“They understand now, ” agreed Charles pointedly. “But what happens in a little while when the effects wear off and they remember everything except the reasons why they did it? They’re going to be telling their parents they gave their car away to some kids who made them smell a leaf. And what do they say then?”
“They’ll make up some reasonable explanation, the way the police did last year for not arresting us,” said Janie crossly. “They’ll fill in the blanks in their memory with something that makes sense to them.”
“What I’m worried about is that’s just about the last of the Worldleaf,” said Alys, peering at the single tiny sprig left in the baggie. “I didn’t tell you to use that on them.”
“I suppose you’d rather I said three magic words and changed them both into ring-tailed lemurs,” shouted Janie furiously, snatching the plastic bag back. “Shazam! Ka-blooey! Morrow Krinkle Frazetta!” She made arcane stabbing motions at the Bascombs with stiff fingers.
“All right,” said Alys, herding her into the Beamer. It was something of a comfort to have the old unreasonable Janie back again, even if she did go on shouting invocations all the way down the street. Bliss and Brent waved good-bye rather vaguely, from the front seat of the Swinger, until they were out of sight.
THIRTEEN
The Wild Hunt
It had turned into the perfect afternoon for riding in a convertible. Alys’s straight fair hair flew back in the wind and Janie’s wild black tangles grew wilder and more tangled. Charles, who was directly behind her, kept spitting bits of hair out as he grinned from side to side at everyone on the freeway. The only one who wasn’t enjoying it was Benjamin. He trembled and stared wildly, pink nose quivering. Claudia stroked him and whispered to him, but it didn’t seem to help much.
“North where?” Alys shouted to Janie over a wind that roared like a vacuum cleaner.
“Just north for now,” Janie shouted back, the road map flapping in her face. “Stay on Highway 5 until we get through Los Angeles. Then we’ll reconnoiter.”
Reconnoitering consisted of lunch, some odd manipulations with the shivering Benjamin, and the production, finally, of a round beveled shaving mirror which Janie held flat in her lap. It was not one of Morgana’s magical mirrors; they had all been broken last year at the winter solstice. It was just a good reflective surface for a visioning circle.
“He says he thinks he feels something, but he’s not sure,” reported Claudia after conferring with the rabbit. “He’s nervous. And—well, he’s not as smart as I thought,” she added in a low voice to the others, wincing. “He doesn’t have words for a lot of things.”
“Might as well have used a chicken,” muttered Janie. “But he does sense something almost due west of here?” she added aloud, ignoring Claudia’s glare. “That’s what I’m getting. It’s far away—seventy miles or eighty miles at least, right around Santa Barbara. But it’s a definite hot spot.” Her breath clouded the already cloudy surface of the mirror, where a livid green blob sat in a spider web of pale lines on a coppery background.
“Yes,” said Claudia stiffly. “He says it feels like magic.”
“But whose magic?” said Alys. “I got the impression that Morgana was going farther north than that. Can we be sure it’s her?”
Janie sighed as the visioning circle cleared. “Not with this,” she said. “I’m much too far away to get a fix. Even close in, I probably couldn’t hook into it without first knowing what it was. The circle’s not meant for spying; it’s for personal communication between friends.”
“Thia Pendriel showed us pictures of Alys and Charles in the fountain behind Fell Andred,” Claudia pointed out.
“Yes, and Thia Pendriel’s lifestudy has been bringing far-distant scenes to light. In other words, she’s a master at it; not just visioning circles but spheres and camera obscura in general.” Janie’s voice trailed off and she looked thoughtful. “I wonder …” she said. “Do you know, I almost think I could do it.”
“Do what?”
“Use the visioning sphere. I’ve never done it before, but I know the theory.” With sudden animation she dived into the backpack.
“You brought that?” said Alys, drawing back in exactly the same way she had when Claudia had casually pulled a king snake out of her lunch box one morning at breakfast. “Why?” The last time she had seen that nest of wires it had been supporting a glowing green sphere, with a face in it. … An instant’s memory flicked across her consciousness and she saw the face again, then it was gone. “That thing is dangerous,” she said finally, recovering herself. Though she could not explain it, she felt the conviction of her words.
