WebMage (31 page)

"Game time is over," said the triple voice the Furies used when they spoke in unison.

As abruptly as it had come, the blinding glare winked out. Hovering in the air where the Furies had been was a single form with three heads. The first was an emerald sea serpent, the second a fiery lion, the third an ebon goat with silver horns. It had an elongated female torso with three pairs of breasts and three sets of arms. Below this torso was a long, thick dragon's body. On the creature's back were three sets of wings identical to those of the three Furies.

"Give my regards to Tyche," Eris's voice whispered in my ear.

"Is there something I can do?" I asked.

"Yes," said the disembodied voice. "Run as if Cerberus himself were snapping at your heels."

With that, I found myself elsewhere, a greenhouse filled with flowers of every hue and shape. I'd only begun to look around when I realized that Melchior and I were surrounded by a neat circle of forget-me-nots. Recognition gave way to action as I snatched for the scruff of my goblin's neck. Even as my fingers closed on that cool blue flesh, the faerie ring's magic took hold and the world dropped away beneath us.

* * * *

Nerve endings screamed in protest as a burst of intense heat engulfed me. With it came eye-tearing light. I felt as though I were at the white-hot core of a flashbulb. Relief came in a cold wet breeze carrying the scent of damp concrete. In that brief moment of peace, I lifted Melchior into my arms.

The greenhouse was gone. We stood in the middle of a midnight street at the heart of an enormous city. Around us a swirling mass of newspaper shreds danced a temporary ring. My first thought was that it had been assembled by Chance Eddies. Then I heard a triumphant cry and the beginning abjuration of a spell of control. Before I could disabuse the sorcerer of the notion that I was a summoned demon, the heat and light came again.

This time we arrived in the center of a huge and elegantly set table. The linens were of rich ruby damask and each place setting sparkled with silver and crystal. A braided wreath of fruit-laden grapevines surrounded us, and I could only assume that we'd displaced some gorgeously crafted centerpiece. The impeccably dressed and exquisitely turned out diners appeared only mildly surprised at our sudden appearance. It seemed as pleasant a place to end my trip as any. I exerted my will on the process, holding the ring open, and lifted a foot to cross the vine boundary. One of the women smiled up at me. She was all in evergreen lace and sable velvet and she was beautiful. She was also possessed of an entire mouthful of sharp predator's teeth. The contents of her plate were moving.

Blistering heat. Glaring light. An endless flat plane of glass glowing faintly blue in the moonlight. The scent of ozone. A ring of perfect red roses.

Flash. Booming drums. A dusty clearing. A dozen small monkeylike things slowly orbiting me in a shuffling dance, their hands clasped. The aroma of roasting meat.

And so it went. It was far worse than my first trip through a faerie ring. Then I'd entered of my own accord with a firm goal in mind. Now I was Hipping aimlessly between worlds without the faintest glimmering of intent. I could feel all of my worries and desires slowly draining away as the journey moved faster and faster. I knew I was in danger of losing myself forever in the ennui that came with the sensory overload, but somehow I couldn't summon the energy to care.

That was when Melchior bit me. I let go of him with a scream, but he stayed firmly in place. His fangs were sunk deep into the soft tissue of my shoulder, and all four sets of his claws clung to my left side. He stuck to me like the flaming jacket the centaur Nessus had used to slay Hercules. Stunned by this unexpected betrayal, I tried to pull him loose, but there was no way, not without doing considerable damage to myself. Just then we made another world transition, moving from a brightly lit desertscape to a dark and blasted hillside. A powerful smell of burning hung in the air. As we crossed over, the pain in my shoulder abruptly intensified. I cried out again and staggered, the combination of repeated sensory hammerblows and Melchior's unprovoked attack leaving me shocky and disoriented.

"Jump," a voice howled in my ear.

I launched myself up and forward with all my might before realizing it was Melchior who had commanded me. Somewhere about halfway through my wild leap, the web-goblin released his grip and dropped away. I landed in a crouch that turned into a half kneel as my bad knee gave way. Expecting further attack, I ignored the pain-laced weakness of my leg and forced myself to my feet. As I rose a noise came from behind and my hand went to the hilt of my rapier. It was fortunate I reacted so quickly, drawing my blade as I turned, because it allowed me to parry the axe blow that whistled toward my neck an instant later.

