. Others had holes knocked in them. Some still stood firm. She felt a faint flicker of hope. He could be down here, behind one of those walls, and that might be why she'd been unable to sense him.

  Oh, please, let that be it.

  "Eric?" Kayla said aloud. "Eric, it's Kayla. Are you here?"

  Nothing.

  "Eric, it's Kayla," she said again. "We need you to come back to us. You've been hurt, and I know you're confused, but you can't stay here. You need to come back."

  She didn't know if he heard her. Hell, she didn't even know if he was here. She didn't want to be here: it felt too much like trespassing, with all of the guilt and none of the thrill. She'd never been this deep in someone's mind before, not even Ria's. She shone the light around the walls, searching for something, anything, that would tell her where he was—or failing that, which way he'd gone.

  A door.

  There was a door in the back wall.

  She knew it wasn't there, not really—neither the door nor the wall—but she saw them. She ran over to it, the light from her flashlight swooping crazily over the walls of the dark basement.

  It was wood, old thick shabby splintery dusty wood, of the same vintage as the rest of the basement that wasn't really there. There was no handle, no way to open it. The only thing that was new was the padlock and hasp on it, gleaming brightly in the light of her flash, mocking her.

  Kayla grabbed the lock and yanked. If she could tear it free, she could probably pry the door open.

  No go. It was like trying to yank open the wall itself. The lock held firm.

  As she stepped back, she stepped on something soft. She squawked and jumped, then turned her flashlight on it. Something dark blue and dusty . . . and familiar. She bent down and picked it up.

  Eric's cap. The watch cap he'd been wearing that day up at The Place.

  It was here. He'd been here, by this door. This was a clue, a sign that this was the right way. Only how was she supposed to get through the door?

  Kayla blinked, straining to see the lock clearly, and suddenly she realized there was a reason she couldn't.

  The light from her flashlight was dimming.

  She concentrated, willing it to burn brighter.

  And it didn't.

  Chapter Thirteen:

  Over The Waterfall

  There was a jarring moment of discontinuity, then she was back in the hospital room again, staggering back against Hosea.

  "Whuh . . . what?" Kayla gasped. She coughed, and took a deep breath, realizing she hadn't been breathing for a little too long. Nausea made her shudder.

  "Come over here and sit down," Hosea said firmly. He led Kayla over to a chair and pushed her into it, then reached into his backpack and took out a bottle of apple juice. "And drink this."

  Kayla gulped down the apple juice thirstily. Being jarred out of a Healer's trance was no fun, but she suspected the alternative would have been worse. "What happened?" she asked hoarsely, handing the empty bottle back to Hosea.

  "Not much from where Ah stood, until you stopped breathing," he said soberly. "Right then Ah figured it was time for you to come on home. Ah called to you, an' you didn't answer me, so Ah yanked you loose. Ah'm sorry if Ah hurt you some, but you weren't lookin' any too good."

  "I'm glad you did," Kayla said honestly. "I think I went a little too far. But it still wasn't far enough."

  She explained where she'd been, and what she'd found.

  "So I think that Eric's somewhere on the other side of that door. But I don't know what the door means, or where it goes. And from what you say, trying to find out nearly killed me."

  "Hmn." Hosea made a noncommittal sound. His fingers moved over the strings of the banjo, raising faint echoes of melody. He cocked his head, as if listening. After a moment, he raised his head.

  "Jeanette says you should let her try," Hosea reported. "She says she's dead already, so going down there won't hurt her none."

  "Let her try? How?" Kayla demanded.

  "Let her go through you into Eric," Hosea answered. Absently, his fingers began picking out a soft counterpoint on the banjo's silver strings.

  "Can she do that?" Kayla asked dubiously.

  "There are records of ghosts temporarily possessing the living. I suppose this situation would be analogous," Paul said, speaking up from his position by the door for the first time.

  Kayla grimaced. She didn't like the idea of just letting a ghost walk into her, much less the semi-reformed ghost of Jeanette Campbell.

  But what choice did they have? She could try getting through that door again herself—and fail, get hurt, or possibly do serious damage to Eric. If Jeanette failed, they probably wouldn't be any worse off than they were now.

 
"I guess it's worth a try," she said reluctantly.

  Hosea smiled just a little. "Jeanette ain't any more eager to do this than you are, if it makes you feel any better," he said.