“It’s powerful,” said Janie mildly. “But I think I can handle it. Of course, if that hot spot turns out to be Thia Pendriel instead of Morgana, she might detect us through the sphere. But I think it’s worth the risk.”
“And I think it’s not. Not when we can cut over west and take Highway 101 to Santa Barbara. Then we can see for ourselves. If the hot spot is Morgana there must be a safer way to communicate with her. And if it’s Thia Pendriel we can get away before she knows we’re around.”
Janie shook her head impatiently. Her eyes were still blazing violet. “But this will save us time. If I use it and discover that it’s not Morgana, that it’s something dangerous—”
“—then we may have told something dangerous exactly where we are.” Alys knew some of her fear of the visioning sphere might be irrational, but she didn’t care. She hated the thing. She cut off Janie’s Madame Curie look with a glare. “I am not going to sacrifice the four of us just because enquiring minds want to know, Janie. This is not an experimental condition.”
“But—”
“No!”
Charles and Claudia looked at each other resignedly and each took another sandwich. They were used to sitting on the sidelines during endless domestic debates. But now Janie, instead of arguing, plunged her hand into the backpack again, drawing out a small shiny globe with something green and fluttering inside. She stood and placed the nest of wires on a rock.
“Janie, put that down.”
Janie set the little globe above the wires, where it bobbed like an egg in water, not quite touching them.
“Janie, I mean it. Now!”
Janie ignored this. She rubbed Benjamin’s fur briskly before Claudia could snatch him away, causing it to stand on end. With her other hand she took the virtue wand and held it to the wire nest.
“You asked for it!” said Alys. She grabbed Janie by the windbreaker. Janie shook herself free and put out a furious hand to steady the wire nest. Alys spun her neatly around by the arm and punched her in the stomach.
The air came out of Janie’s lungs in a surprised grunt. She sat down hard and stayed there, looking at up at Alys stupidly.
Charles and Claudia were looking, too, frozen in midbite. They had never in their lives seen Alys hit anybody.
Breathing hard, she stared back at each of them in turn, Janie last. “All right,” she said, her throat sounding clogged. “Get up. We’ve got to drive.”
Janie simply sat looking at her almost blankly. Her hand was still wrapped around the virtue wand, and for a moment Alys felt a shudder down her backbone, as if her fur had been rubbed the wrong way. Janie held her gaze for another minute; then, so deliberately that it was a purposeful act, looked away and began to gather up the sorcerous implements which had scattered. In silence the others followed her lead. Charles helped her up and opened the door for her, then sat down beside her in the backseat. Claudia, who had been clamoring to sit up front, climbed in with the rabbit pressed to her chest. She did not look at Alys. Neither did the others.
Face feeling stiff and sore, Alys got behind the wheel and began to drive west. The sword, which she had placed crosswise between the front seats, bumped her knee gently.
*
Alys had never known what it was like to have all three of the others against her. She thought, as she stared sightlessly thr
ough the windshield, steering automatically and much more competently than she ever had during driver’s ed class, that Janie must have had this feeling often, especially in the old days. She wondered how she had stood it.
The coastal highway to Santa Barbara would have been scenic, but a low fog was flowing down between the hills like the vapors from dry ice. Through the fog shone the setting sun, creating a strange halo of enormous diameter around itself.
At last Alys got off on a narrow side road which commanded a reasonable view of the towns of Goleta and Santa Barbara below. Alys had been here once before, visiting a cousin at the University of California there. It looked different now, isolated points of light in a sea of mist. She took a deep breath.
“Janie. Can you do something with that mirror to give us a general idea where to go? Something even Thia Pendriel, if it is Thia Pendriel, can’t possibly tap in on?”
There was a pause. When Janie replied it was in as cold a voice as Alys had ever heard. “I can try. Is that what you want?”