The force of the attack numbed my arm to the elbow, but my blade held, and the axe rode up and over my head in a shower of sparks. As the axe flashed past, I got a brief look at my attacker. He stood slightly above me on the dew-slick, grassy slope. A big man, he was garbed like a hunter in a hooded jerkin and breeches tucked into knee boots. An empty bow case was slung over his shoulder. In the dark I couldn't make out colors, and his hood was drawn up, shadowing his face. The next couple of minutes were a confusing blur as I backed away from his onslaught, often stumbling or slipping on the rough ground.

An axe is an awkward sort of weapon and slow. Under any normal circumstances, the superior speed and maneuverability of my rapier would have allowed me to slide past his guard and turn him into so much shish kebab.

The problem was that no one seemed to have explained that to
him
. I was wounded and weary. My bad knee was getting steadily worse under the constant pressure of retreat on an uneven surface. And I was still disoriented from my passage between worlds. My opponent, on the other hand, seemed fresh and strong, and he was throwing around a broad-bladed axe like a willow wand. Instead of elegantly sliding around his attacks and skewering him, I was trying desperately to turn the unending series of cuts he rained on me.

It was a job my thin dueling blade was never meant for, and I feared it would break at any moment. I did fumble for my dagger, but my left hand was still too awkward, and I ended up dropping it. A few seconds later, my knee gave out completely, and I went down on my back. The axe swung up for a cut I would never be able to parry. Instead, I set my blade for a counterthrust. I might not be able to win, but I could probably arrange things so we both lost.

The axe started a downward arc that was going to split my skull into neat halves like a walnut. In the same instant, I brought my rapier up in a thrust that would end with a foot of steel perforating my attacker's intestines. The edge came down. The point rose up.

My opponent shrieked and fell to his left as that leg folded underneath him.

With a wet, schlunking sort of noise, the axehead sank six inches into the earth next to my right ear. The haft struck my cheek a glancing blow, tearing a long gash.

My rapier went home in his right arm, passing completely through his biceps and standing out a good six inches on the other side.

I paused to revel in the fact that I wasn't dead. It felt wonderful. Any number of times over the course of the previous few months, I'd feared I was going to die. But this time was different. This time I'd
known
I was dead at that very moment. There'd been no doubt in my mind. And yet, here I was, still breathing. Breathing was good. I liked breathing. In fact…

"Don't just lie there," said Melchior. "Give me a hand tying Dairn up before the shock wears off."

There were a number of questions I wanted to ask, but I can be practical when I have to. So I helped Melchior bind and gag my erstwhile opponent. I also bandaged Dairn's wounds. There were two. In addition to the damage I'd done his arm, Melchior had hamstrung him. I also got Melchior to dose both of us with painkillers. Only once those tasks were completed did I turn my mind back to my questions. I had a number of injuries that needed attention as well, but waiting a few minutes wasn't going to make much difference.

"What the fuck is going on!?" I yelled. "Why in Necessity's name did you bite me?"

"Sure," said Melchior. "You save a guy's life, not once, not twice, but three times in ten minutes. And what does he do? Does he say thank you? No. I don't think so."

"Melchior, could we skip the dramatics and the runaround just this once? It's been a very long day. No. Scratch that. It's been a very long winter. I think my knee is completely gone, maybe for good. And"—I held up a hand with the thumb and forefinger an eighth of an inch apart—"I'm this close to passing out. I'd really love to find out what happened before I leave the land of vertical."

"All right, but it's not going to be any fun this way," he replied reluctantly. "I bit you because you were about to lose us in the faerie ring. When we went in, you seized control of our transport. Not a big surprise. You were in the driver's seat the only other time we went through one together as well. Unfortunately, you didn't have a goal in mind, or at least you didn't express one, and that's a sure recipe for doom. You can lose your soul that way, and I think you were pretty close to that point at the end. So I decided I'd better take the wheel. The only way for me to do that was to break your concentration, and with it, your hold on the process. Biting you seemed the easiest way."

"All right," I said. "I can see the need. Thank you. Next question. Where are we? And why is Dairn here?"

Melchior looked at the fractured slope above us and flinched. "This is, or perhaps I should say was, Ahllan's home. It's the only ring I really know."

