The Otherworld

by Mercedes Lackey

  Realization that there was something very strange going on stopped him like a stone wall. I don't smell any smoke, he thought. It sounded like there was a war going on down there, and it certainly looked as if the place was being overrun by the fires of hell—wind that screamed like a damned and tortured thing, the crash and thud of heavy objects hitting against the walls, the screech of nails ripping loose from beams—and the terrible red light still gleamed through cracks, but there were no tongues of flame visible and no smoke to smell.

  What the hell—? he wondered.

  A piece of board blew past him, and some unidentifiable bit of shrapnel grazed his cheek—and Andrew watched dumbfounded as gaps appeared, as if something or someone from inside battered away at the barn. The night air was thick with a sense of rage, of hatred so dense and palpable he could feel it brushing against his chilled skin like damp, drowned hands. His heart pounded with fear that was not even his own, and his mouth went dry and his breath came fast in spite of his struggles to control his emotions. He found himself backing away from the barn, and found that he could not stop himself, could not make himself walk back toward it.

  From behind him, he heard the wail of sirens and the squeal of tires turning into the lane. The fire engines' flashing red lights joined the peculiar illumination that came from the barn—the night pulsed red. Blood, he thought, clutching his arms around himself. The world is bleeding.

  The firemen were unrolling their hoses, shouting to each other, pointing out their target. Merryl was still loosing horses out into the field.

  Andrew saw none of it; instead, he had been inadvertently thrown back to his own childhood.

  He saw the little beagle puppy he'd "bought" when he was eleven from the kid down the road—bought with marbles and a brand-new baseball glove and a brand-new football. The puppy he'd smuggled home and made a wonderful soft bed for and hidden under the house because his father had said, "No dogs," but he'd wanted it so bad—

  His puppy, laid out on a board, belly up; its little muzzle wired shut, its eyes wide and staring, its paws nailed into place. And his dad, furious, shouting at him, "Now you'll know to listen to me, won't you, you little bastard! Next time you disobey me, this will be you!" And the knife, in his father's hand, slitting the little beagle's white belly open, and the pup's eyes rolling in terror and pain—

  And the blood pulsing red and redder around his father's fine doctor hands, pulsing like the lights from the fire engines—and again he tasted the anguish and the fear—

  And the red glow in the barn just—went away.

  Thick, suffocating silence crowded in to fill the void and darkness. The firemen paused, and stared. The horrible noises that had been coming from inside had stopped, abruptly, almost as if a switch had been flipped. The terrible feeling of rage and fear made the same abrupt departure.

  Then sounds rushed back and revived the night: the chirping of crickets and the whinnies and stompings of the horses out in pasture, the stamp and crunch of one fireman's boots as he walked, flashlight in hand, down to the barn, and pulled the battered and sagging door open.

  And his voice, awestruck as he aimed his flashlight into the dark recesses of the structure—"Je-e-e-e-ZUS, Johnnie, get a load of this!"

  * * *

  The rippling motion of the border had lulled her into a near-trance. Felouen sat, her back pressed against the smooth rock base of the Oracular Pool, staring into the nothingness, and she worried. Maclyn might come around. He might help against whatever was coming. Then again, enchanted by his other interests, he might leave her to fight and die alone.

  There had been more to the visions of the Oracular Pool than the one brief glimpse it had shown Maclyn. War was coming—a long and savage battle with the outnumbered elvish forces lined up against hordes of Unseleighe unlike anything the Kin had ever seen before. Her friends would fall, and she would fight on, uselessly, would herself be gravely wounded, would flee and be captured, would suffer at the hands of the unstoppable things from the Unformed. And only then would she die. She had seen her own death. It was not a good one.

  She had seen another vision as well, an alternate future in the inscrutable reflections in the Pool. Maclyn would stand at her side, with the battle raging as before—but the enemy would be fewer and weaker, the tide of battle would turn in the Kin's favor, and she would live. So she sat and pondered, staring out into the non-place on the other side of the border with loathing.

