Keeping It Real (36 page)

Dar's left ear tip came forward again, though his facial expression didn't alter. 'Air elementals are

curious
.
It will either let us through this hall, or it will not
.
It would be wise to be quiet and allow it to

question you
.
'

Lila felt unpleasantly dizzy and slightly seasick
.
She could see the door they had come in by, just, if she

squinted past Dar
.
For some reason her thinking seemed to be getting foggy
.
'What
hall?'

Dar took hold of her shoulders and turned her around
.
Behind her a series of dark tunnels led off in

different directions. He pointed at the central, largest tunnel, which was carved smooth, perfectly

cylindrical and straight, and through which could clearly be seen a disc of brightly lit space across which

figures moved easily
.
The round mouths of each end - magical gates - Lila could understand
.
The

cylinder itself was quite empty.

"Throw something into it,' Dar suggested.

Throw? She didn't get it. Perhaps it was a signal and if she did it then the game would be up and Dar

would betray her. Or it
was a dare.

Tath, watching from the inside, tried to make a kind of contact with her AI while she was distracted in

the act of looking through his pockets (her pockets) for something to throw. In the end he couldn't
quite

bring himself to touch the machine in the way he would have had to. His repulsion was too intense. Lila

hacked and retched suddenly.

'Are you quite well?' Dar said again, with a touch more concern as Tath said simultaneously to her,

Much as i
t
pains me
t
o observe
t
his, I do believe you should undo your binding spell upon yourself,

Agen
t
, les
t
bo
t
h of us soon have cause
t
o regre
t
i
t
.

Lila's fingers closed around a small item in the close-fitted pocket
of Tath's jerkin, over her breast
.
She

pulled it
out. A tiny flower lay in her hand, a white daisy. It was old and flattened and quite dried, though

it had kept its colours surprisingly well. She tossed it, vaguely aware as she drew her arm back that Dar

had started forward and that a sudden knot of anguish was unleashing itself inside her with startling

acuity, making her gut
spasm and her legs suddenly become weak.

The flower was very light, almost
featherlight, but
Lila's Al-self had calculated perfectly and it
crossed

the magical boundary set
in the stone just as it began to fall and tumble erratically in the air. As a warm

tongue of air wound around her and curiously lifted the aethereal masses of Tath's glamoured hair Lila

saw the daisy burst into brilliant yellow and white fire. It was almost instantly embers that flared to red for

a microsecond before a few motes of pale ash fell to the floor of the Hall of Fire.

Dar caught hold of her arm. She saw that
he was greyish white with shock for some reason and noted

that even though he was holding onto her his
andalune
body had entirely withdrawn, as though he was in

mortal danger and must hide. Within her body Tath recoiled and she felt
the glamour flicker and fade.

She saw the metal and synthetics of her hands begin to emerge from beneath Tath's illusory knuckles.

Her moment
of deadly anxiety had drawn back from her like a tide from the shore. She felt
Tath poised,

silent, waiting, as though he was a held breath.

The Nirvana icon returned and would not
be banished. It
had gone black and beneath it
the load stats

informed her in cold blue digits that she was now on an automatic countdown to a return to fully authentic

experience, whether she liked it or not. A report would automatically be sent to Headquarters for the

attention of Dr Williams. It would not be favourable.

'You told me to throw something,' Lila said calmly. 'So I did. The Fire Hall is obviously pure oxygen

and the elemental in there ignites everything it
doesn't
think belongs in there. If we go in like this we'll

burn up just
like any other remotely flammable material. I get it. I'm working on a solution. Why are you

acting like that?'

Only the compulsion of his naming kept Tath anywhere close to competent as he continued to project

his aetherial self through her. Lila felt
as if she were contained in an emotional storm, lit by bursts of

strange lightning, as if emotion itself had a unique energy and Tath was generating it. His anguish created

real static charges that built in her prosthetics and caused her senses to flicker
.
Meanwhile from the

outside world micro gusts of various forces lifted her clothes, wound beneath them, even blew through

her lips and into her mouth, up her nose and across her eyes in tiny flicks that
made her blink furiously.

The same thing was happening to Dar. As he stood, his arms held out to

his sides to permit
the frisking by the air elemental, his gaze met hers
.
It almost looked as though nobody

was home.

'Don't move,' he whispered. 'Don't do anything
.
Air is very sensitive,'

Lila was deeply, deeply puzzled
.

4.
..
3
..
.2
...
1
.
.
.

She opened her mouth, drew in a huge breath, and screamed at the top of her lungs. It was a raw,

terrible sound and it expressed an equally raw and devastating onslaught of feeling which Lila was

powerless to deny. All her senses were blotted out by the internal storm as though it
was a tornado which

ripped up her nerves and shredded them into chaff. Her heart faltered and the life-support systems came

on with all their alarms in silent flaring yellow. Her reactor powered up. Most strangely of all the clear

division between Tath and herself blurred. His emotions and hers were very similar and in their collision

she saw what
he had seen and realised what
it
had meant.

She saw the little white flower burning
.

She saw the ashes falling.

She heard the magic in the bloom die, and felt the spell it had held fast break up and shiver away to

nothing though she didn't
know what
it was.

She saw Dar's face as he had seen the daisy in her hand, in his hand, in Tath's hand. His eyes not

looking at her, but into Tath's face, at
Tath.

