Smells Like Finn Spirit

by Randy Henderson

  He shouted a curse, and threw an arm up over his eyes, too late. Neither his increased mass nor his Elven Klein suit of Protection Against Magic stopped the chemical burn.

  I pushed to my feet, and limped after Dawn, my hip screaming in protest with every movement.

  We rushed at my best speed to the concrete columns. The enforcer continued cursing, and stomped after us, his stomps growing softer and quicker as he released his density spell.

  Maryhill Stonehenge had an outer ring of upright slabs, squared columns holding a ring of lintel stones. I directed Dawn ahead of me, and we passed through into the inside of the monument.

  Within the outer ring stood a number of slightly shorter slabs in a horseshoe pattern, and within their curve sat a rectangular altar stone.

  Above that altar stone now floated an eye-bending hole in reality, a portal to the Other Realm. And in front of the altar, all was chaos.

  A group of prisoners—or hostages—huddled in the watery glow of the portal, a dozen men and women old and young, all wearing the loose gray outfits of convicted exiles. I spotted Fatima in their midst, also dressed in the gray.

  Interesting fact: Back in the late 1970s, one exile had worn a T-shirt with an image of the Brady Bunch on it. When the Fey changeling took possession of the body, he was instantly offended. It turns out that a Fey from his Demesne had assumed the identity of Mr. Brady, treating his fellow Fey as his own children and offering continuous and often unsolicited advice. The resulting competition for his favor and wisdom sparked a bloody internecine war that the changeling’s Demesne had barely survived. Thus, the changeling thought that the ARC was mocking him, and demanded an immediate apology and compensation for the offense.

  So after Mr. Brady nearly started a global Fey-Arcana war, all exiles were required to wear the featureless, and supremely unflattering, gray uniform during the exchange.

  In addition to their bland gray garb, the prisoners also wore silver bracelets meant to inhibit their magic and prevent them from fleeing—and to prevent the incoming Fey changeling from using the portal to launch an attack.

  A battle raged now around the exiles and the shifting portal.

  Grandfather had squared off against Sammy on the far side of the exiles, his back to us. He stood between Sammy and the exiles, and as he moved, the exiles shifted to always remain behind him, compelled by the magical shackles. So Grandfather must be wearing the control bracelet.

  Sammy had a selfie-stick with a protection amulet attached to it extended in front of her, shielding her from Grandfather’s necromancy while minimizing her allergic reaction. But Grandfather had come prepared. He had two leather bands strapped around his calves and each had holster-slots for multiple wands. Between that and his black tactical outfit, he actually looked pretty badass, something I never thought I’d say about Grandfather. Of course he ruined the effect by wearing his pants pulled up way too high, and a black silk ascot stuck out at his throat. But fashionable or not, he held one of the wands now, looking for an opening to fire it at Sammy.

  Sammy used the concrete pillars for cover, dashing from column to column attempting to goad Grandfather into using the limited charges of his wands. The mixed success of this tactic was evident in the two scorch marks on the pillars, and the two on Sammy. She held her free hand against a nasty-looking burn on her side, and the selfie-stick wavered as she struggled to continue holding it upright. She wasn’t going to last much longer. On our side of the exiles, J battled Deputy Dolph, the six-foot-plus brute, who had apparently recovered from his short stint as a Fury’s host. If you had asked me whether a mundy could stand up to a wizard toe-to-toe, particularly an enforcer trained in combat magics and wearing a bulletproof suit, I would have said no way. And, it turned out, I would have been right.

  The fact that J was still alive and not a pile of messy ickness on the ground spoke well of his skills, or his dumb luck. But his situation did not look good. His duster was dust, and his shirt and jeans had been largely burned away, revealing strange white undergarments that I realized were Mormon underwear, at least the parts that weren’t blackened holes, which probably was not a sign that he believed in the religion itself but rather had donned them for the same reason as the amulets: just in case rumors about the underwear’s magical properties proved true.