  Felouen sensed the change before she saw it.

  A presence born of fear and rage and hatred swirled into being in the Void, reached out and clawed at her from that nothing-world. It sent her to her feet, recoiling from the tentacles that reached with sudden intent directly for her.

  From the Nothing, flickers of blood-red light began to glow.

  * * *

  ". . . so you see, she was human, and I loved her, and when she died, I thought that everything about me that had mattered had died, too," Mac said. He sat on one side of Lianne's couch, again wearing his human seeming. "Everything about her was so brief and so painfully fleeting, and the harder I tried to stop time, to hold her life in my hands and keep her with me, the faster I saw the years tear her into shreds. She died nearly two hundred years ago, but there are still times when the thought crosses my mind that if I went back to Tellekirk, I'd find her there."

  He locked his hands together, and he stared at his shoes. "In you, I see that same frightening beauty, that same—life—that burns so hot and so fast. I cannot stay away from you. And I find myself longing for your brief, blazing beauty, and wondering how you can burn your life so fast."

  Lianne pursed her lips and blew a soft sigh through them. She got up and walked over to one of the bookcases that lined the walls of her bedroom, and perused the shelves. Finally, with a nod, she pulled down a deep green leather volume and flipped through the pages.

  "We've done some thinking about that ourselves," she said, and looked down at the page she'd chosen. "Here—" she pointed, and read aloud.

  "For a man cannot lose either the past or the future: for what a man has not, how can anyone take from him? These two things then thou must bear in mind: the one, that all things from eternity are of like forms and come round in a circle, and that it makes no difference whether a man shall see the same things during a hundred years or two hundred, or an infinite time; and the second, that the longest liver and he who die soonest lose just the same."

  She paused to let the quote sink it. "Marcus Aurelius—a Roman philosopher and leader from way before your time—said that, and I suspect he's right. Even though I'll live—at most—a hundred years, and you'll live God-only-knows how long, we were both born, we will both live the span of our days, and we will both die. I mean, you will die eventually, won't you?"

  "It's been rumored," Mac said, a faint hint of the beginning of a smile at the corner of his mouth.

  She gave him a real smile. "Don't pity us humans, then. Time runs at a different pace for you and me, but my life will be as full as yours. It will just happen faster. It won't seem to me that I got cheated—I'm doing things with my life that matter to me and to other people. I'm teaching children, and to me, that is an important and meaningful job. I have friends who care about me, and a family that loves me, and I'm doing what I can to make the world a better place. And as for your long-gone love, I guarantee you that if she lived her life, and could see where her presence made a difference, she didn't feel cheated either."

  Lianne sat back on the bed, put the book down beside her, and pulled her knees up to her chest so she could wrap her arms around them. Now was the time for a little noble self-sacrifice, and it made the smile she had given him fade away entirely. "I think you're doing yourself an injustice hanging around humans, though, Maclyn." She did her best to hide the tears that brimmed in her eyes; she didn't want to give him up. She really didn't. But it was for his own good. "Look for someone who exists in your own timeframe—who won't get old and die between two bli
nks of those gorgeous eyes of yours."

  She did her best to look brave and happy—but all she could manage was a smile as transparent and empty as a soap bubble on the wind.

  * * *

  Maclyn listened to her words and tried to find some hope or comfort in them. She looked so beautiful. Mac's gaze roamed from the curve of her ankle to the full swell of her breast, to the plainly-written pain in her eyes, and words surged from his lips before he could stop them. "You don't have to get old so fast. I could take you into Elfhame Outremer, Lianne. There, you would live at the pace of my years." He faltered, and further brilliant suggestions died in his throat.

  What in all the hells of the Unformed Planes had he said that for? Did he love her? Really, truly love her—as an equal and a companion with whom he could sustain interest for some significant span of his own long life? Was he infatuated with her humanness? Or was he—even less noble—burning with desire to fix the long-dead past?

