“Very little,” Alassa said. “I merely made suggestions. I merely planted the odd seeds of doubt and determination. He was going to stop loving me and move on to the baby anyway, or maybe he would have decided that Aylia wasn’t such a disappointment after all. Why should I not have my father’s unreserved love?”
“If you took a long look at yourself, you might understand the reason why,” I said. I felt physically sick and only my iron determination kept me from vomiting. “He would have had enough love for all of you if you hadn’t interfered, you unnatural child…”
I stared at her. “Are you a changeling?”
“I don’t believe so,” Alassa said, with a sneer. I winced. That sort of disdain for the Faerie tended to attract attention. She just didn’t care. “When we perform the ritual, I will be more powerful than any mere Faerie Queen. I will be the Queen of the World and all will bow down before me.”
“If the ritual works,” I said. I didn’t want to talk to her for a moment longer, but I had no choice. I needed to know what was going to happen. “Which demon have you decided can be trusted to give you what you want in exchange for your sister’s life?”
Alassa gave me a completely sweet, completely fake smile. “A demon?” She said. “What was it that English wizard said? Ah…if there is any power in demonology, it lies with the demons. You can’t trust a demon to do anything, but betray you…
“We’ve found something better.”
“You’re mad,” I said. There was something deeply wrong about her – apart from the obvious, of course. Did she really mean every word she said, or was she merely the puppet of something else? The entity that had disrupted both Didi and Brother Andrew, perhaps, or was it too merely another puppet in the game? “Alassa, please listen to me…”
I paused, considering my arguments. “You don’t have to do this,” I said. She was wealthy and powerful enough to do whatever she liked. I tried to put that into words. “You’re powerful enough to do whatever you want to do, even in this world. You don’t need more power and you don’t need to take such risks…”
She slapped me. “You don’t understand,” she said. Her slap, somehow, hurt worse than her sisters. “Why should I not make my grab for supreme power? Why should I not gain the ability to reshape the world? Without my glamour, what am I? Nothing!”
“You’re mad,” I repeated. She didn’t sound sane any longer. It might explain her heightened level of power, but not her relative rationality. There was something else at work, something very dangerous. I could see it peeking out from behind her eyes. “What have you been dealing with?”
She gave me a sly little smile. “Wouldn’t you like to know?” She asked, standing up in one smooth motion. “The ritual begins in two hours. When it happens, you’ll have a perfect view, where you will witness my rise to power. And then…you will learn to respect me. I am going to change the world and then they will all love me.”
Her eyes glittered. “All of them.”
And then she was gone, leaving us alone.
I had failed.
Chapter Thirty-Two
Susan stopped. Of course someone would be that stupid. Some humans would do anything to see if it was possible to do it. If you put a large switch in some cave somewhere, with a sign on it saying "End-of-the-World Switch. PLEASE DO NOT TOUCH", the paint wouldn't even have time to dry.
-Terry Pratchett
I had been trying to rouse Aylia for nearly two hours – they’d left me my watch – when the guards returned to the cell. They might not have been under any compulsion, although with magic that couldn’t be guaranteed, but they were completely unresponsive to my words. They unchained me from the wall, picked me up and carried me gently into a small van. I’d seen vans like that before; ironically, they were normally used to transfer dangerous prisoners from one jail to another. The guards were clearly experienced in using the van. They had me chained up again before I could summon up enough magic to stop them. It just seemed to keep floating away from my mind.
Aylia walked after us, her face a dull picture of misery, her walk almost robotic. The binding on her might not be able to influence her mind, but as long as it was in place, she wouldn’t be able to break free. The situation was maddeningly frustrating. I could have broken her free in a moment, had I been able to summon even the merest whisper of magic. The guards were too careful to allow me a moment to catch my breath. Before I could do anything, they slammed the doors closed and left us alone in the sealed van. I would have bet good money that it was completely unmarked and unrecognisable from the outside.
“Aylia,” I hissed, not for the first time. She didn’t respond at all, although I was sure that she could hear me. It couldn’t have been pleasant to learn that her father and her sister intended to sacrifice her younger sister; she might even have been wondering if they intended to sacrifice her as well. It might have been possible, but I knew that a real sacrifice had to be willing, if only to wring the maximum amount of power out of it. “Aylia…please, can you hear me?”
The van rumbled to life and drove onwards, somewhere. I didn’t even know where we had started from – they could quite easily have moved us when we were completely out of it – and there was no point in trying to tell where we were going. Sherlock Holmes could have done it in his London, but nowhere else…and I was no Sherlock Holmes. The Great Detective would have made a terrible Guardian. I closed my eyes for a moment, trying to summon the power to even calm my headache, but nothing happened. The dull pain in the back of my head kept threatening to grow. They’d probably knocked me about while I was unconscious.
I leaned back, against the chains, and tried to think. What was Faye planning to do? His words had been so vague. He could have meant anything from dealing with the devil to working with the Faerie, although I doubted that they intended to help him unlock the innermost secrets of magic. Magic is part of their being. I’m not sure they understand it any more than most humans understand the innermost workings of their body. There was great power in sacrificing a child, but surely not enough to unlock so much power? They had to be doing something else, but what?
