A Magic King (16 page)

But she'd started. She had to see it through. Even though her audience grated on her nerves, and she'd been fighting back a migraine by sheer willpower alone. Unfortunately, the only way she'd found to release tension was to fight with Daken over a silly servant boy who seemed as skittish at being in the spotlight as she was.

"Damn it, Daken! Just tell him!"

Biting back an oath that was no less vehement for being cut off, Daken apparently translated for the boy.

Steve nodded once, a slight tilt of his chin, then he gazed back at Jane, his pale, pale blue eyes suddenly wide and serious. In that one moment, she realized he understood. Not just his task, but that she was using him to release her frustrations, not to help him. His gaze told her that he not only understood, but he forgave her.

She felt her face burn a bright red as he turned back to the power strip and settled into his task, his small hand poised over the cabinet, ready to signal her if there was a problem.

She glanced at Daken who remained beside her, his face grim.

"I'm sorry, Daken," she murmured. "I'm going nuts here. This will never work, you won't fulfill your destiny, and now I've dragged a boy into this fiasco."

She felt Daken's hand, warm and comforting on her back, but his voice was no less hard despite the sweetness of his touch. "I came into this as an adult knowing the risks. There is no shame in that or in your failure." Daken paused, glancing sadly at Steve. "What you've done to the boy is between you and him."

Jane nodded. "Once this is over, I promise I'll make it up to him."

Daken squeezed her waist in a small proprietary gesture she hoped hadn't been noticed by their audience. "And you will not fail, Jane. It is your destiny."

She glanced back at him, surprised by his somber, almost reverent tone. "My destiny is to die a small-time computer hack and an old maid. With luck, maybe five people will attend my funeral, and that's counting my family. This," she gestured morosely at the small unit in front of her, "will be just another example of my ineptitude. When the men are separated from the boys, I'm usually left to tend the outhouse."

He turned to her, his head cocked to one side. "But you are a woman. Not a man or a boy." His gaze slid down her figure as though he were trying to reassure himself what he said was indeed true.

His shocked expression was so comical that she surprised herself with a loud bark of laughter. "It's just an expression, Daken. And I'm being overly dramatic." She turned back to the computer, took a deep breath, and steeled herself for whatever was about to happen. "Come on. It's time to rock and roll."

"To what?"

She didn't even look at him, knowing she'd start laughing again. "Another expression. It means it's time to get started."

"Oh. I understand. It refers to hunting, maybe with a rock. And rolling as in evasion."

"Yeah, that's right, Daken. It's a real manly, hunter's expression."

She hid her smile as she turned on the unit.

She had power. Good.

Then with her nerves stretched taut, she slipped the boot disk into the drive. Working perfectly, the process was silent. The drive used a tiny beam of light to read the thin silver disk. But if anything went wrong, she'd hear either the catch and grind of the machinery, or worse yet, smell the disk burning as the light turned into a laser beam that could fry cement.

She waited, all her senses trained on the drive unit.

Nothing.

Even the audience held its breath.

Bang bang bangbang!!

Steve slammed his hand against the cabinet, the metallic twang slicing her nerves like a cheese grater.

She reacted immediately, popping out the disk with a quick flick of her wrist, but the smell, that horrible smell, told her it was too late.

The hot silver disk she held in her hands was no longer silver. It was brown and ugly around a burnt metal gash down one side of the disk.

It was ruined.

Her only boot disk was completely destroyed. As were all her hopes for Daken and the answers about her own home.

Completely destroyed.

She lifted her head, looking around for a cause, knowing that given the condition of the equipment, almost anything could have done it. She glanced at Steve who pointed to the strip, now showing a steady nine LEDs. He ran his finger along the strip, showing her that the power level dropped to almost zero then spiked up to nearly fifteen before settling down again.

Jane blinked. The power flow had fluctuated not from the computer equipment, but from the light source. As if the light outdoors had dimmed then spiked. She looked to the window. The fireball still burned as brightly and evenly as before. But there was a man by the window, a tall black-haired man in a dark robe. His head was lifted, his chin tight, and his dark brown eyes held the unmistakable glint of challenge.

"What did you do?" Jane stepped forward, the burnt disk still clutched in her hand. "What did you do?"

Daken tried to block her. "He cannot understand you—"

"I understand her perfectly."

"Fine," spat Jane. "Then answer the question. What did you do?"

Everyone in the room tensed. Steve held out a restraining hand, but Jane shook it off, her body trembling with fury.

The man didn't move except to lift his chin a little higher so he could look down his strong Roman nose at her. "Do you know who I am?"

"I don't care if you're King of United Europe, I want to know what you did!"

"I am Kyree, Council Ruler of Wizards—"

"I don't give a damn." She crossed to the window, pointing to the fingerprints clearly revealed on the black panel. "Did you touch it? Maybe lifted it closer to the light?"

"It is my right to inspect all instruments of magic."

"Magic? It's a solar panel! Damn! Do you see what you did?" She waved the ruined disk in front of him. "Do you see? There's no other way into the computer. All of this," she made a sweeping gesture with her hand to indicate the building, the equipment, the elaborate prophesies handed down for generations. "Everything this building is and represents, all your people's hopes; everything is ruined! You've destroyed it all because you couldn't keep your stupid fingers where they belonged." She threw the disk at his face, watching it flash before his eyes before sliding to the dust on the floor.