  An unbidden memory of Allison—fair, dainty, dark-eyed Allison, two hundred years dust—choked his throat and stopped his tongue. To Allison he had said those same words, had begged her to let him stop time for her. Allison had refused him, had told him about her God and her Church and her Bible, about God's demand that only he had the right to count the measure of a man's life. At first he had argued with her—fruitlessly, and then he had stayed at her side, using what time she let him have, while she grew old quickly. Allison had not lived her life fully. She had spent her days railing at an unjust Deity who gave life unequally. He had watched her turn bitter, as she wrinkled and fattened and her tongue went acid. Suffered, as she studied him secretly from beneath her lashes, hoping some sign of age would scar him. Mourned, as eventually she hated him because it never did. Yet, often enough, even in the old woman, the young girl who loved an elven prince could be found. And in those moments, Maclyn had felt his heart ripped to tatters.

  He remembered Allison while he stared at Lianne, wondering at his motives, trying to guess what she hid inside her shielded thoughts.

  "That's a hell of an offer," the young teacher finally breathed. "What's the catch?"

  He shook his head. "I'm not certain. For Allison, it was her religion. She didn't think God would forgive her for thwarting death."

  Lianne grinned, a devilish, teeth-bared grimace that was half humor and half wry self-deprecation. "Not my problem." The strange smile vanished, and the woman rested both hands on his thigh and stared into his eyes. "Let me think about ramifications—especially what this would mean to the two of us. And give me a while, okay? I've got a kid in school who's in trouble, and that's left me with a lot on my mind."

  Mac heard only the first part of what she said and nodded. Then her last statement she'd made caught his attention. "What do you mean, `a kid in trouble'? You haven't said anything about it to me before, have you?"

  She frowned a moment. "Sort of. Do you remember Amanda—the little girl from the racetrack who wouldn't get out of the way of the explosion?" She looked at him, her eyes uncertain.

  Only too well. "I remember her."

  She grimaced. "Yeah. Probably you do. That was pretty bad. Well, I went to talk to her parents today. Something is very wrong there—I suspect abuse. I called Social Services and reported it, but the guy I talked to said that, since I don't have any hard evidence, he can't go out there to check on her."

  Chills ran along Maclyn's spine. "Abuse?" he asked in a voice gone ominously flat.

  Lianne must have heard the change in his tone and laughed without any humor. "That's how I feel, too. Every time I see something like this, I want to kill the people responsible. God, I wish I could prove she was being abused, to get that guy out there—but I'm on such thin ice. I've never seen any bruises, she's never said anything to me about it—although that's normal for abuse cases, actually—she doesn't miss a lot of school. It's just, her personality isn't right. Not right at all."

  What would happen, Mac wondered, if he told Lianne everything he knew about Amanda? Would she be able to believe in Amanda's magic?

  Why the hell not? he decided. She believed I was an elf easily enough.

  "I'm willing to bet Amanda is the reason everything in your classroom came to life on you the other day," he told her. "I know for a fact she is the reason nobody got seriously hurt at the racetrack."

  Lianne gave him a long, clinical look. "What—exactly—do you mean by that?"

  He licked his lips. "She does magic—controls inanimate objects. Makes them move."

  "Tele—um—telekinesis?" Lianne asked. "Moving things with her mind?"

  He nodded. "I think that's the term."

  Lianne's expression grew harried. "Aw, c'mon," she snarled. "I bought you as an elf. You don't want me to believe in that, too! Next you'll be insisting on the validity of Bigfoot, flying saucers, and the effectiveness of the two-party political system."

  Mac snorted. "No, I won't. I'll just want you to believe in your student. She's special—but she is hiding something. She wouldn't admit she could do magic."

  "Mac," Lianne replied as if she were talking to one of her students, ". . . maybe that's because she can't."

  "Sensible, logical theory—except that I saw her," he persisted stubbornly. "I watched—and sensed—her work her magic."

  "Ergo sum ergo," Lianne muttered. "It is, therefore it is."