I wanted to deny Mel's assertion, but I couldn't. Now that I knew what I was seeing, I recognized familiar details, like the tree beneath which Cerice and I had first made love and the beer-can ring where Melchior and I had arrived. It was a shattering realization. Ahllan's beautiful house looked like a honey tree after grizzlies had been at it.

"The Furies or Atropos?" I asked.

"I think I know where we can get the answers." Melchior pointed to where we'd propped Dairn against a rock.

"Why don't we have few words with my dear, sweet cousin?" I agreed. My tone was ugly, even in my ears.

"That suits," responded Melchior. He moved to Dairn's side, and slowly slid one claw under the fabric of the gag, slicing it neatly away.

"Well?" I asked.

"I don't see why I shouldn't tell you," said Dairn, the rhythm of his breathing staccato with pain even through the morphine. "The Furies got here first. They're the ones who opened the door, so to speak." He gestured at the ripped-open hilltop. "Though I think that was all that they did. They were looking for you, and they don't seem to have been interested in the others. Fortunately, we weren't far behind. The troll and that hellcat you call a girlfriend put up quite a fight, but Atropos sent enough of us to do the job."

"So that's why you let go of me when we first got here," I said to Mel.

"Not really," he replied. "I figured you weren't going to be real rational about my having bitten you, and I wanted to put some distance between us before I tried explaining. Landing practically on top of this jerk was just sort of a perk." He paused. "Two perks really."

"Two?" I asked.

"Yeah. In addition to taking his bow out of commission, it gave me a chance to keep him from sounding the alarm."

"How so?"

"By relieving him of this."

Mel reached into his pouch and pulled out the magically insulated sack he used for spell supplies. An angry buzzing sounded from inside. He opened the top partway and pulled out a tiny naked woman. She had waist-length black hair, dragonfly wings, and a nasty disposition. A webpixie. Dairn wasn't really a sorcerer, so he didn't need to haul around a laptop like Cerice and I did. Instead, he used one of the new handhelds. This one was very unhappy.

"Does she—" I started to ask Melchior. He jerked a thumb meaningfully in Dairn's direction.

"Right," I said. "Melchior, Bedtime For Bonzo… Please."

Despite the pause the spell request came out a little more naturally this time. Maybe I'd get used to it after a while. He whistled a chunk of binary that ended with Dairn's head lolling to one side as he began to snore.

"Free will?" I asked.

"I don't know," he replied. "I kind of doubt it. She's too small to have any real processing power. She'd almost have to be an idiot."

"Let me go for a minute, and I'll show yer who's an idiot," she snarled, in a surprisingly deep voice. "I'll yank yer eyes out of they sockets and stuff 'em up yer snooty goblin nose."

"I think that answers that question," I said. "That doesn't sound like the sort of personality programming Dairn would go for in a familiar."

"Yer damn right it's not," said the pixie. "He's a right bastard. 'Kira do this. Kira do that. Faster Kira. Faster. Do yer want me ter trade yer in on a cell phone, Kira?' When I'm done with blue boy's eyes, maybe I'll have a go at his."

"What an enchanting little thing you are," I said dryly. "Did you happen to see what happened there"—I pointed at the hill—"or were you too busy plotting death and destruction?"

"If yer wants ter know what happened ter the frill and the troll, I can tell yer, but it'll cost."

"We'd like to know what became of the little purple goblin as well," I said.

"Why for? Every damn one of 'em's a stuck-up pain in the arse."

"What say I tear her wings off," said Melchior.

"No, Mel. Tempting as that sounds at the moment, she might know something important." I turned my attention back to the pixie. "What do you want?"

She looked surprised at first, as though she couldn't believe I'd actually negotiate with her. Then she looked suspicious. Finally, she spoke. "Freedom," she whispered.

"Deal," I said.

"What!" yelped Melchior. "You can't be serious. What's to keep her from running straight to Atropos the second we let her go?"

"And he calls me an idiot," scoffed the pixie. She turned her gaze on Melchior. "What are yer? A great damned loon? What's ter keep me, an escaped familiar, from running ter the Fate of Death? The fact that she'd take me apart and use my parts for jewelry doesn't strike yer as enough reason ter stay as far away from her as I can fucking get?"