Aylia seemed to gasp slightly as the vehicle turned sharply around a corner. My imagination suggested police sharpshooters and Guardians waiting for us, but I knew better than to expect rescue. If Vincent Faye had held us this long, he had to have blocked off all possible ways to search for us, even my magic. Brother Andrew might manage to locate us, if Faye’s mysterious backer didn’t intervene again, but by the time Wilkinson worked up the courage to ask him, it would be too late. Cowboy might, if he heard about our disappearance in time, but how long would it be before the other Guardians were informed? There was no going around it. I’d fumbled and dropped the ball pretty quickly.
“It’s ok,” I lied. I don’t know if she heard me or not. They hadn’t bothered to chain her up, but then, they had her under a binding far more powerful than any amount of chains. It wouldn’t slip, either, as long as I couldn’t work up any magic. The laws governing a person’s name would see to that. Aylia had been incredibly short-sighted when she’d written that letter and signed it. “We’ll get out of this somehow.”
How? My mind asked. I didn’t bother to try to answer it. I had already tested the chains and found that they were strong enough to hold me. I’d once met a Marine Sergeant who had picked up a Bradley with one hand, but I wasn't anything like that strong…and even Master Sergeant Stalker would have had problems breaking out of the chains. I wasn't even sure why we were still alive, unless Faye wanted to gloat over our predicament or his own success. Either was quite possible with magic-users involved. Dear Vincent had probably not had anyone to gloat to for quite some time…
Except it seemed that he was a pawn of his daughter…and something else. I didn’t understand the relationship between Vincent and Alassa, but I was sure that she was the one in charge. Where the father had been hesitant and unwilling to think of the moral issues of sacrificing his own daught
er, Alassa had been willing to gloat to us…and freely admit that it was her work. It seemed quite easy to understand, except Alassa was showing an understanding of magic beyond anyone else, even the Guardians. Was she the naive pawn of something else? It wouldn’t be the first time that a magician who had thought themselves in charge had been cruelly disillusioned.
The van finally stopped after nearly an hour – I was counting – and the guards opened the doors. “They’re still here,” one of the guards said, dispassionately. I rolled my eyes. Where did he expect us to have gone? “Take them to the base camp and leave them there.”
I scowled at the guards as they unlocked me from the van’s seats – they were intended to provide secure transport, not comfort – and pushed me towards a dark entrance up ahead. We appeared to be in a cavern, deep under the earth, except I was sure that we were still at ground level. I had the impression – although I couldn’t have sworn as to how – that the entire area had been devastated in a firestorm. The only light was provided by a series of electric lamps someone had strung up, illuminating a series of caves that seemed to have formed out of the damp earth. It didn’t look very safe to me.
“Excuse me,” I said, to one of the guards. “Where are we?”
“You will be silent,” the guard hissed, and slapped me across the face. “Shut up!”
I felt the hot taste of blood in my mouth, but refused to allow him to cow me. “You don’t understand,” I said. “What your boss is doing here is incredibly dangerous and…”
“Quiet,” the guard snapped. He leaned close, so close I could smell the cheap alcohol on his breath. RAD had to be going downhill if this was the best muscle they could provide. “If you don’t shut up, we’ll have a bit of fun with the bitch, get it? Her Nibs has given us power over her. We can make her do anything.”
I shook my head inwardly and allowed them to push us onwards. I could hear what sounded like water far ahead…and then I could sense the taste of cold iron in the air. It seemed to tickle my tongue for a moment, before it faded away, to be replaced by something else, something utterly alien. I found myself wondering what kind of creature inhabited the caves, or what…
It struck me, suddenly. We were inside a Faerie Mound.
And that thought led to another.
“Leave them here,” the guard leader ordered, finally. We were inside yet another cave, one smaller and barely lit by a lamp. The guards pushed us down to the ground and left us there. They were being paranoid, yet I knew they had a point. A magician with free hands was very dangerous, even inside a Mound, although it didn’t feel quite right. If I hadn’t known better, I would have wondered if it were dead. “You, Guardian; stay here and you will come to no harm. Start wandering and you will die.”
I was tempted to make a snide remark about how far I could get with my arms and legs bound, but nothing came to mind. I sat back on the soft earth and tried to concentrate. We had one chance to escape and even as I cursed myself for missing it earlier, I concentrated on trying to use it.
“It won’t be long now,” a voice said. Alassa stood at the edge of the chamber. She was glowing with her glamour, like an angel slumming it in a realm of mortal men. I had never hated anyone, even a Faerie Queen, as much as I had hated her. I wanted to take her slim neck in my hands and snap it, just once. “So, where is the stone?”
