Spirits White as Lightning

by Mercedes Lackey

  Kory backed away from his downed foe and vaulted aboard his own 'steed, still in armor. Once in the saddle, he reached up to pluck the dart free of his armor and fling it away; the armor of his gauntlet sizzled and popped but protected his hand long enough to keep him from burning. Then he turned and sent Mach Five back down the steps, Beth and Bredana close behind.

  For a moment, it looked like they might make their escape. There was no sign of pursuit when they hit the street, and even the sight of a knight on horseback didn't draw more than a few glances—this was Las Vegas, after all, and the Excalibur Hotel was just up the Strip. They headed for the Tir-na-Og at a gallop, planning to cut around back and go in through the service entrance, where they'd attract less attention. Once inside the casino's spellshields, they should be able to go to ground and figure out just what it was that had been chasing them.

  In the parking lot, Kory morphed from armored Sidhe knight to Mundane in khakis and blazer, and Mach Five transformed from fiery charger to high-ticket bike as they accelerated toward the main road. No one was looking when he changed, and if they were, it wouldn't really matter. The two of them were already in enough trouble without worrying over whether or not they became an X-File.

  But as they reached the Strip, a shadow appeared between them and the sun. Beth looked up, over her shoulder.

  A large black limousine without any wheels was hovering over them, ready to follow them anywhere they went. As she watched, it shimmered and vanished, leaving behind nothing but a disturbance in the air like a heat mirage. It still cast a shadow, but that was a lot less noticeable than a flying bathtub cruising the noontide Strip.

  Beth felt her mind slowly and carefully boggle, a sensation not unlike having a lounge chair languidly collapse under you. She could believe in elven knights, dragons, winged fairies, unicorns, and magic castles without a single blink. But this flying car thing chasing them was straight out of Star Wars. It didn't seem possible—let alone real—and it might be able to do anything.

  We can't go back to the casino, she realized with a sinking feeling. We'd just be leading them right into the middle of Glitterhame Neversleeps—and these guys probably aren't all that picky about which elves they kidnap.

  Glancing to her side, she saw that Kory had come to the same conclusion. He pointed south—down the Strip, out of town. Beth nodded, glad that her dark turtleneck and blazer concealed the amount she was bleeding. He knew she was hurt, but the last thing she needed was for Kory to be worrying about her when he ought to be worrying about himself. And it wasn't a bad injury. More of a puncture wound, painful and annoying and messy, as if someone had driven a tenpenny nail into the fleshy part of her shoulder.

  The two elvensteeds accelerated down the road, weaving in and out of afternoon traffic with blithe disregard of local speed laws, but no matter how fast they went—and at the end of the first mile they were doing well over 100 mph—the flying car kept up with them (at least as far as Beth could judge from the coffin-shaped shadow that raced ahead along the ground). The two elvensteeds were invisible to ordinary traffic now—but no matter how they zigged and detoured, the vehicle paced them as though they were plainly visible. Beth very much wanted to talk to Kory, to ask him what he thought, but that would involve stopping, and the only thing that was keeping them even slightly safe at the moment was sheer speed.

  We can't hide, and we can't run. What does that leave?

  All they needed was a few seconds and a little privacy, and the elvensteeds could open a Portal that would take them back to the casino, but that assumed that the Men In Green couldn't follow that as well, and at the moment Beth thought that was too dangerous an assumption to make. The best thing to do—and undoubtedly Kory's plan—was to lose their pursuers entirely before doubling back.

  If they could.

  The airport flashed by in a blur of palm trees, and in a few seconds more they were on the open road. Even in November, the desert sun hammered down on blacktop and pale red rock, casting the harsh desert landscape into merciless relief.

  And still the shadow over their heads paced them.

