Summoned to Tourney (11 page)

Kory crossed the sterile, white-painted entry-hall, stopped in front of a large row of elevators, and pressed the button. He looked up as another team of blue-jumpsuited humans ran to the double glass doors, taking up odd positions near the glass. It reminded him of another one of the movies he and Eric had watched on the television, with the policemen moving in pretty, dance-like patterns through rooms and stairways, hunting for an enemy. These humans seemed to be running in the same patterns, one dashing forward and then stopping behind a desk or a potted plant, and then another running past the first one, to stop at another desk or potted plant. It would probably be a good idea to leave the area as quickly as he could. The humans would not be inclined to ignore him for much longer, and he wasn’t certain he could hold
all
of their minds at once.

The elevator arrived with a happy DING! sound, and the doors opened. Kory stepped inside, and stopped, freezing as a primal fear chilled him through all of his veins.

Iron. Cold Iron, all around him. Not touching him, but close enough that he could feel the chill on his skin, the whisper of death in the silent metal.

He wanted to turn and run, to get as far away from this place as possible. He’d been in elevators before… Eric and Beth had taken him up in the elevator to the top floor of a place called The Hyatt, so they could drink wine in a restaurant and watch the sunset from a vista of windows overlooking the city. But this elevator was different, built of more solid metals, more deadly metals.

He took a deep breath, and reached for the button panel inside the elevator. He couldn’t retreat; not with a lobby full of wary, angry humans behind him. And besides, all of his instincts told him he had followed the right path.
Beth is down there. I cannot leave her here. The iron will not harm me, it is hidden behind layers of plastic and other metals. I can ignore it. I can do this. I can.

The elevator doors closed. Kory kept a tight hold on himself, fought down his fear, and considered the array of buttons, each one with a peculiar slot next to it.

He tried to decide which one to try first. He knew Beth was on one of the lower levels, but how deep? He could spend days in this place, trying each button.

Just to get started, he pressed one button. The elevator did not move.

Odd. Elevators move to the floor you press.
So why wasn’t this one moving? Kory chewed his lip, and again noticed the strange slots, next to each button.

The slots were roughly the size of one of Beth’s old credit cards… he remembered how impressed he had been by the idea of giving someone a piece of plastic and in return they would give you all kinds of clothing, boots, even food. But Beth said they couldn’t use her cards anymore, the police could track them that way.

In any case, he didn’t have any of Beth’s credit cards with him, not now. If he needed one of those cards to make the elevator work, this might turn out to be more difficult than he thought.

Perhaps there was an easier way…

He knelt and pressed his hand against the elevator floor, twitching slightly at the feel of plastic against his palm.
But not Cold Iron. I can touch this, it won’t hurt me.

He pressed harder, a magical push against the elevator floor, forcing it downward.

The elevator descended silently, and Kory closed his eyes, trying to imagine where Beth might be, trying to “reach out and touch someone,” as Eric always joked, trying to find…

There!
The elevator chimed and the doors slid open for him.

It was another featureless hallway, with a young man seated behind another desk. Kory looked at the man’s badges and insignia, and decided that he did want a badge with his own picture on it. Perhaps after he and Beth left this place, they could go find someone who made those badges…

“Hey, how did you get down here? Where’s your security badge?” the young man blurted, as Kory approached.

The sign over the young man’s desk was interesting: Psychic Research Wing. Q Clearance Required.

Psychic… Kory knew he’d heard that word somewhere before. Perhaps Beth, talking with one of her Wiccan friends. Clearance, now that was a word he understood… that was when everything was half-price at Macy’s, and Beth had to go buy clothes for herself. Together, though, the sentences did not make much sense to him.

As Kory considered this, the youth reached under his desk, and when his hand emerged, he held a small pistol, aimed directly at Kory with an assurance that told the elf that the human knew how to use this thing, and use it well.

