Pay the Piper (15 page)

Standing, his thousand year old limbs creaking for the first time in his life, he suddenly felt tired and old. He unclenched his fists and marched unsteadily toward his father and his magical retinue. Getting as close as he could, Gringras leaned into the enchantment as if it were a strong wind keeping him from falling forward.

The king met his gaze unblinkingly.

If I am evil,
he thought again,
so be it. But I will no longer be a coward.
Silently, he held his fist up to his father.
If I cannot break the curse with mortal love then I will break it with mortal force. I am done lurking in shadows and stealing children. I am done playing for my supper.

He tried to get his father to look away but knew it was futile. The old man was a stone. Gringras realized he was shaking.

“Old man,” he cried out, “I have the teind you demand which gives me seven more years. But when next I return, it will be with a mortal army at my back. I will fight my way in or die in the attempt. But I
will
come home.”

The king said nothing; his face said nothing. He had held his hand up pinkie and point fingers extended.

The queen wept silently.

Gringras spun away and stared into the distance over the heads of Alabas and the teinds. He envisioned himself astride a black horse like his father's, at the head of a million charmed souls, all carrying weapons the denizens of Faerie had never seen before.

In his vision, he shouts a single order and guns fire, filling the air with cold steel. Jets and bombers, manned by blank-eyed human pilots, scream overhead, spewing flame. Tanks roll onto the ever-golden fields of Faerie crushing meadow wort, tansy, mustard seed, and fern. Machine guns and mortars spray screaming fairies till their wings catch fire and burn. Gringras dismounts his black horse and wades into the gore, his sword flashing in the dying sun.

“I will come home,” he repeated under his breath, eyes still afire with what he had seen in his vision. “Even if I have to empty every city on earth and burn Faerie to the ground to do it.”

More time had passed than Gringras had realized, for the setting sun had almost reached the horizon. Time to send the teind across for this seven years. But now that he knew what lay ahead, seven years seemed hardly any time at all.

“Gringras!” Alabas called to him. He sounded strange, hopeful.

Gringras shook his head to lose the farsight that was upon him and saw Alabas and the girl, Callie, running toward him.

Now why do they look so excited?
he wondered.
Why do they look hopeful when surely they know that now, with what I have planned, all hope is gone.

27 · The Buying of Freedom

The prince of the Sidhe turned toward them with a face that looked as if it had been set in concrete. Callie couldn't wait to see it turn flesh again when they told him how he could buy his way back into Faerie. How the curse could be broken.

For the first time since she found out that Nicky was missing, she felt she could breathe, as though some iron band around her chest had been cut.

“Gringras,” Alabas called, his voice as light as if it had wings.

Gringras all but snarled at them. “The old stone man waits his teind. It is time.”

“In fact, it is all the time in the world,” Alabas said, opening his arms and trying to embrace the prince.

Gringras shook him off. “What cant is this? What game?”

“No game,” Callie assured him. “I … I have figured the way out of the curse.”

Gringras laughed bitterly. “I have figured it out, too. We pay the teind and be gone from here.” He paused. “And in seven years…”

Hands up as if in prayer, Alabas said in a pleading voice, “Please, my prince, the girl has the right of it.”

“I do not believe it,” Gringras said. “A mortal could not figure it out in a million years, not if a prince of Faerie has broken his heart on it.”

“Just listen,” Alabas said.

Without waiting for his response, Callie began.

“Hame again ye'll ne'er be

Till a human kens what faeries see,

Till a charmed soul stays of its own free will

And a mortal knows ye and loves ye still.”

“Her accent is execrable,” said Gringras.

“Oh, for the gods' sake, shut up and listen,” Alabas cried.

Shocked, Gringras shut his mouth, his lips in a thin slash. Clearly it was rare that Alabas spoke that way to him.

Callie spoke hurriedly, “If you don't deliver the goods this night, you and Alabas will have to go back into the world and live mortal lives, right?”