  Several brass Thai penis amulets hung from a cord in front of his groin area, also meant to ward off harm aimed at his genitals. And tattoos peeked through the remains of his clothing. I saw what looked like a Key of Solomon, an Auryn, and a stylized black pair of Siouxsie Sioux eyes among them.

  This guy really was the Mikey of magical protection: he’d try anything. And none of it had stopped the enforcer’s magic.

  But to his credit, or perhaps his lack of sanity, J had not fled, and his magical undies were still white—at least, in the spots where they weren’t scorched. J stood now waving one of his silver sai daggers in one hand, and grasping at the collection of amulets around his neck with the other. The enforcer advanced, clearly unconcerned. In fact, I worried the enforcer might simply be toying with J at this point, like a cat with a three-legged mouse.

  Despite J’s surprisingly successful distraction of getting himself slowly toasted, the rescue of the sentenced arcana was not going well at all.

  “Come on,” I said to Dawn, and ran to the group of exiles, toward Fatima, steering well clear of the battle between J and Deputy Dolph.

  “But Sammy—!” Dawn said as she followed me.

  “I know.” I reached Fatima, without Grandfather noticing as far as I could tell, though my view of him was partially blocked by the rest of the exiles. The portal hummed and glowed behind and above me now, making me want to hunch my shoulders as if some Fey warrior was going to leap through it at my back.

  The portal was not the usual stable, oval window between worlds that I’d (unfortunately) seen several times in the past. Or at least, it didn’t remain one. Rather, it was stretching and shifting in shape, like a clear elastic sheet being tugged at by many hands; changing from an oval with a glowing blue edge one second, to a square with a red aura, to a rounded star shape with green glowing edges; cycling between them and other shapes as well; and the hum that resonated like a vibration in my spiritual bones shifted up or down in frequency with each change in shape.

  The shifting must be Merlin’s doing, as he attempted to find the right frequency to close the portal. The different shapes and frequencies served different purposes. The star shape and frequency could be used to cross physically into the Other Realm rather than transfer spirits, I knew. But locking it to that shape might not stop Grandfather’s plans; Merlin needed to close the portal entirely. Hopefully, we could hold out and keep Grandfather distracted long enough.

  Fatima looked between me and Dawn, confusion in her expression. “What is this? Who are you?”

  I felt a chill.

  “Damn it! We’re too late.” Fatima’s spirit had already been exchanged with a Fey changeling.

  “Finn!” Reggie said, pushing through the crowd to me.

  “Reggie! Thank the gods!” At least that part of my plan wasn’t completely hosed. I looked to Dawn. “Watch my back!”

  I pulled out my skeleton key. I pressed the enchanted thief’s finger bone against Reggie’s manacle. There was a soft click and a seam appeared in the silver band, but it remained on his wrist. I reached out to try and pry the damn thing apart, but there was a flash of red light, and a shock that caused me to jerk my hand back reflexively.

  “Ow! Damn it!”

  “What’s wrong?” Dawn asked.

  “The manacles have some kind of spell that repels magic, even the magic inside me.”

  “Oh, well …” Dawn reached over, and tugged at the manacle. It came apart, and fell to the ground. As my eyes rose from watching them fall, I saw that Density Dude had joined Dolph and knocked out J, and both Arcanite wizards now stalked toward us.

  Reggie rubbed at his wrist. “This was a dumb move.
But thank you.”

  “No problem, Gandalf,” I said, and handed him my extending baton as I moved to Fatima. “Get it? Because you’re in gray, and you’re a—”

  Reggie pushed past me and flicked the baton into full extension.

  Right.

  I turned to the next exile. “Who are you?” I asked.

  “Finn!” Grandfather shouted before I could judge whether the exile was friend or Fey. At the same time, Reggie engaged the two enforcers.

  The remaining exiles began shuffling and lurching as Grandfather maneuvered them away from me.

  I took a step to follow, to keep them between me and Grandfather, hoping to free more.

  Four more Arcanites shimmered into view squatting atop the concrete outer ring, invisibility masks dropped.

  I froze.