:Please. You should not threaten someone, especially a warrior like myself I do not intend you any harm. I am seeking my friend Beth Kentraine. I know she is here, somewhere… have you seen her?:

The young man stared at him, his hand dropping, his mouth and mind both opening like poppies in the sun. An image appeared in Kory’s mind, of a woman walking down a hallway… no, barely able to walk, a stranger supporting her on either side. A door closing, and the sign 13-A Room 12 on the wall outside it.

“Thank you,” Kory said gravely, and started down the corridor. Behind him, he heard the clatter of the pistol falling to the ground, followed shortly by the sound of a body landing on the plastic floor.

He carefully followed the row of signs, each labeling a closed door. From behind one door, he could hear someone crying, as if from a very far distance. Someone was calling out hoarsely from behind another door, the words too faint to understand. He stopped in front of “13-A Room 12,” and tried the doorknob. It refused to open. Kory frowned, and considered the lock for a moment, then closed his eyes, gathering his will.

Korendil was not a Great Mage, not as innately talented as the Bard, but Terenil had taught him a few tricks, in the years before caffeine and depression had claimed the elven prince. Such as how to escape from a locked cell, if necessary. But a trick for breaking out from a cell ought to work for breaking into a cell… He touched a fingertip to the lock, and willed the door to open, the bolts to slide back. A soft click, and he turned the knob, opening the door to look within.

It was quiet, and dark. He stepped into the small room, allowing his eyes to adjust to the darkness. Someone was huddled on the floor against the far wall, not moving.

“Beth?” he called quietly.

The figure did not move. Kory held out his hand, calling light, and a soft glow filled the room.

“Beth?”

Kory.

He was staring at her, those leaf-green eyes reflecting the light in his hand. He was so handsome… and so far away, outside of her skin, too far for her to touch.

She was cut off from everything, everyone, smothered in fear and darkness. Just like when she was two and she’d followed her folks out into the dig, and the trench they’d abandoned had collapsed, burying her. Dirt had filled her mouth, like this thick darkness—suffocated her, just like the darkness was doing now. One of the grad students had seen her hand and dug her out; he’d known CPR…

But there was no friendly grad student here, and Koiy didn’t know CPR, and anyway this darkness was thicker and more treacherous than dirt.

She wanted to say something to him, but the silence within her head was too loud, drowning out everything, her thoughts, her words. Somehow he didn’t seem to see it, the thick darkness pressing in all around them, closing her in, pinning her against the wall. Even with the light in his hand, she could see that the light itself was being eaten by the dark ness, becoming part of the screaming in her mind that wouldn’t stop, couldn’t stop. She felt the tears welling up again, and wrapped her arms more tightly around her knees, trying not to cry.

He knelt next to her, touching her face. With another surge of horror, she realized that she couldn’t feel his hand, couldn’t feel anything. All of her body was numb, lifeless. She was dead, only her heart hadn’t figured that out yet; it was still beating somehow, a wild, erratic rhythm.

I need to tell him about the darkness,
Beth thought, desperately.
I need to tell him about how the room is pressing against my skin, that there’s no air to breathe, no way to escape.

She opened her mouth to tell him, and the voice screaming in her mind filled the room with sound, and it wouldn’t stop, it wouldn’t let her go…

“Beth?”

She was staring at him, not saying anything. Something was wrong. He didn’t understand. She should be glad to see him; he’d come to take her away: Why was she looking at him that way, and not speaking? She recognized him, he knew that, but why wouldn’t she say anything?

She was sitting strangely, too, all curled up against the wall. He’d never seen Beth sit like that… usually she sprawled out on a couch, or draped herself over a chair like one of the stray cats he occasionally brought into the house for milk and conversation. He saw that she was trembling as she tightened her arms around her knees.

Hesitantly, he reached to touch her face, a gentle caress. Her eyes stared at him, unblinking. She didn’t smile or laugh the way she usually did, when his fingers brushed against the ticklish spot on her neck.

Something was very, very wrong.

Then she began to say something, and Kory smiled in relief. If she would just tell him what was wrong, then he could do something—

She screamed.

