Keeping It Real (41 page)

unbefitting prison
.
Give me Ae token of your necromancer's soulbond with Deaft and I will give you back

to your sister, or to whomever you wish
,
^y of my retinue will serve you.'

T
ha
t
damn flower!

S
t
op moaning and
t
hink,
T
a
t
h
s
napped.

'I think it
woul
d
be more
i
nterest
i
ng
i
f I rem
ain
e
d
here,' Lila sai
d
\^a Tatii,
p
assi
n
g him ideas as she had tern, not
even sure how she did it
.
'Zal will not Imow that I am not the real Agent
Black, after all
.

Maybe we can be useful. Zal will be diffkult to manage
.
He was at
the best
of times
.
But the Game and

his affections for this creature may make him ductile.'

.Ducti
l
e.? Lila shot
at
Tath. Nobo
d
y in thrir n'ght min
d
uses wo
rd
s
l
ike
d
ucti
l
e.

Nobody bu
t
me
. T
ha
t
is
why she
is
s
t
ill going along wi
t
h
t
his madness.
Y
ou do
t
he
t
hinking and
leave
t
he
t
alking
t
o me.

The Lady smiled. 'You reason prettily enough, Tath. But give me the token, so that I can restore you

immediately if things go ill. Neither of us can trust
a being such as this one, whose s
p
irit
such as it is has

been infiltrated and bound by the im
p
enetrable blankness of metal and electricity.' Her smile was l
i
ke the

sun com
i
ng out
of the clouds after a long, dull day of grey sides. Tath and Lila both felt its warmth and
p

romise of goodness.

Oh crap, Lila thought. She was out of ideas.

I could no
t
havepu
t
i
t
be
tt
er myself

'I have it,' Astar interrupted qu
i
etly, coming forward with a daisy in her palm. 'He gave it
to me for safe

keeping.' She gave it
to Arie and the Lady closed her fingers over the token.

Inside Lila, as she felt
a rush of gratitude for Astar's qu
i
ck thinking, Tath became extremely dense with

tension.

"That
is well then,' Arte said, clearly relieved
.
'For I would not have you used against me, Tath. I hold

you very dear.'

Sure,
t
ha
t
's why she sends you in
t
o
T
hana
t
opia agains
t
your na
t
ure when she won'
t
go herself.

I a
m
aware
of
my posi
t
ion,
Tath said ambiguously.
And if you
w
an
t
her
to sw
a
llo
w
t
h
is
y
ou
had be
tt
er leave
t
he res
t
to
m
e.
You ha
ve
no
t t
he graces ye
t
.

'You do me great
favour, Lady,' Tath said, and performed the elegant, supplicating bow that Lila didn't

have in her. Lila was slightly nauseated by Tath's deference - at the way it
made him feel so good. Tath

did the
andalune
equivalent of pulling a face at her.

Arte gave Astar Tath's gear. 'Please dress and resume your glamour for the time being if you would,

Tath,' she said. T must say that I prefer your fairness to this mockery of life and beauty
.
You were always

most comely.'

"Thank you, Lady,' he said and Lila felt the surge of Tath unfolding over her like a comfortable old

coat.

How peculiar,
Lila thought, t
o
be
more comfor
t
able as somebody else. How nice to know you are

pretty and how nice not to draw the wrong kind of attention.

Lila looked down at herself as Tath getting dressed
.
There really was not
much comparison. Tath was

sculpted muscle and acres of smooth, perfect skin. It was quite startling to see how much the sight of that

apparent physical health calmed the others in the room. Even Dar was relaxing and that sense that the

whole place was about to shatter had gone.
Beau
t
y junkies,
t
ha
t
's wha
t
you are,
Lila thought sadly, even Arie, especially Arte, who has never looked in a mirror that didn't like her or a face that wasn't

humbled by her.

Is
t
ha
t
o
t
her daisy a big mojo spell daisy or jus
t
a daisy?
Lila asked Tath, trying to keep matters practical
.

I
t
is
only
a flower, a siqn
of
her solidari
t
y wi
t
h us and no
t
hing more.

T
oo bad. Anyway, you like Arie an awful lo
t
, for an enemy.

My hear
t
is my own pr
o
b
lem
,
Tath Said coolly.

Lila took the silver Thanatopic amulet
from Astar last and put it on. As she did so, Tath sighed inside

her, a heavy, long-suffering sound, and her chest
felt as though it sank a degree. The office hurt him. It

was a literal weight in his spirit.

'Come with me now,' Arie said to Tath. 'Tell me of how you came by

this robotic nightmare and the spells by which you hold it
under mastery
.
Dar has told me of how it
was

he came to Alfheim in mortal pain, but I would like to know what happened to the lovely Silalio. Why is

she not with you? Her heart would break to see you so.'

Tath switched command position with Lila again, as though they'd been a tag-team doing it
all their

lives. He was graceful about it, and only Lila felt
the sadness and the anger as he said lightly, 'Her heart

lies with my body in the woodlands south of Sathanor. The Lady Silalio is dead, killed by Saaqaa as we

travelled fast
by night
to catch up with Dar. Wild magic was everywhere around us, indeed, I have never

seen so great
a concentration of it
as I did that night. It led us astray from the path and we were surprised

by the hunters
.
She fought,' Lila felt a catch in his thinking, in his emotions, like a stumble, 'very well, but

the beasts were too powerful for all of us
.
Their ferocity and numbers have grown like wildfire in the last

few months
.
They slaughter across Alfheim with impunity.'