  At the moment it began to seem that the contest would settle into one of sheer endurance, the hovercraft opened fire. Pale flashes of light wove a lattice in the air ahead of them, driving them off the road, herding them in a circle back the way they came—and undoubtedly into the arms of other pursuers. The elvensteeds exerted themselves to the utmost, reaching unimaginable speeds, but the hovercraft easily paced them, throwing up barriers of laser fire whenever the 'steeds tried to escape. That they wanted to capture, not kill, the two of them was clear—and frightening, especially since it seemed like only a matter of time until they got their wish. The elvensteeds were fast, and nimble, but doubly handicapped by having to care for their riders: sudden stops and changes of direction might fling Beth and Kory from their saddles, and Beth, injured as she was, couldn't hold on very well.

  Suddenly Mach Five wheeled around and turned back the way he'd come. Beth waited a moment for Bredana to follow—and was filled with sudden stricken fury when she didn't. Everything she tried was useless; the elvensteed would not obey her.

  "Kory! Damn you!"

  Unable to make her mount heed her, Beth flung herself from Bredana's seat. The elvensteed, sensing her intention, had barely enough time to bring herself to a stop, but Beth still bit the dust hard, sending a lance of pain through her shoulder. She staggered to her feet, growling deep in her throat. Kory and Mach Five were only a faint speck upon the horizon, the invisible hovercar somewhere above them.

  The elvensteed came up behind Beth timidly. Beth swung around and grabbed her by the handlebar with her good hand, shaking with rage. How dare Kory go off and sacrifice himself? How was she ever going to get him back once the MIGs had him? Didn't he understand that going off in this quixotic fashion didn't help?

  "Find him," she told Bredana in a low dangerous voice. "Find him now."

  * * *

  If he lived through this, he would certainly receive—and deserve—a severe scolding from Beth, Kory thought distractedly. A part of his mind was occupied with sorting the chaotic pictures Mach Five sent him of the terrain the elvensteed had covered on its run here; as much as possible, he wished to choose his ground for what he was about to try. Not for the first time, he wished he had more of his elders' skill in the Art, but Prince Korendil of the High Court of Elfhame Sun-Descending was only a Magus Minor; gifted with little more than the native skill in geasa and glamouries that were the birthright of all the Children of Danu. What he was minded to try now would tax the power of a great Adept, a Magus Major. But he could imagine no other solution to their problem. They must escape the flying car, and they could neither outrun it or hide from it. They dared not lead it back to the other elves, for he now realized that Beth had been right—the strange men in the green suits seemed to be hunting the Seleighe Sidhe, and doing it with tools that seemed near magical in effect, yet held nothing of the Art.

  That any sufficiently advanced technology was indistinguishable from magic was a favorite saying of Beth's, and right now Kory hoped desperately that she was right, and that what they were facing was an advanced technology. Because if it wasn't, his plan wouldn't work. And if it didn't work, he and Beth would be prisoners within the hour.

  He urged Mach Five to greater speed across the open desert, exulting inwardly when the flying car followed. Let them think he fled in blind panic, so long as they pursued him at the pace he set. And then he withdrew all his attention from his surroundings, to concentrate on the spell he must cast.

  Node Groves held Gates, semipermanent Portals between Underhill and the World Above that anchored the elfhames both in time and in space, and most of the traffic between the worlds used such Gates. Elvensteeds could, by their very nature, open a Portal anywhere at very little cost to themselves, but only for themselves and their riders. The Sidhe could open Portals away from the vicinity of a Gate and pass anything through them, but to ope
n such a Portal away from a Node and its anchoring Grove took both Art and Power—the more Cold Iron or inanimate mass involved, the more power it took.

  Beth said modern computers contained very little metal because they were so advanced. Kory only hoped that an invisible car that flew was even more advanced than the computers he had seen today, or the backlash from his spell would guarantee he would not have to concern himself with Beth's scolding.

  He closed his eyes and concentrated, making the shape of his intention clear in his mind. He drew on Mach Five's power as much as he dared, adding it to his own, though he well knew he could not take too much or his elvensteed would not be able to maintain the pace Kory had set. Desperation drove him—he would not think about the fact that his spells had been useless against the Man In Green before, he would not think about the fact that if he failed here he would be helpless, all his power spent. He concentrated, summoned up all his power, his will, his need . . .

  And opened a Portal directly in the path of the onrushing aircar.