Grudgingly, Gringras nodded.

“You and Alabas. You will be
mortals!
” She was silent for a moment to let that sink in. “And then, as a mortal who knows you and loves you still,
Alabas
could lead you back home to Faerie.”

A light, like a will-o'-the-wisp, lit Gringras' eyes. It grew larger, brighter, till his eyes seemed candled from within. He gasped, clapped his hands, laughed out loud. “Oh, little reporter, how have you figured this out in a night when I have had an eternity?” He struck himself on the chest with the flat of his hand. “But here, in the seat of all emotion—human or fey—I know that what you say is true. The mortal Alabas will lead me home. The heart knows its own. The curse seems already lighter. My elven soul takes wing.” Then, suddenly, he sobered. “But what of the rest? The charmed soul staying in Faerie of its own free will?”

Callie smiled, though there was no humor in it. “I think you'll have little trouble with that one, great prince of the Fey. From what I hear, not all of the teinds want to go back to earth with the little princes from the tower. The oldest of them fear they will only become dust motes.”

Gringras nodded, and Callie thought,
So it is true. All that awaits them is freedom without return.
Sadness, like nausea, threatened to overwhelm her.
The faerie folk have no consciences,
she thought.
They don't care. They aren't People of Peace. They aren't Fair Folk. They are cruel and careless and callous.
Of course she said none of this aloud, saying instead, “Promise to free them within Faerie, and you may make yourself a whole new following.”

Gringras picked her up and spun her around. He kissed her on the forehead and tiny silver stars seemed to ring her head.

“Not me,
Gringras.
I won't be glamoured.” She scrubbed at her forehead with the back of her right hand.

Laughing, Alabas said, “She will not, you know. The strings of Scott's guitar ring through her true.”

Carefully Gringras set her on the ground and turned. “Father,” he cried out to the stone man on the horse, “I shall not be giving you these teinds tonight.” Then he looked over his shoulder. “Alabas, lead them back to the human world. But hurry. The old man may take what he is not offered.”

King Merrias smiled grimly but did not otherwise shift his seat. His voice boomed out, emotionless, over the clearing. “My son has chosen to release the teind. He knows the consequence to himself—mortality. He and his companion will live and die as humans, whose lives are as brief to us as a Mayfly is to them.” Then pulling on the reins, he brought his horse around. Without a backward glance, he left to go along the path into Faerie.

The weeping queen followed. Behind them gamboled the faerie folk: boggarts and phookas, and winged sprites and all. Callie watched until the last of them had disappeared.

“Come, child,” Gringras said and held his hand out to Callie. “I will take you back to earth.”

“I know the way,” Callie said. “You wait here for Alabas to return. I wish I could see your father's face when you tell him.”

“It will not change him,” Gringras told her. “But my mother, at least, will weep no more.”

“Your mother,” Callie pointed out brutally, “is still one son short.”

She was pleased to see that he blanched at her words.

*   *   *

CALLIE HAD BEEN TELLING THE
truth when she said she remembered the way. She followed the serpentine river of blood that smelled both salty and metallic, until she came to the fording place.

Wading the river, she found it chilly this time. On getting out, she saw that her jeans had been stained a strange purple color, and her white Nikes were now bloodred.

The flinty path proved a difficult climb, until up ahead she saw the dust coming up from the shoes of the travelers ahead of her. She began running then, until the breath hurt in her lungs and she had an ache in her side. “Wait,” she cried out. “Wait for me.”

The mist cleared, and there were the children, just a whiney bunch of ordinary kids, a bit tattered and filthy and weary from a long midnight hike.

When she made out Nicky's form, she ran to him, picked him up, spun him around, and kissed him on the forehead. Then she laughed, relieved there were no little stars around his head.

“Callie!” he said, his face going all puckered, as if he were going to start crying. “Where
were
you? Where
are
we?”