Sighs and sounds of grief and surprise broke across the gathered elves around the Lady Arte, not least

from Astar, who walked quickly away from them all and left the Hall. The sight of it cut Tath to the core

but he held his position and Lila felt her face change only the slightest amount, sinking at the corners of

the mouth. Lila wondered if Silalio had carried a daisy too, forgetting how easy it was now for Tath to

hear her.

I
nde
ed she
d
id
not, he said acidly. So
p
ut
away
t
ha
t
pi
t
y
you
w
e
re beginning
t
o feel, unless i
t
was
for her
.

'I am grieved to hear it,' Arie said. Tears stood in her eyes and she displayed her emotions so openly

and with such force that to look at
her was to feel the epitome of all sorrow
.
Lila didn't look
.
She let Tath

carry on and tried not to experience the way that Arie's expression tore at
him.

'Tath,' Arie walked forward and put
out
her hand, then hesitated for a fraction of a second, and let
it

down again. Her
andalune
body touched his for the briefest of moments and he almost swooned in the

combination of pleasure and agony. Lila felt
the strange charge it
carried, more than sympathy and more

than attraction. She
knew
that
heady, intoxicating rush - Arie and Tath were involved in a Game that

went beyond the obvious one of political struggle! The citrus, effervescent
tang of wild magic sparkled in

her mind.

She be
t
rayed you wi
t
h love?

Tath did not
answer.

'If you will not
be undone from this creature then I cannot
offer you any further consolation, though

your self-command does you great honour in my presence,' Arie said. 'Come, before we continue this

difficult
task, eat
with us. There is someone I would like you to talk to.'

She turned and her retinue got
up quickly and silently to follow her. Dar hung back, but
not
enough for

either of their aethereal bodies to make contact, and Tath would not
meet
his eye.

Lila reconsidered the wisdom of her position as they passed out
of the lake hall and into another

glorious room of glassy walls and living wallpaper. Either of the elves would kill anyone for the stakes that

she was still only dimly aware of, all tangled about
them like weeds here in this room; politics, families,

magics, love. She only wanted to save Zal's skin, not create an international incident. Those two things

seemed impossibly far from her control. And then they sat
down at
a beautiful curving table shaped like

the curl of a gentle wave. It was laid out with a feast. In spite of her revulsion at
the idea and the

knife-edge they were balancing on she was very hungry, so Lila ate the food of Sathanor and, just for the

moments that
she did so and before guilt
had time to manifest, she forgot everything but
the sheer

pleasure of being alive. And then she watched and waited, and hoped that
Arie would not
be able to

overcome temptation.

She did not
have long to wait
.
After they had eaten and drunk in formal silence and the first
course had

been cleared away - by servants who were more like Dar than Arie, Lila noticed - then the guards who

had escorted her to her talk with Astar opened the doors and escorted Zal into the room.

He looked no different
to the way he looked when he was about
to go on stage, Lila realised, with a

physical shock that made her glad she was seated. Every fibre and electron of her thrummed in a moment

of total harmony. Now that she was used to elfin faces she saw Zal's familial relationships clearly written

in his face. He was of Arie's kind, although for such a high-caste elf he had stronger, more human

features
.
It was his eyes that stood out the most, brown beneath dark brows. They were not Taliesetra

eyes, for theirs came in all shades of blue and green.

A zing of disbelief ran through Tath and Lila felt his convictions waver. T
hey used
t
o be blue,
Tath

said.
I ha
ve not
see
n
h
i
m since he was in Ba
t
hsheba
t
. I had
no
idea wha
t
had happened.

Zal didn't spare the guard nor any of Arie's court a single glance
.
He took the seat
left for him at
the

nominal foot of the curved table with a distinctly human kind of carelessness, dragging his chair
.
He

looked once at
Dar, though neither of their expressions so much as flickered. He looked once towards

Lila and her heart leapt up eagerly though she knew he couldn't see her.

'Ilya,' he said, using the part of Tath's name which Lila had come to understand signified a rather

frostier relation than the more common version. 'What an unexpected aggravation. Still licking the Lady's

boots for a living?'

If Tath had still had a body it
would have gone from calm to full,

bristling alert
at
Zal's words. 'Still protecting Sathanor from you,' Tath said smoothly, though Lila was

aware that
his feelings towards Zal were highly ambivalent
.
Tath was experiencing a definite chemistry of

some kind, along with a most
un-elven burn of curiosity.

'Still conspiring in my death, I believe you mean,' Zal drawled
.
'Got
your eye on the throne, or the seat

next to it'

Really?
Lila demanded. Hardly
,
Tath said but she didn't believe him.

During their brief exchange the second course had been served. Zal idly pushed the plate away from

him and tipped it over the edge of the table onto the floor where it broke. Food splattered in all

directions.

'Oh dear, how sad, never mind,' Zal said. T just love these home-cooked meals and all of us here

together like this. Gives me a warm glow, right
here.' He tapped the centre of his chest
with his fist. 'And

the conversation,' he said into the frosty silence
.
'How I've missed your empty posturing, Ysha, Elwe . . .'