  It hurtled through and vanished, the Portal closing behind it. Kory only had the strength to hold a Portal for seconds—he had needed to ensure that both he and his pursuer were going so fast that the aircar could neither stop nor turn aside. Mach Five staggered to a halt and stood, head hanging, sides heaving. Kory, drained and exhausted by that ultimate effort, slid from his 'steed's back to lie dazed and motionless beneath him in the desert sun.

  * * *

  Beth reached them a few moments later. She jumped from Bredana's saddle and staggered over to where Kory was groggily trying to sit up.

  "What happened?" Beth demanded. "Where are those guys that were following you? Are you all right?"

  "I don't know," Kory said, his voice blurry. "But I do not think they will be back for a while."

  * * *

  On the long—and considerably slower—return trip to Las Vegas, Kory explained what he had done. They were riding together on Bredana, leading the exhausted—but smug—Mach Five.

  "Perhaps it was not the safest course to take, nor yet the wisest, for now they are somewhere in Underhill with their vehicle and their weapons, but it was the only one I could think of, Beth, and I did not want you near me when I tried. It was possible that the backlash would have . . . So I wanted you out of the way before I tried anything."

  "If you ever scare me like that again, Kory, you'll wish they had gotten you," Beth promised feelingly. "But . . . how can we be sure you got all of them, or that they won't be back? Leaving aside the question of who they are in the first place."

  "I can't," Kory said somberly. "But if they last saw us fleeing into the desert, that is where they will seek us—and our vanished pursuers—and we may gain the sanctuary of Glitterhame Neversleeps unmolested. I think it is time to lay this whole matter before Prince Gelert and cry his aid. It is a greater peril than I have wit to solve."

  * * *

  Upon their return to the Tir-na-Og Casino, Beth and Kory immediately sought out their host, glad to discover that there was stabling for Otherworldly steeds as well as more conventional parking beneath the casino.

  Gerry Meredith was devastated to hear about the trouble they'd had at Comdex. "But lovely people, how hideous that something like this should have happened to you on your very first visit to our wonderful city! Certainly you must not stir a step from your rooms, and I assure you, we will all be supernaturally vigilant! Don't worry a hair on your pretty little heads about your shopping list—leave it entirely to me; I have oodles of entirely human employees just eating their heads off who would jump at the chance to go pick up some lovely computer equipment! We can have it brought here and transshipped to Misthold before you can say `Owain Glyndower,' never fear. And no one at all will suspect the fair hand of the Fair Folk in the matter."

  Their audience with Prince Gelert later that day was less encouraging.

  "Green men upon whom the magic cannot take hold, say you? This makes for ill hearing. One such came here yester'een—but he was following an Unseleighe lady, and we thought he had some private quarrel with the Dark Court. We are not so great a secret among mortalkind as some among us might hope—many mortals know of our existence, and not all of them have had good of our kind."

  "I don't think this is a private quarrel, Prince Gelert," Beth said carefully. "It seems more organized than that. What happened to the young man who came here?"

  Looking around the Prince's rooms, Beth was pretty sure whose taste was reflected in the decor of her own suite and the rest of the casino—but here there was no need to even pretend that the suite's trappings were such items as might be found in the normal everyday human world, and the whole effect was like the inside of a jackdaw's jewelry box.

  "Ah, my Rhydderich set a glamourie on him, casting from his mind all that had befallen him that day, and sent him back to his own place. At the time we thought no more of it."

  Prince Gelert frowned, pondering the matter. The Seleighe lord was what Beth would have to call "thoroughly acculturated"; even here in his private penthouse suite, while discharging his princely duties, he wore Earthly garb—though the double-breasted suit in pale mauve silk (with matching tie) was a bit on the flamboyant side. Only his speech patterns betrayed any hint of his true age; fascinated as they were by novelty, the Sidhe were as prone as anyone else to gravitate naturally to the styles and fashions learned when they first became adults. And if your adulthood lasted several centuries, a certain amount of cultural jet lag was bound to set in. . . .