It was, only she wanted Janie to argue and explain and suggest ideas instead of receiving her orders like a junior officer. She nodded jerkily.
She heard the whisper of a backpack zipper and the resonant ring of glass. Claudia leaned over the backseat to contribute the bunny.
“Don’t pull his ears,” she whispered. “He doesn’t like it when you pull his ears.”
Alys sat and gazed into the sun. Through the fog it shone as dull a red as Cadal Forge’s Red Staff. Around it the halo looked as fixed and immovable as the rings around Saturn.
“It’s near dark,” said Janie from behind her. “And I’m not at all sure what I’m picking up. It’s not a single point, it’s a diffuse cluster of sorcerous power scattered around the campus itself.”
“Could Morgana be part of it?”
“Possibly,” said Janie with deadly quiet.
“We’d better go see, then.” Without waiting for discussion from the others, she put the car in gear.
Her head was throbbing by the time she cruised onto the campus, paying a parking fee to drive onto a snaky road that dead-ended against a lake. To her right faint lights shone in the windows of a series of low-slung buildings. To her left was the ocean.
“So where is it?” she said, knowing perfectly well that she sounded belligerent. She felt belligerent.
“You’re sitting in the middle of it,” said Janie in deliberately level tones. “There are hot spots all around you. A very big one at three o’clock.”
Three o’clock was in the midst of the low buildings. Alys swiveled around to address the two in the backseat. “I’m going to try to get a look at whatever it is,” she said. “You will all stay here.”
“Wrong,” said Charles. “I mutiny.”
“Shut up,” said Janie to Charles.
“What?”
Janie glared at him. “Someone’s got to be in charge, you idiot. You certainly can’t do it, so she might as well. You’re only making more trouble.”
Charles got out of the car by the simple expedient of slamming a hand on the door and vaulting over. “You two deserve each other,” he shouted. “And I am hitching a ride home!” He stalked away, due east.
Claudia sat gulping and rocking Benjamin. She began to snivel.
“Oh, stop it!” said Alys in a suppressed scream. “All right. All right. I’ll go after him.”
“And what,” said Janie, in a terrifying voice, “do you expect us to do while you’re doing it?”
“Stay here,” Alys said with a kind of choked hysteria.
They stared at each other, eyelash to eyelash, a long moment. Then Janie pulled back and nodded compliance.
Claudia watched Alys’s tawny head as it moved away between the buildings by the lake, then turned to look at Janie, who was staring into the mist as if she could bore holes in it. Her nerve crumbled. A great wail rose in her chest.
“I want to go home, ” she bawled, flinging the door open and stumbling down the path after Alys.
Janie swore, softly but decisively, and followed.
*
Charles had reached the first of the low-slung buildings as the mist closed in. It floated over the lake like dragon’s breath and combined with the twilight to twist ordinary shapes into fantastic edifices. He had to order his feet to come to a stop before he could pull up. What was he doing, anyway? Sure, Alys was being unbearably bossy, but Alys was always unbearably bossy. Just as Janie was always doing six impossible things when you least expected them. Exasperating, but nothing to lose your head over.
And now. Mist and trees. Woods, almost. Everywhere. He turned in his tracks, with a terrible feeling of deja vu. The last time he had been alone in a misty, twilit forest …
A shape reared out of the mist behind him and he almost yelled. It was a wild girl, all right, but not the kind with budding horns and eyes that threw moonlight back at you. It was Alys.
All his former truculence returned in a second. “Go on! Want to hit me, too? Take your best shot!” He crouched.
“Oh, have you gone crazy?” she said, seizing him by the elbows and shaking him. He aimed a punch at her and she fended it off easily with her forearm. “Stop it, blast it, or I will hit you! Are you nuts?”
He tried to jerk away from her. “Let go of me or you’ll see just how nuts!” he shouted, utterly reckless of the consequences. They wrestled briefly and unproductively. Charles got a hand free and was just about to see if he really did know what a right hook was when something sailed over their heads.