  "Don't get grouchy. While she was looking at Keith's car, she kept it from exploding. As soon as you pulled her out of the way, it blew—but she was able to see it again at that point, and she controlled almost all of the shrapnel. I saw her. More than that, I sensed the flow of power."

  Lianne still looked skeptical, but Mac sensed she was weakening. "So what you're saying is that if I had left her alone, the car wouldn't have blown up at all?"

  Mac shrugged. "Who knows? I am saying that the SERRA drivers were lucky she was watching the race that day. Keith owes his life to her."

  "Great. Fine. She's a helpful little brownie. So why did she send everything in my classroom flying?" Lianne set her jaw stubbornly.

  Mac sighed. "I don't know. There are a lot of things about her that I don't know. But I think we can find some answers. Tomorrow—well, I'm racing tomorrow—why don't you come out and watch me? You can keep my mom company in the pits—"

  Lianne forgot about the child entirely. "Your mom?" she said, her jaw dropping.

  "Oh . . ." He smiled weakly. "I forgot to mention that, didn't I? Uh—D.D.'s my mother."

  Silence for a moment, while Lianne absorbed the information. Then—"She looks five years younger than me," Lianne wailed.

  Mac deemed it time to get the discussion back to more serious subjects—or, at least, subjects he could do something about. Getting D.D. to change her apparent age was not one of them. "Don't let it bother you. She looks at least that much younger than me. Anyway, after the race, we can all three go out to Amanda's house and poke around a little. We'll see if we can find out anything. D.D.'s been concerned, too, ever since the day of the accident."

  Lianne flung herself backward and down onto the bed and slapped herself dramatically on the forehead. "Gosh, what a brilliant idea! It becomes obvious why elves rule the world. Why didn't I think of that? I mean, why would Andrew or Merryl Kendrick ever notice two racecar-driving elves and their daughter's schoolteacher tromping around on their posted, private property, looking for magical mystery clues like something out of Scooby Doo—on a Saturday, no less, when they're probably home all day?" She scrunched her eyes closed in mock-agony.

  Mac formed his will into a familiar shape and draped that shape around himself. "I don't see the problem," he said.

  "You're kidding." Lianne opened her eyes to stare at him, then looked all around the room. She sat up, and her expression became more and more puzzled. "Mac?"

  "I'm right here," he said from the spot he'd occupied since the moment they both sat down.

  "I don't see you."

  He took the little "I'm not here" spell—pir
ated from a human mage named Tannim—off of himself, and smiled at her as her eyes went round. "And I don't see the problem."

  She sighed and flopped back again. "Maybe there isn't one."

  * * *

  Mel Tanbridge waited three hours beyond his absolute cut-off time, and still neither of the two calls he was expecting came. With growing disbelief, he acknowledged that they might never come.

  He was more than willing to accept the fact that either Stevens or Peterkin could be bought off, if enough sweeteners were added. He was not willing to admit that Belinda could buy them both off—not on the money he was paying her, and certainly not at the same time. He knew they weren't the brightest guys in the world, but he couldn't imagine them making the sort of world-class bumble that would alert her that they were both reporting to him on her activities, even if she realized that one of them was.

  And they didn't realize that he was paying each of them the same bonus to report on the other.

  So why hadn't at least one of them called in?

  The answer was fairly obvious.

  The three of them had captured Belinda's race-driver TK, and he was even better than anyone had hoped for. Belinda had seen dollar signs and had convinced Stevens and Peterkin that they could make a lot more money if they joined forces with her and kept their catch to sell to the highest bidder, instead of handing him over to the man who rightfully owned him.

  Mel considered that scenario from all angles. It was the only one that made sense. Considering the healthy mix of bribes, threats and terrorism he'd used on Belinda's two assistants, they should have stayed loyal under almost any circumstances. Therefore, Belinda must have convinced them she was coming into an unbelievable fortune to get them to double-cross him. For that matter, knowing what he had on her, she had to have convinced herself of the same thing, in order to forget how important it was for her to remain loyal.