Keeping It Real (32 page)

got the impression Aradon no longer possessed an
andalune,
but without necromancy that
was not

possible
.

'Many of your co-conspirators have talked a great deal, Suha,' Arie said to Zal. 'Even of your

ridiculous plan to prove the nature of every person in the realms as equal. But they have been unable to

tell your name, and finally I believe that none of them know it'

'Help him,' Zal said, pointing at Aradon
.
He tried to make eye contact with the people nearest him but

they refused
.
They stared through him or past him
.
'What's the matter with you all?'

He had thought that after all he had been through there could be no more things able to terrify him and

he was right. He was not scared. But he had never imagined he could find himself so disgusted with his

own

kind
.
He'd never really believed they could become like this. And here, look. They were. Their outward

silence said it all.

Zal tried to push past the guard. He was held back by two of them. Their bone gauntlets dug into his

arms. He reached beyond them. His
andalune
was different
to theirs, and they were not
keen to touch it

now, tainted with demon aether, but he could not reach Aradon anyway. There was no more to him than

flesh and bone.

'Tell me your name and we will restore him,' Arie said. 'And all those presently under arrest
will be

released to pleasant confinement in a civilised place.'

Zal looked at Aradon's swollen face, all but unrecognisable, at his hands and their bloodied nails.

Everything he had ever known about elves, humans, faeries, demons and their machinations in the

com-plicated world of politics and power ran through his mind in a clinical stream. His name was all he

had.

'After him how many more will there be?' he asked.

'All of them,' Arie said. 'But
not
you. There are other tasks you must do. Either you will do them as our

loyal bound servant
or we use your blood to access the hidden well of aether . . .'

'It
is no well!' Zal shouted at her, unable to restrain his anger, aware that
it
only made him worse in their

eyes. 'Fifty years ago we researched every possibility that
the leaks from this lake may be some free

source of aetheric energy and the conclusion from elf and demon alike is that
it
can only be some faultline

or weakness in the realm that
gives onto nothing but
the Interstitial. The aether coming in is wild but the

lake moulds it
by the time it
reaches the surface so it
seems like it's Sathanor energy
.
It
requires some reinforcement not
weakening with your efforts to mine it.'

'We have found a way to cap the well,' Arie said. T am confident. It
is expensive but
it
will be worth

it. And this is not
your concern. You have your friends to think of, Suha. Your loyal brothers and sisters

surely have much more knowledge they have garnered and hidden against us. It can be left to them and

they to themselves if you are willing to surrender to us. Come, we are not partial to witnessing this pain

and you delay its end.'

"The energy will make you invincible,' Zal said quietly to her. It was true. He was sure it
was her

major motive, but
she would not
think so.

Zal made himself look at Aradon again. He had no aetheric presence, as if he was already dead.

Jf 'He will stay alive this way, beyond light and shadow, unable to connect to the
andalune,
for the rest

of his life unless you surrender
.
They all will. Of all people you will know what this is like and it will

be even less than the pitiful contact
you are still able to make with us. Communion will be only a

memory
.
The spirit is dead.'

Zal lifted his head and looked at Arte. He didn't know how Aradon had suffered or what had

been allowed to tear out his spirit; maybe it was some captive Saaqaa. It
was not
important. All that

Aradon was proof of was that
Arie was beyond any kind of appeal to mercy. He could tell that the

sight of Aradon revolted Arie, it hurt her and she loathed it, but she was able to master her natural

impulses, she was able to ignore them completely
.
For her there was a greater good and in the

service of that good she was immaculate
.
The horror, and her own ability to withstand it, only

increased her conviction
.

The room's silent
agony stretched out. Zal made it
stretch longer.

He studied every empty seat
in turn and thought
of all the others, not knowing if this was a bluff of

hers or if the entire project to prevent Alfheim's decline into tyranny was over because every person

involved had been cut down.

He could end Aradon's suffering himself, he knew. But if he showed his demon power then Arie

would ward against
it and any use it might be later, if there was a later, if there was a chance to get

out
- and there was no chance here - would be lost.

He turned his back on Aradon and gave his head the smallest
shake -no.

'Very well,' she said. 'As you wish.'

Lila, wearing Tath's boots now, was glad to run as soon as a safe hour came with dawn. She asked Dar

where he thought Zal was, how far it was, how long it would take to get there, what they could do... He

just shrugged and said they must run. She thought about Tath but
whenever that
happened she ruthlessly

directed her thoughts somewhere else.

To prevent
herself dwelling on unwelcome feelings, and with the presence of Dr Williams consistently

appearing in her mind like a vengeful ghost, she concentrated on learning and copying Dar's style of

motion
.
He ran on the ball of his foot and leapt with catlike grace over small obstacles, coming to a halt

with a perfect
lightness of balance even when he was very tired
.
All day she followed him, the pleasure of

the previous day's journey much dulled by the events of the night
and the constant awareness of Tath's

presence. Lila found herself longing for radio contact with Sarasilien, with Malachi, with anybody, even

Poppy. She would have given much to have a faery alongside her to lighten her mood. She even missed

the silly, trivial world of the music business, and had begun fondly to think of purple fur coats and

melodramatic speeches about
download sales and marketing budgets by the time Dar chose to take a

rest.