She leaned forward and ran her hands over her sister in a crude parody of intimacy. A moment later, she located the Beauty Stone in one of Aylia’s pockets and reached for it. A second after that there was a flash of light and she was knocked over backwards. I saw, just for an instance, her real face before she veiled it again behind the glamour, but really…there was nothing bad about it. If she had been older, and perhaps wiser, I would certainly have noticed her. She didn’t need all the magic to make her look good.
“Ouch,” she said, angrily. The spite in her voice made me wince. “What happened?”
“It was a Faerie Gift,” I said, before she could give vent to her spite by kicking Aylia and hurting her. “It’s not safe to try to take it without her permission. It’s hers until she passes it on.”
Alassa glared at me. “Aylia,” she hissed, “give me the stone.”
Aylia didn’t move. “The binding won’t make her do anything willingly, just unwillingly, and it is in the nature of a Faerie Gift that it cannot be given away unwillingly,” I said, quickly. “Put the harshest compulsion spell on her you can, place her in a deep trace, threaten to burn down her library…and it won’t get you the stone. If you keep pushing at it, you may even attract the wrath of the Faerie. Do you really want that?”
“In an hour,” Alassa snapped, “the Faerie will no longer matter.” She stood up and cast a final disdainful look at the pair of us. “When I return, I will hold supreme power over this world, in exchange for my services.”
She turned and headed off into the darkness, which swallowed her up seconds later. I watched her go and then turned back to concentrating. I had hoped that the Beauty Stone would free Aylia, but it seemed to have done nothing, apart from defending itself against the would-be thief. It was likely to bring Aylia some trouble in the future – but then, if we failed to escape and stop the ritual, it probably wouldn’t matter. I had a nasty suspicion of just who was behind all this…and if it got loose into our world, the results would be apocalyptic.
Aylia had the Beauty Stone and I had the Faerie Weapon, the many-sided object the Faerie had allowed me to keep. I’d left it in my pocket in the shape of a pen, but it could be so much else, if only I could get it to work. I twisted and turned on the ground, rubbing my jeans against the ground, until everything had fallen out. The cold iron might interfere with my magic, but not my mind…and so I concentrated on the exact form I wanted as I triggered the weapon. A moment later, something sliced through my cuffs and freed me. I had come within millimetres of cutting my own body in half.
Thank you, God, I thought, almost collapsing back on top of the weapon. I picked it up carefully, rubbing my hands to restore some circulation, before removing the remains of the cuffs. The sudden wave of magic nearly caused me to collapse again; somehow, the cuffs had been storing my magic, preventing me from using it. If Vincent Faye had sold the technique, rather than keeping it for himself, he would have been rich enough to run for President. We would have sold our souls for a reliable way to prevent magic-users from using their powers.
“Aylia,” I whispered. Her body was still and unmoving, but when I put my hand on her forehead she felt feverish. “Aylia, I need you to wake up now. I need you to trust me.”
I concentrated. A binding was a subtle magic and had to be countered with equally subtle magics. I could kill her, quite by accident, and I knew it. I could build a shield for her, but that needed her trust and, like a rape victim, she would find it hard to trust anyone. I held her, probing gently with my magic into her head, and then I felt the binding snap. Aylia was free.
“Thank you,” she said. She was shaking, but with outrage, not with fear. I welcomed that. A person who felt like fighting back was far better off than one who allowed her suffering to defeat her. “What now?”
I wanted to suggest calling for help, but it was already too late. I could feel a tidal wave of magic brewing further into the dark caves. The ritual had to be disrupted, now. There was no time for anyone else to get here.
“We stop them, of course,” I said. The magic field seemed to be twisting oddly around the dead Mound, if indeed it was a Mound, but we could still use it. The Faerie Weapon became a sword fit for He-Man in my hand. “Aylia…if you want to go back.”
“No,” she said, firmly. She reached down and clutched the Beauty Stone in one hand. “They’re going to kill my sister. I’m not leaving you on your own.”
I kissed her forehead – she felt a lot better now that the binding had been broken – and led the way down the corridor. It should have been a nightmarish transition, but somehow we could see the way, despite the complete darkn
ess. Here and there, we saw an electric light, trying vainly to push back the shadows, but they had a living presence around them. The light was losing to the darkness. I had seen too much in the world of magic to take everything as I saw it, but even I wasn’t immune to the symbolism. The eternal battle against light and darkness…
We came out into a massive cave, larger than the largest swimming pool. At first, I thought that it was a swimming pool, or at least an internal lake, but it was dominated instead by a pool of darkness that seemed to stretch on forever, onwards to infinity. I stumbled and nearly fell. There was something about the dark pool that seemed to look deep into my very soul and pronounce it unworthy.
“It’s alive,” Aylia breathed. I couldn’t disagree. It was like looking at a skin cell…and then realising that there were skin cells on the skin cells, and so on ad infinitum. It was like looking at a creature so vast as to be so far beyond our comprehension that nothing we could do could ever make sense of it. I could feel its presence in the room, gazing down at us dispassionately, without even a hint of the very personal hatred of demons, or the contempt of Faerie. Whatever it was, it was very strange…
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