  *Aal’s balls.*

  “TRAP!” I shouted. The four Arcanites leaped down from the columns, hitting the gravel with grunts and small bursts of dust. I backed up with Dawn until my heel hit the altar stone.

  Grandfather had us.

  Reggie began to fight his way back toward us, but two of the new Arcanites advanced on him as the other two moved toward Dawn and me.

  The spiritual energy of the remaining human exiles called out to me, whispered promises of power, of escape. If I just took it, I would have the power to stop the enforcers, to stop Grandfather here and now. Their sacrifice would mean nobody else would suffer their fate.

  I licked my lips, reaching out with my necromancer senses—

  “Finn!” Dawn shouted, and grabbed my arm.

  Her spiritual energy burned bright, familiar, delicious as fresh baked cookies. I wanted to devour it. I turned to her—

  Her eyes were filled with fear.

  My heart lurched, ached to calm that fear, to protect her.

  I shuddered.

  “Reggie, get out of here!” I shouted. “Take Fatima!”

  I looked in the other direction. I met Sammy’s eyes, shook my head in the direction of Fatima, then motioned for Sammy to leave. I took Dawn’s hand.

  “Do you trust me?” I asked her.

  “Of course,” she said.

  I turned and faced the portal.

  “Phinaeus Gramaraye!” Grandfather called. “Don’t you dare!”

  I waited for the portal to shift and stretch into the star shape, and then plunged my hands into it.

  The portal grabbed hold of me, and pulled both me and Dawn into it faster than an episode of Twin Peaks.

  Grandfather’s shout of fury and frustration warped and faded as the world swirled away.

  PART II

  17

  COME AS YOU ARE

  Colors streaked, light bent, and my body felt like it was being squeezed out of a Play-Doh Fun Factory.

  Then the squeezing stopped and the weird pressure began. My head felt ready to implode and at the same time there was a kind of vacuum around me that sucked the air out of my lungs.

  The swirling colors and light resolved themselves into a forest of black trees as massive as those redwoods that have car tunnels cut through them, and each more gnarly than a Klingon sex tape. A black-light moon bathed it all in an eye-bending glow that made the umbrella-sized pale mushrooms shine neon bright, and made Dawn and me stand out like Tron rejects with the white stripes and patches on our clothing lit up.

  Dawn collapsed to the ground beside me, gasping.

  I was somewhat prepared for this—at least in the sense that as soon as it happened I remembered that this was something that would happen. I willed the environment around me to conform to my needs.

  The pressure around me lessened, and sweet, cool air rushed into my lungs.

  “Dawn!” I said, and extended my will to cover her as well. I felt the strain of it, to control so much of the environment. Dawn gasped in air.

  At the same time, I noticed that the sting of the many scrapes I’d gained on the rough gravel of the Stonehenge lot had faded considerably, perhaps because despite willing air in my lungs, there was no actual air to irritate my injuries.

  *NOOoo!* Alynon shouted in my head.

  Oh frak. Alynon.

  He was still trapped in my head.

  When I had traveled in spiritual form to the Other Realm last time, Alynon and I had been separated into our own Fey bodies, though still spiritually bound together in some way. One theory about how to permanently separate us had been to try traveling physically to the Other Realm to force a true separation. If I wasn’t in a Fey body, perhaps the link between us would be severed.

  Another hope crushed.

  Damn it! I’m so sorry. I didn’t want him in my head any more than he wanted to be there.

  *Save your apologies. They do less than little to change our situation.*

  Dawn sat up, and as she took a deep breath I felt again the strain of maintaining the reality of an atmosphere around her.

  “Dawn, you have to control the air around you with your will. Tell it to be what you need it to be.”

  “I need it to be hot and steamy,” Dawn said, pushing to her feet. “As in my shower, at home. I don’t suppose there’s an easy way to get out of here?”

  “I don’t know. But please, concentrate on the air. Believe that the air around you is normal, breathable.”

  Dawn frowned, but after a second I felt a lessening of the strain on my own will, of the weight of belief in a reality that extended beyond myself.

  “What happens if I stop thinking about it?” Dawn asked, her eyes unfocused as she concentrated on the air in front of her. “Or go to sleep?”