Both their breaths came out in a whistle and they froze, locked together and staring. The something landed in front of them and turned swiftly and they saw it was a stag. A ten-point buck if I’ve ever seen one, thought Charles dazedly. A man was on its back.
There were other animals around them, in the mist. Some were more or less like horses; most weren’t. All had riders clad in a silver-green almost the exact color of young birch leaves. At their feet lean hounds crouched, looking eager.
A strangled sound from the path directly to their rear heralded the presence of Janie and Claudia. They were clinging together, exactly, Charles observed, as he and Alys were now doing.
The man on the stag gave a slight tilt of his head and animals surged up around the two lagging girls, herding the four children together. The man’s pale face was beautiful and utterly remote, and silver light reflected from his eyes. Far off, a hunting horn sounded, not two or three notes but up and down a whole scale of melody. It was the loveliest and most chilling sound the human children had ever heard. It awakened in them a -primal instinct to run.
“No, don’t,” gasped Janie, clutching at Charles’s arm. “Whatever you do, for pity’s sake, don’t run. It’s the Wild Hunt.”
Charles painfully unclenched a handful of Alys’s sweater. “What do we do, then?” he said, getting out each word separately.
“Walk,” said Janie. Her own voice was shaking and she took a moment, visibly, to compose herself. “Just—walk. Don’t look at them. Just—slowly—walk away.”
“I’ll go first.” Alys spoke in a bare breath of a whisper, but her voice was steady.
“No! Charles goes first. Don’t argue.”
Charles did not really want to know why. He began to shuffle down the path, eyes averted from the shining figures all around, his sisters moving in a huddle behind him. The horses-or-whatever shied and pranced as he went by, and the dogs bared their teeth, but all let him pass. He could feel pale eyes on him, waiting for him to break and run.
Sweat was running down his forehead by the time they cleared the trees. Distantly, he could hear shouting and shrieking, and also musical cries that came from no human throat. As he stepped off the gravel path onto concrete he saw what he first assumed were swoon spots before his eyes.
He blinked and the spots remained. Pale green moths, circling beneath a street lamp. And at the foot of the lamp was a slim figure clad in white, talking to a man sitting on the grou
nd.
Charles was already going in that direction, and he was not at all sure the ghostly riders would let him diverge anyway, so he kept on walking until he drew abreast of the pair. The seated man wore wire-rimmed glasses and a dazed expression. The slim girl was Elwyn.
She was wearing an oversized T-shirt which hung almost to her knees, and that was all she was wearing, unless you counted the little bell around her ankle. Her hair flooded in a tide of impossible radiance down her back, and her eyes were blue as gems in her delicate face. Charles’s tongue stuck to the roof of his mouth.
“And we do dance so beneath the stars,” Elwyn was saying in a candid, conversational tone to the seated man, absolutely oblivious to the rest of them. “In a fairy ring, by moon at midnight.” The man, who looked irresistibly like an ancient-history professor, nodded slowly as if he found this unsurprising. “Of course, we then cast off all our clothes,” Elwyn continued, “and run wild among fires in the woodland. Shall I show you how we do that?”
The man in the wire-rimmed glasses looked intensely wistful. “No,” he said, after a moment, with an apologetic glance at the four mortal children behind Elwyn. He took off his glasses and began to polish them, clearing his throat in a dazed sort of way.
Alys, who had never got along with Elwyn Silverhair, jabbed Charles hard in the shoulder blade. “Say something!”
Charles looked at her, then at the straggly-moustached man, who smiled faintly at him as if he were a brother, and finally at Elwyn. He cleared his own throat.
“Uh,” he said. “Hello.”
The girl with hair like moonlight and starlight turned to him blankly. The scholarly man put his glasses back on over somewhat watery blue eyes, and stood. “Good-bye, my dear,” he said. “Thank you for showing me your dance. I’ll never forget it. I—I live with my mother, you see.” And he walked slowly back the way the Hodges-Bradleys had come, blinking bemusedly, not seeming to see the riders on either side of him.
Heart of Valor - V1 Dec 2004 Page 12