“We were in dreamland, Bugbrain,” she said. “And now we're almost home.” Up ahead stood a great wall of stone.

Alabas pointed to it. “Go through there,” he said, “and you will be on the mountain.”

“And you?”

“Back to Gringras. And Faerie. And home.”

She smiled. “May you get what you wish.”

Alabas shook his head. “One must always be careful what one wishes for,” he said. “Especially in Faerie.”

“Then may you get what you deserve,” she said.

“I suspect that would be even worse!” He laughed. And then he was gone.

The stone had become an arched door outlined with a shimmering light. When they walked through it, Callie in the lead holding Nicky by the hand, the children found themselves in the parking lot near the Summit House, with the sun just rising pink and normal through the trees. For a moment they were surrounded by dust motes, little grains of light that spiraled upward toward that sky.

Callie put a hand over her heart. She knew that the motes were those little stolen children of the past who had chosen to return and who were even now heading toward Heaven.

“Godspeed,” Callie whispered and raised a hand. She had no idea how many of them were now gone, but she was sure that the princes of the tower were among them.

The younger Elm Street children started sobbing then. Josee and Alison did what they could to comfort them, Josee by jabbering and making funny faces, and Alison by giving them hugs. But Callie looked around for the one face she hadn't seen since they'd come through the gate from Faerie.

“Scott?” she cried, over the chaos and babble. “Scott, where are you?”

“Here.”

A man was pulling Scott's motorcycle out of the bushes. He had long graying hair, and a face that was lined with hard living.

“Who are
you
?” Callie asked, still holding on to her brother's hand.

“Callie, I'm Scott,” he said.

“But … but … you're old.” She could feel her mouth drop open.

“The glamour is gone, that's all. I'm no longer protected from aging by Gringras and his magic.” He shrugged. “You see me now as I really am. Not exactly old, but thirty-eight. I was seventeen when I joined the band and Gringras kept me young for twenty-one years.”

“With glamour?”

“With glamour. Only I didn't understand it really.”

“Thirty-eight is almost as old as our parents,” Nicky blurted out.

Callie felt cold.

Looking down at his fingers, flexing them, Scott smiled. “Alright then, old. But still a good musician.” Reaching into a bag on the cycle, he fished out a cell phone. “What's your number, Callie?”

She told him.

He dialed the phone, then handed it to her. Mars answered on the first ring, crying.

“What are you doing home?” she asked.

“Breaking speed records,” he answered. “Only one ticket. It was worth the trip. Where are you?”

Quickly she told him where they could be found. “We're all fine, Mars.
All of us
. Tell Mom and Dad. Tell
all
the parents. No one is hurt. Just tired and—confused. I'm sorry I ran off without telling anyone where I was going. But I couldn't stop. Not till I got Nicky back.”

“I love you, Carrots,” he said. “I'll be there soon. In a police car.”

“Make it a bus,” she said. “There are a lot of us here. Oh, and I love you, too.” Then she hung up.

“Kids!” she shouted, silencing them all. “I've told them where we are. We'll be rescued soon.”

A cheer went up, and Josee said to her, “We're already rescued. Now we just have to be picked up and carted home.”

At her words, the children all breathed, “Home…” before silence and exhaustion fought with elation and won.

Scott took the phone back, then got on his bike. “My presence will only complicate things here.”

She nodded. It was going to be hard enough explaining how they all got to the top of Mt. Holyoke, miles away from their neighborhood, without an old musician hanging around.

“Thanks,” she said. “For everything.”

“No—thank
you,
Callie. You saved us all. Just a little girl, but a hero all the same.”

“Hey—not so little.” She gave him a small smile. “Sounds like a song.”

“It's a beginning,” he said. “I never wrote any for the band. That was Gringras' role. He was … very jealous of his ability, you know.”

Cocking her head to one side, she said, “Princes are like that, I guess.” Then she added, “Especially princes of Faerie.”