"Perhaps," he said, his voice even, his tone condescending. "Perhaps you failed because you are not the true Keeper. And he," he glanced dismissively at Daken, "is the product of a mother's delirious ramblings."

"Look," she said, struggling to keep her voice from screeching out her hatred of the patronizing bureaucrat, "I can rebuild and rewire this entire computer with just a paperclip and a hairpin, but I can't make it go without that disk!"

"Then perhaps we should wait for someone who can."

"Why you obnoxious—"

You don't need the disk.

"—overstuffed—"

Jane. You don't need the disk.

"—preening vulture—"

Jane.

Finally the soft voice penetrated her anger, and she whirled around, anxious for another target. "And what would you know about it?" She squinted, barely making out a shadowy figure, barely discernable in the once bright room. It looked vaguely like a tall, pencil-thin man in a business suit standing beside the terminal. And oddest of all, the edges of his body seemed to shimmer with a faint electrical light.

"Who are you?"

You have power, equipment, and a working screen. You don't need the disk.

"Jane, who are you talking to?"

"Mr. Tall, Dark, and Shimmery. Right there."

She noticed Daken and the wizard Kyree scan the room, their gazes sliding right past the strange man, but the figure spoke again, drawing her attention.

The touch screen works. Bring up the monitor and use it to bypass the drives.

"Nice idea, but I don't know the security codes, and machine-level coding from a monitor was never my forte." Still, the thought lingered, and as her temper cooled, she began to think again. It didn't hurt that she'd finally found someone she could talk intelligently with about things she understood. True, the dark figure gave her the creeps, but at least he knew computers.

I can give you the codes.
He stepped toward her. Or rather, he seemed to glide toward her, bringing with him a chill that raised her hair on end.

She stepped back, nearly bumping into Kyree who swiftly scooted out of the way.

"Jane, there's no one there," said Daken from just off to her right. "Who are you talking to?"

"He's right there. Can't you see him?"

"No!"

The dark figure advanced further, its faint electrical charge crackling along her skin. Jane slipped back, coming flush with the wall. When she tried to slide away, the figure simply followed, slowly cornering her while her audience scrambled to get out of the way.

"Look," Jane said, her voice rising with fear. "Whoever you are—if you know the codes and can key in at machine level, be my guest. I was only here to help out anyway."

I can't do it. Only you can. And I've been waiting two centuries to help you.

He was right dead in front of her, the chill from his bizarre body seeping into her bones like dry ice freezing her body cell by cell. She was cramped into the corner, shrinking away from him in terror, but no matter how she moved he was there, stepping closer and closer.

"I don't care who or what you are. Just don't come any closer. Don't."

He reached out and pressed a palm into her shoulder. The gesture might have been reassuring except his touch was the icy cold of death. It ate into her like a chill wind, sliding between her muscles and creeping into her bones. Even the faint sizzle of energy she felt pop against her flesh didn't warm her.

She screamed. She vaguely saw Daken in front of her, bastard sword in hand as he sliced through the air, neatly cleaving the dark figure in two, in four.

But still the man came on, his body more and more indistinct, the crackle of energy louder in her ears as he insinuated himself into her very cells.

Her scream died in her throat, cut off as her larynx froze and the air in her lungs thickened to solid chunks.

* * *

Jane stood on an indistinct gray plane. Before her rose the dark figure, much clearer now, his sad face lined with the weight of ages.

She looked around. There was nothing, she realized. Not even a featureless plane. From somewhere within her she realized the place was a fabrication of her mind. This whole landscape was a creation to give her standard reference points as she communicated with the dark figure. Her body hadn't moved from its corner in the Op's room. Daken, Steve, and the members of the audience were probably milling about her at this very moment.

But she didn't see any of them. She only saw this featureless place and the dark figure.

"You're in my head, aren't you? This isn't real. It's just so we can talk. Without distractions." Her voice quivered with fear, but she got the words out, and that was all that mattered to her right now.

"You were always bright, Jane."

"Is this real or not?"

"And impatient."
A ghost of a smile flitted across his face.

"Who are you?"

"Don't you remember me? I didn't remember you at first."
His voice grew abstracted, as though they were chatting by a fire, and he about to launch into some tall tale or spooky ghost story.
"I don't remember much from before, but here with you now... It's all coming back to me. I remember you with startling clarity."

Anger slowly replaced Jane's fear. Bit by bit, the icy terror left her limbs as her frustration grew. Ever since that night in the library, her world had spun out of control. And here, in front of her, was just another example of the weirdness that filled her life.

And she hated him for it.

"Damn it! I asked you a question!"

The figure looked hurt. She didn't know how she saw the expression. He seemed the same dark figure as before, but somehow the lighting shifted so his face became more distinct.

"You're getting closer to my mind, aren't you? You're moving deeper into me. That's why I can see you better."

"I'm not here to hurt you, Jane."

"Get out of my head!"

"You don't want me to do that."

"Of course, I do!" She clenched her hands into fists, wanting to punch him right in the nose. Around her, the gray landscape became red and hot as her blood boiled within her.

"You wanted answers. Answers to what has been happening to you. I'm here to give them to you."

"You're here to drive me insane."

He smiled and shook his head.
"You're not crazy. Just confused. I can answer your questions, but only if you'll let me."

"Do I have a choice?"

"Of course, you do. You always do."