  "Not a lot," Kayla admitted. "What do I have to do?"

  "Let down your shields and give her a link to Eric," Hosea said. "Show her where you went. But . . ." Hosea hesitated, "you'll need to keep the link tight, whatever happens. If it breaks while Jeanette's all stretched out like that, Ah don't know what'll happen to her. Or to Eric, for that matter. Nothin' good, seems to me."

  Kayla thought about it. It was a risk. But it was a risk either way. They couldn't just leave Eric like that.

  Sure, there were other things they could try. They could wait for Ria to get back, maybe have her cast a spell to yank Eric back from wherever he was. Or Paul might be able to do it.

  But either of them would be working blind. And Kayla wasn't sure it would be a really good idea just to yank Eric out of wherever he was, without seeing just where that was. They might do even more damage that way.

  Sending Jeanette in might be the best thing. At least Kayla could see what she was doing. And she wanted to make up for her past, so it wasn't as if she couldn't be trusted to do her best.

  "I can handle it, Too-Tall. You just concentrate on your ghost-wrangling. Well, here goes . . . something," Kayla muttered, taking a deep breath and getting to her feet again. "But if this doesn't work, I'm taking up tatting."

  She resumed her position at the head of the bed, taking Hosea's hand again. His free hand, she noticed, he kept firmly pressed over the banjo's strings.

  She touched Eric's forehead again. There was a spark of contact, but she waited, not letting it pull her down inside this time.

  And then cold. Colder than anything she'd imagined. She felt cold flow through Hosea and into her; through her, and into Eric.

  Don't break the link. If you do, they're both toast.

  But all her instincts screamed at her to let go, not to follow them down into death; Elizabet had warned her. . . .

  And then she was there.

  "Well, come on, where do I go?" an irritable voice said from behind her.

  Kayla turned around. She was back in the darkened apartment again, inside what was currently passing for Eric's consciousness.

  And there was Jeanette.

  The only time Kayla had seen Jeanette Campbell alive, her body had been completely reshaped by Aerune mac Audelaine's sorcery into that of a half-Elven sprite; his hellhound. She'd Seen Jeanette once after she'd died, but that had been in Aerune's dreamworld, and the connection hadn't been really good. There Jeanette had been mostly a blur, her image flipping back and forth between her hellhound form and what she'd really looked like in life.

  This, Kayla guessed, was Jeanette as she really had been: a moon-faced woman in boots, jeans, and a biker jacket, her long light-brown hair pulled back in a ponytail.

  "Get with the program, would you?" Jeanette said impatiently.

  "Come on," Kayla answered, hefting her flashlight.

  * * *

  "Down those steps. There's a door at the back. It's locked. I think he's somewhere on the other side, if you can get through."

  "Nothing to worry about there, kid. I brought the key along." Jeanette patted her pocket.

  Kayla didn't ask what she had in there. She had a feeling she'd rather not know. "Do you, uh, want to take the flashlight?"

  Jeanette looked surprised that she'd asked. "Don't need it. Every place looks the same to me now."

  She went through the smaller door and disappeared.

  Kayla stared at the doorway, although she was pretty sure it wasn't going to do anything interesting. What do I do now?

  And how long do I wait?

  * * *

  This was the best year the Faire had ever had. The weather had cooperated—not too hot, not too cold—and the travelers had been generous; he'd made enough to buy a new shirt and a pair of those fancy custom boots he'd had his eye on for as long as he could remember. There were good parties every night, and he never, ever, had a hangover.

  Eric was having a great time.

  Sometimes he wondered if there was something he was forgetting. In the moments before he was quite awake some mornings, he was sure there was. But he could never quite remember what it was—and now that he'd moved into Karen's big tent, there weren't a lot of mornings that he got to spend time in quiet reflection. Karen was definitely a morning person. Eric was not.

  On the other hand, there were advantages. Coffee. Breakfast. Not missing Morning Parade. And those were just the G-rated ones. . . .

  But . . .

  Had the Faire always used to go on all week? He couldn't remember going back to the mundane world once since he'd gotten here.

  It was hard to think about something so irrelevant during the day, and the evening parties had their own logic, but Eric had finally remembered to ask Karen about it one evening, when they were gathered around the fire with some of the Wild Northern Celts and the rest of the German Mercenary Wenches.