The shriek pierced Kory like a knife. Panic closed his throat as he tried to calm her and got no reaction, not even recognition in her eyes. He didn’t know what to do, if there was anything he could do… the sound seemed wrenched out of Beth’s throat, ending in deep sobs that shook her entire body.

He did the only thing he could think of He sat down on the cold plastic floor beside her, and held her until her body stopped shaking, and she closed her eyes.

He thought she might be asleep. At least she wasn’t screaming. But if she woke again, with that animal-like fear filling her eyes—what was he going to do?

He wished desperately that Eric was with him, to help him understand what was happening to Beth, to help him figure out how to help her.

One thing was certain… Beth was sick. This wasn’t like the other human sicknesses he had seen, with Eric lying in bed for several days, his nose very red, and coughing frequently. Or the time that Beth had lost her voice; she’d only been able to speak in a funny hoarse voice that made all of them laugh. He knew those sicknesses; even elves were touched with Winter Sickness, though very rarely.

This was something different. He’d never seen one of the Folk with this kind of sickness, unable to talk or move. Even the friends that he’d lost to Dreaming, they had just slipped away into a last sleep, never to awaken. Beth’s sickness was something he didn’t understand, something he’d never seen before. She needed a healer, like Elizabet or Kayla—

But the first thing he had to do was take her from this strange place with their clearances and too many guns, and back to San Francisco. Once back at home, with Eric, the Bard might be able to help her—or they could go fetch the healers.

A good plan of action.

But before he could move, the door slammed shut. Kory looked up, then stood up carefully, trying not to awaken Beth. He crossed to the door, trying the lock.

It wouldn’t open. He glanced down at the orb of light in his hand, and sent it into the lock, to open the door for him again.

Nothing happened.

“Damn, that’s impressive,” a voice on the other side of the door said thoughtfully.

Kory glared at the door and the unseen person behind it. Without eye-contact, he would not be able to get the human on the other side to help him. Rage burned in his heart as he realized that this must be the person who had put her here in the first place—perhaps even the person who had given her this illness.
I must get out of here, now! Beth is hurt, sick, and no one is going to keep us locked up!

He hurled his will at the door, a magical blast that should’ve broken the door in two.

Nothing happened.

Beyond furious, Kory flung himself at the door, pounding on it with both hands. After several seconds of futile effort, he stepped back, considering the situation.

A sound from Beth, and he turned. She was lying on her side, crying again, and hitting her fist against the floor. He knelt swiftly beside her and caught her hand, afraid that she would injure herself, and pulled her gently into his lap. He tightened his arms around her, truly afraid for the first time since they had left Los Angeles. For the first time since he had awakened in the Grove, he was alone and helpless.

Eric, something is very wrong with Beth, and we cannot leave this room, and I do not know what to do…

Warden Blair hid a smile and listened to Smythe babble. The security guard was sweating, now, and Blair enjoyed making people sweat. “No, sir, I can’t explain what happened. Yes, you’re correct, he didn’t hit me physically, but something knocked me out. I don’t know whether he had a gas canister concealed on his person, or it was some new kind of weapon, or…

“Enough with the excuses, Smythe,” Blair said tersely. “So, this is the sequence of events… Wildmann at the gate reports a caucasian male intruder, long blond hair and green eyes, roughly age twenty-five. She says that he is polite to her, but tries to walk into the installation. She hits the red button, fires a warning shot, pulls the shotgun on him, and he vanishes, right in front of her eyes. Just disappears into thin air. Somehow he gets into this building, lobby security reports nothing, and he gets past the elevator security system as well. Then the guy waltzes in here, you can’t stop him, he breaks into one of the rooms… which sets off the alarm, something you weren’t capable of doing…” Smythe flinched visibly. “… and then Harris locks him in there, with one of our patients, using the new security system.”

“Well, if he pulled some kind of trick on Wildmann, then maybe that’s what he did to me,” Smythe said faintly.

“Or maybe you and Wildmann are both equally incompetent.” Blair pointed at his office door. “Get out of here, Smythe. Go find something useful to do, like collect unemployment.”