Tath had been telling the truth. Tath
was
Dar's ally. More than his ally. There was some kind of

choice-brotherhood between them founded in silent spirit, a bond and a relationship that Lila had no

name for.

Dar's devastation became more plausible.

There was something else too - about Tath's magic - but she lost that as her scream came to an end.

The external world came rushing in. She found herself upright
but
no longer standing. Dar was below her

and she was aloft
in a maelstrom of air currents that held her suspended several metres above the ground

close to the cavern roof.

Tath separated out
from her as Lila was turned slowly upside down
. Give me con
t
rol if you wish
t
o live

and have a chance of saving Zal,
he pleaded from the leaf-green place inside her chest. T
here is no
t

ime for explana
t
ions.
The
efemen
t
al knows
t
na
t
w
e a
re
no
t
w/
t
a
t
w
e seem.

The air that held them up began to swirl and eddy. It spun Lila

around. Tiny zephyr slivers ran under the tips of her nails and darted down through her mouth in between

her teeth and gums. It
felt
like needles
.
Lila fought
it, trying to bat it away, to rub it out, to fight free, but her thrashing made no difference whatsoever. The air would have its way.

Lila gave control to Tath. She felt
blown apart, like there was nothing in the centre of her except the

strange concentration of his green energy. Tath bloomed outwards as the gyre of wind that held her up

began to spin her around in a circle, building velocity steadily
.
She had only the vaguest awareness of Dar

below her, the stone whistle in his hand
.

Tath-in-Lila was as agile as her Al-self, but
with an instinctive biological grace she'd never had
.
Lila felt

her arms and legs moved, drawn into a shape that was sympathetic to the currents as they shifted around.

Where she'd fought the wind, Tath flowed with it and almost immediately the worst of the turbulence

stopped. Belatedly, Lila realised this must be the way to talk to the air. Tath opened her mouth and

spread her fingers. The air rushed into her lungs and out again, it drew her along with it and held her up.

The gyration slowed down steadily, becoming a lazy swirl. The needlepoints had gone. Only temperate

currents ran against her skin and through her hair. They penetrated Tath's outer shell and felt their way

along Lila's magical stain, along her face, everywhere on her body that flesh was marked for ever by

charm and bonded to metal.

Are you going
t
o cas
t
a spell? Did you?
Lila asked Tath as they were gently lowered.

I know none
t
ha
t
can hold
t
he wind, he said. Only Dar's whis
t
le has
t
ha
t
power, and
t
hen, i
t
is no
t
so
grea
t
a power.
T
he elemen
t
als are charmed by who
t
hey wil, and
t
here is no magic, even wild magic,
t
ha
t
can command
tt
hm agains
t
t
heir inclina
t
ion. Mere magical circles and barriers are insufficien
t
. Air is
t
he mos
t
curious of all
t
he elemen
t
s.
T
his individual is in chosen service
t
o
t
he Lady of
t
he Lake. Now we
mus
t
wai
t
and see if i
t
is sa
t
isfied
t
o le
t
us pass.
He hesitated a moment.
I
s t
ha
t
really a nuclear reac
t
or?

Yes,
Lila said as Tath unobtrusively handed her back her body, only his
andalune
glamour remaining

unfolded within her. She lowered the reactor's capacity to normal levels and saw the last of the yellow

alert icons blink out.

Lila felt her feet touch the ground
.
She became heavier, then her full weight was down and the curtains

of air were withdrawing, rushing around Dar one more time before calming to almost nothing. She was

about to speak and apologise, but Dar wouldn't meet her eye. He looked strangely chastened and then

he turned.

'Time runs short,' he said.

Lila glanced back. The walls and roof of the cavern seemed closer than they had before. In fact, it
was

less than half as big as it had been when they crossed the stones
.
As she looked back at
the Hall of Fire

the other open mouths of the tunnels narrowed, closing. 'Do they go anywhere?'

'I don't
know. I have little hope of that,' he said. He looked down at
the whistle in his hand and then

dropped it
on the ground
.
'Perhaps this will buy some time. What power I do have I will give back now,'

he said to the air, and then stepped on the delicate thing. There was a crunching sound as he crushed it

completely with his foot.

Lila didn't
need Tath's dismay to tell her what a sacrifice that was. She felt Dar's
andalune
body touch

her fingertips briefly, unconsci-ously, for he retreated a step when he noticed it
himself. Around them the

quiet breezes died away entirely. The walls and roof drew closer in a smooth, silent
drift that
would have

seemed gentle in other circum-stances. They walked closer to the Fire Hall's gate, as close as they could

go and not
risk accidentally crossing it. The Water gate came sliding towards them. The roof paused its

descent as it reached the height
of both portals, leaving them a few centimetres of clearance.

'Did this happen before?' she asked.

'No,' Dar said. 'We are out of luck.'

"There has to be a way out.'

"The only way is through the Hall of Fire, but the air will have told the fire that we are untrustworthy

and we will not make it through there. I am sorry I did not
get
you further

Lila took hold of Dar's jacket
with both hands, pulled him close and kissed him on the mouth. His lips

were cold. The walls drifted in, world shrinking. No air moved. Dar drew back and they shared a look

that didn't require words for communication. If this was it, then neither of them wanted to leave without