  "Hey, Ian!" she'd shouted. "Eric wants to go back to Mundania!"

  "What would he want to do that for? We come here to get away from there!" Ian had shouted back merrily.

  "Faire isn't good enough for you, Banyon?" someone else had called amiably out of the darkness.

  Someone played a mocking trill on a pennywhistle. There was a ruffle of a bodhran; whoever had it actually managed something that sounded perilously close to a rim shot. There were cheers and scattered applause.

  The wench on Eric's other side—a brawny lady named Hulda—had elbowed him robustly in the ribs, nearly making him spill his tankard of mead. "If you're bored, Banyon, we can think up a few more distractions for you. . . ."

  He'd never really gotten an answer. But he guessed it didn't matter. The Faire was the Faire, and how it ran was Admin's business, not his.

  It wasn't like there was any other place else he was supposed to be, after all.

  And the weather was good.

  The perfect Faire.

  The perfect summer.

  * * *

  So this is what's behind the door.

  Jeanette pulled it open—it wasn't locked, no matter what Kayla had said—and stared.

  On the other side was . . . summer.

  Summer, and . . . a parking lot? An open field, actually, though the cars were parked in neat rows, hundreds of cars. Jeanette noted, even though some of them were obviously new, none of them were recent models.

  I can see—and feel!

  Everything was real again, as real as it had been when she was alive. Jeanette stepped through the doorway, taking a deep breath. She could smell summer and dust, and hear wind, birdsongs, and distant traffic. When she looked down, she could see herself—and feel her leather jacket beneath her hands.

  It was like being reborn.

  The world was in color again, a thing of shape and depth, experienced through her own senses, not in stolen glimpses through Hosea's eyes and thoughts.

  If she had this much reality here, no wonder the kid had nearly died. Any place that was good for ghosts couldn't be good for the living.

  She took a moment just to feel the sensation of sun on her face—why didn't people appreciate things like this before it was too late? To be able to feel her lungs fill when she took a breath, to be able to feel the wind pass over her face, to be able to feel the warmth of the sun; the living could experience those things every day of their lives, and they didn't care. . . .

  But she had work to do. And no matter how real this felt, it wasn't. It was somewhere between a dream and an illusion; either way, it was bad news for somebody.

  It would have been easy to get sucked in, if she hadn't been what she was and—even more—who she was. If she hadn't gotten every dream she'd ever had twisted and used against her by a mad Sidhe Prince. After Aerune, no pretty little paradise was ever going to suck her in, because her experience told her that no mat
ter what she saw, there was always going to be something nasty lurking under the surface.

  Maybe that was why the Secret Stories hit her right in the gut she didn't have anymore. No matter how rotten her life had gotten—a lot of which was her own fault, she could see now—at least she'd been able to keep some of her secret dreams intact almost to the end. Those kids Hosea worked with had gotten theirs shattered before they got two digits in their ages.

  Jeanette walked on, into the open field, looking around curiously. There were people driving up and getting out of cars, and walking toward a destination in the distance. She could hear faint scraps of music on the air, something sort of medieval. All the signs for the parking were done in antique script as well. There were bigger signs in the distance, welcoming visitors to the Southern California Renaissance Faire.

  Very bizarre.

  A gleam of sunlight on chrome off to one side caught her attention. There was a big cream and maroon Harley touring bike parked under one of the few trees here in the field. It looked oddly familiar. She walked over to admire it.

  The word "Mystery" was written on the gas tank in flowing gold script.

  That's my bike!

  "What the hell are you doing here?" Jeanette said aloud. The Harley had been her pet, her one self-indulgence when she'd gone to work for Threshold and there'd been good legal money coming in for the first time. She'd lost it somewhere in Flyover, West Virginia, when Elkanah had kidnapped her, and never known what had happened to it. Stolen by someone, undoubtedly.

  So what was Mystery doing here? This wasn't her fantasy world.

  She automatically groped in her jacket pocket, not surprised to find that she had the keys.

  If she just took her bike and rode away, where would she get to?

  Was it any place she wanted to be?

  She looked toward the gates of the Faire, then back at her bike. But she was supposed to be looking for Eric Banyon, and if Eric was anywhere, he was probably in there.

  And it might seem like paradise—someone's paradise, anyway—but there was probably a nasty surprise waiting somewhere around here the moment she let her guard down.