  "Have we enemies, my Rhydderich? And of ourselves, or of the hame, or of the Sidhe in general?" Gelert asked.

  The casino's security chief—and head of Gelert's personal guard—bowed his head. "I know not, my Prince—and the fault is mine for letting my prisoner go so lightly!"

  "You acted under my orders," Gelert said kindly, excusing the fault. "We wish no trouble with mortalkind, no matter how they come to discover our true nature, and you had little reason to think he was not alone. You acted wisely—I do confess, I would like to know more of these enemies before I do face them."

  "Maybe you could see if any of the other hames have been attacked," Beth suggested cautiously. "Or see if anyone looking suspicious and wearing green has been hanging around them."

  Or if a lot of elves are all of a sudden going missing, she thought and did not say. What did they want with Kory and the other elves, anyway? She wished she knew—but not at the price of ever seeing those green-clad whackos again.

  Gelert sighed heavily. "We must warn our Underhill guests of what it is that may stalk them while here in our city, and I fear that too many of them will regard it as a chance for great sport. Meanwhile, I shall send word to my brother princes of all that has befallen us here, and I am sure your lord will have his own questions for you when you return home, Prince Korendil. Be easy in your mind that we shall do all that we may to see that your mission here is accomplished as you would have it, and that your visit here is troubled no further."

  He looked sorrowful and proud, a combination that clashed oddly with his dress and his surroundings, but after so much time among the Sidhe, Beth barely noticed the incongruity. Now that they had warned the Prince about the trouble in his own backyard, she was anxious to finish their business here and return to the safety of Underhill. Not even the prospect of delivering the computer system to Chinthliss and achieving the solution to her quest could comfort her at the thought of what had nearly happened today. Though the chase had come to naught, the terror had awakened old ghosts, and Beth dreaded the thought of sleeping tonight.

  * * *

  Three days later, Beth and Kory stood once more before the gates to Chinthliss' palace.

  After a long night of unbroken nightmares, Kory had demanded that Beth return to Elfhame Misthold without him. He had followed the next day, driving a wagon drawn by two affronted elvensteeds that was piled high with the booty from Comdex. Computer, printer, monitor, software, batteries—and the Faraday Cage t
hat would make it all run in Chinthliss' Underhill domain.

  The Gate opened as they approached, and once more they found themselves within the dragon lord's great hall. Chinthliss was there to greet them himself, regarding the cart's contents with ill-concealed eagerness.

  "We have brought all that you asked," Kory said, bowing.

  "Excellent," Chinthliss purred, rubbing his hands together in glee.

  "If you've got a room with an, um, skylight," Beth said, "that would be the best place for it. It's set up to run off batteries and solar cells, and it has a wireless connection for your Internet link." Though where you're going to dial in to, and how, I'm not sure I want to know.

  Chinthliss snapped his fingers, and servants appeared to unload the cart and carry away the boxes. Unlike the flowerlike geisha Beth had seen on her last visit, these servants were burly, bald, and half-naked—picture-perfect dacoits from the pages of an old penny dreadful.

  "All is in readiness. Perhaps you would like to see it assembled? I have asked my son to see to that trivial and insignificant detail."

  Son? Beth wondered, as she and Kory followed the dragon.

  * * *

  The room Chinthliss had chosen for the computer looked as if it had started life as a Victorian greenhouse. The walls and ceiling were made up of hundreds of panes of leaded glass, and jasmine trees in colorful porcelain pots ringed the walls. A large mahogany table stood in the center of the room, awaiting the computer.

  By the time Beth and Kory reached it, the servants had already gotten most of the equipment unpacked. A young man in jeans and a T-shirt stood surveying the mess; Beth was surprised to recognize the black-haired race-car driver from the photo in Chinthliss' study.

  "My son, Tannim. Tannim, this is Prince Korendil and the lady Beth Kentraine. They have come to use my library."

  "And paid handsomely for the privilege," the young man said, grinning. "Hi. I'm Tannim, from Fairgrove." He held out his hand. Fox had said Tannim was a friend of Chinthliss', but the dragon called the young man his son. Which is true? Beth wondered. Both?