'Have you any music with you?' he asked her as they sat
high in the mountains on a bare strip of rock.

The view was spectacular. Below them a huge, bowl-shaped valley spread green and luscious, its far

side of uniformly steep walls barely visible in the clear light. Grasslands and woods covered the ground

below them and Lila could see lakes and streams sparkling in the high noonday sun. She took a piece of

stale bread that Dar handed her.

'What
would you like? I never much went
in for classical, except
Mozart and Vivaldi,' she said

apologetically
.

'Play me what
you like,' he said. 'Anything.' He went
to fetch water. They drank and he sat
down

finally, unshipping his bow so that
it
did not
scrape on the ground
.
Lila did likewise and then sat
behind him, her legs either side of his.

'Ear ear,' she said, putting the palms of her hands gently against
the sides of his head. 'Haven't
got
any

speakers so you'll have to make do with this. Shouldn't be too bad through your skull. I've kept
all the

levels low.' She played the music through the smart metal and multiple synthetic sheets that made up the

structure of her palms, allowing them to act as speakers, and listened to it herself internally, direct to the

brain from her AI-library. Together they sat overlooking all of Satha-nor, hungry and heartsick, and

listened to The No Shows doing 'Time In My Hands'.

'Now all we need are some smokes and we're sorted,' Dar said to her softly with a Bay City accent

but
his attempt at good humour didn't last more than a moment. He sighed.

T can do you an aspirin,' Lila offered. Dar leant back against her, to her surprise. It wasn't entirely

comfortable because of all the weapons between them, not
least
the grip of a sword pressing against
her

jaw, but
she didn't move. She saw that
his dark brown hair was streaked with silver here and there, and

with strands that caught the sun and made themselves into glowing amber.

Tath, she thought, was awake but barely aware of her, folded over his own thoughts protectively
.
In

the hours that had passed since he hitched a ride Lila was sure there weren't only stings but
honey in

Tath, although there couldn't be any telling which one you'd get on request. Her fear had peaked early

and now was all but spent and continued to fade the longer that time went
on and he did noth-ing. If she

didn't concentrate on his presence she could hardly feel it.

The song ended and Lila took her hands away and rested them lightly on Dar's shoulders. The wind

freshened and she caught the scent of lilacs and other flowers rising from far below.

'Time to go,' he said abruptly and stood up. He held out
his hand and she took it, getting to her feet

with effortless ease. Dar pointed down into the broad valley. 'Beyond the first woodlands the valley

deepens and forms a great lake, not unlike the lake you visited before in Lyrien.

It
is there that
Arte has her home, below the waters of Aparastil. I would be certain we will find Zal

there.'

'Shouldn't
you be in a bad place for a bad spell?' Lila asked, taking a last
look at the panorama,

memorising the location.

'You should be in a safe place, where you feel most secure,' Dar said. 'And there is no more difficult

place to get in or out of than Aparastil Lake. It
is guarded by all the elements, by the lake itself and its

denizens, and by the full force of Sathanor's magic bent
to Arie's will.'

'Oh good,' Lila said faintly. T like a challenge.'

'You will find one,' Dar assured her, jumping down the side of a steep human-height
boulder with no

more care than he might
have stepped off a kerbstone.

'We need a story,' Lila said.

'There is no story which will fool the Lady of Aparastil. The truth will do in a pinch, though she

probably expects us. I do not anticipate a great deal of trouble getting in. It
is what
will happen then

which is beyond my skill to guess. But
we may get
somewhere if you could become a more likely elf.'

'I'm workin' on it,' Lila said. 'Sorry. I mean, I am making every effort
to become a more effective spy.'

Try harder,' Dar said, not even looking back. There was a peculiar ring to his voice which made Lila

experience the comment as a tantalising clue rather than a stinging criticism. She puzzled over it
and then

realised that Dar was obliquely referring to Tath's presence.

During the next few hours they dropped lower and lower down the steep sides of the valley walls.

Their progress was agonisingly slow. When she did not have to concentrate on her footing too much Lila

tried speaking to the gold and green presence in her chest.

If you were
t
ru
t
hful abou
t
your allegiance,
she said,
now
t
here's a chance
t
o prove i
t
.

He did not have anything to prove to her. He didn't even speak, or need to. She could feel the answers

as if they were her own thoughts before she put
them into words. He remained grief stricken and

appalled at the idea of what
she was, let
alone who she was. He found her repellent, because of her

robotics which he found alien and threat-ening, because of her humanity, because of her Otopian

allegiance, especially because of her fusion reactor which frightened and revolted him equally
.
At the

same time he was grateful for her kindness and his continued existence, in a stiff, typically highfalutin'

snobby elvish

way. It
took all of Lila's self-restraint to forgo responding to this rush of emotions whenever she tried to

address him. But
her own emotions were also there, whether she restrained them or not, and the elf felt

her fury and her dislike of him without the mediation of her thoughts. They were, for better or ill, two

spirits in one heart, and they could not hide from each other.

Tath coiled tightly on himself as she attempted to get him to talk. Lila knew him horrified and hurt,

willing himself out of the situation as much as she did, resenting her like crazy. The situation made her so