  “Once your brain makes the connection between willing there to be air you can breathe, and actually breathing, it will just take over, the way your lungs work without you having to will them to.”

  “How about instead of that we just go home?” Dawn asked.

  *No!* Alynon said. *Long have I fought to reach the Forest of Shadows, and now that we are here I will see my heart’s purpose realized!*

  Oh man. Alynon’s true love. I was fuzzy on the details, but apparently he’d been involved in some kind of Romeo and Juliet affair with someone from the Forest of Shadows.

  Aly, I’m not sure that’s going to be possible. If we are caught here—

  *I have watched you play matchmaker to every magical sob case rather than concentrating on freeing me. And now that my love needs only for us to reach out and secure it, you would deny me even the attempt?*

  “Finn?” Dawn asked, concern and annoyance both growing in her tone. “You do know how to get back, right?”

  “Uh—” I replied.

  Okay, so I may have been distracted working on a game map in Arcana school while the teacher talked about Corporeal Portal Traveling. Not that “corportaling” was discussed much at all, since it was pretty much forbidden. And because it usually led to snickering, as someone inevitably suggested what kind of sex act “corportaling” might be. But hopefully I wouldn’t have to figure it out on my own—the actual portaling, not the sex act worthy of the name, that is.

  “Not exactly,” I added.

  “Great,” she said, and hugged her guitar case.

  If only she knew how much better this was than the alternative. Not just the “being captured and killed” alternative, but the “Finn goes dark necromancer and drains the life from everyone” alternative. In fact, I heaved a huge sigh of relief as I realized that the constant tempting buzz of spiritual energy was gone now. We had come to an entire Other Realm devoid of earthly spirits, other than Dawn’s. Hers blazed like a lighthouse beacon to me now, but after being surrounded by crowds of humans and a world filled with life energy, her sole soul was less a temptation and more a reminder of why I loved her.

  “It will be okay,” I promised. “If we can find our way to the Silver Court, or the Colloquy—”

  Lines of purple energy sprang up around us like a cage, and solidified into nasty-looking black branches covered in thorns the size of a mutant cat’s attitude.

>   Holes opened up in several of the great trees like doorways to a Bauhaus laser show, filled with warped shadowy images painted in negative colors. From those doorways stepped four Shadows Fey.

  Behind us emerged a Viking in dark furs, bearing an axe. To our left emerged a knight in full black plate, and on our right emerged a medieval highwayman, wearing dark leathers and carrying a crossbow.

  And before us emerged a Greek warrior, with a bronze muscle cuirass on his chest, leather skirt, and greaves on his legs. A purple wool cloak swept down from his bare shoulders, and he carried a bow as tall as himself that looked more like something a giant would use than a man.

  Odysseus.

  Odysseus was a fictional character of course, but the Fey built much of their appearance and identity on memories taken from human visitors to the Other Realm. The Fey also apparently had little ability to tell the difference between fact and fiction. Or perhaps they just found the fictional more interesting. So if a fictional character lived in someone’s memory with enough richness and detail as to seem real, then memories of that character were just as likely to be used to create a Fey personality as real human memory.

  In fact, there were probably hundreds of Odysseuses running around the Other Realm, each unique depending on the particular version of Odysseus remembered, the mix of other memories each Fey had incorporated, and their own actual experiences. And not all would choose to dress or appear like Odysseus.

  This Odysseus approached from our front while the other three Fey kept a safe distance behind and to the sides of us. He held an arrow loosely nocked on the bow, and pointed it at Dawn. “Disarm!”

  “Okay okay!” Dawn said, and pulled the Taser from its holster, tossing it down.

  “Do not mock me,” Odysseus said, and motioned at her guitar case. “Disarm!”

  “He means Cotten,” I said. “Set her down.”

  “What?” Dawn said. “Listen, buddy—”

  Odysseus drew back his arrow with a great creaking of the bow.

  “Jeez, okay!” Dawn said, setting her guitar case gently down on the ground. “But if you damage her, we’re going to have a real problem.”