Whiskey and Water (67 page)

Àine drew a breath, and closed her eyes.
Keith looked from his wife to the Merlin.

"
This
is how the story
ends," Carel said.

And so it did, for Àine.

:What is it that you seek, Fionnghuala?:

She paused beside, and a little behind,
the Morningstar. He slouched on a stool in the gallery, legs akimbo, wings half
extended, fanning on the morning breeze.

You," she said, and came to stand
beside him, holding her cloak closed, one-handed, across her breast.

:He should have loved me first and best,
as I loved Him.:

"Are you so sure He didn't?"

:What do you want?:

She smiled without looking to see if he
noticed. "To do the Christian thing."

:He won't forgive me. Even should I ask.:

"That's the sin of hubris, you know.
And the sin of despair. The same ones that got Judas.
I
forgive everyone
who wants forgiveness, and anyway, don't think I didn't notice you pulling
threads to free Keith MacNeill from his doom,
Morningstar."

He had no answer.

"And if I forgive you" —she ran
her fingertips along his jaw—
"He
doesn't have to. That's what it is
to be a trinity."

:You,: he said, his wings arching up
behind his shoulders so the harsh rasp of feathers underscored his words.
:But—:

"It never occurred to you that the
teind is an echo of martyrdom, and martyrdom an echo of sacrifice? That they're
all the same story? Never, Prince of Stories?"

:Prince of Lies,: he corrected.

"Lies are stories."

He closed his eyes.
:Batter my heart,
three-person'd God—:

"Christ," she answered, and
folded him in her arms. "Not that damned thing. Come and be forgiven, child."

Whiskey found Elaine alone, finally, when
she had left Carel and Autumn together and Keith beside their son's sickbed.
She walked along the rocky strand. Whiskey cantered up beside her on three
legs. He touched her not, nor spoke her name.

"I am leaving."

She stopped, her hands shoved in her
pockets, dressed as Morgan would in blue jeans and a sweater, her cropped hair
riffling over her eyes. Her sleeves were pushed up. White scars laced her arms,
and the emeralds on her left hand winked when she pulled them into the sun.

Her footprints traced the water's edge,
but stopped short of where the waves began. "I know," she answered.
"I'm sorry.'

He lowered his head, flattened his neck,
shook out his white and black streaked raw-silk mane so the sea breeze lifted
and tossed it. "Elaine," he said.

She bit her lip. "Uisgebaugh."

Head up, ears pricked. Too much pride to
show pain as he pranced_

bare-hooved, three-legged —over the
stones. His shoulder was barely crusted and other wounds still bled. They'd
heal. One more scar, out of Faerie. "One last ride?"

Her lips were wet when she smiled, and the
salt wasn't all from the sea. "Will you drown me?" He tossed his
mane, flagged his tail, let the wind stream them wild. "Who knows?"

"Hold still," she said, and
grabbed a double fistful of mane, hopping and hauling until she could sling her
leg over his naked back.

Lily came to Matthew when Morgan was done
with him, and offered her shoulder to lean on. She snugged under his arm,
helping take his weight as he balanced on the splinted knee. "Morgan wants
me to be her apprentice," she said as she led him out into the sun.
"Although I'm going to get my cat first. At least he's black."

Matthew laughed.

She squeezed him. "What are
you
going
to do now?"

"I'm going home to Gotham. I can't
help it. I belong in that goddamned town." He paused and stole a sidelong,
lip-bitten glance. "Prometheus would take you, if you wanted something
else. It's just me and Donall now. And Kit. And those kids of Jane's, if they
bother to come back."

She squeezed his waist once, quick.
"I hope we'll see you in Faerie.
Archmage.
Since you've friends here.
And all."

"I don't know. I've got . . . well.
Maybe we shouldn't call it Prometheus anymore. Considering — " "Fionnghuala
told you too."

"Fionnghuala told me
first."
He
stuck his tongue out.

She laughed, and pointed. "Shall we
sit there?" It's not too bright for you?"

"I like the sun." She sighed.
"I wonder if she's told Kit yet. What will we do for fun without
him?" "Kit?"

"Lucifer."

The stone bench warmed sore muscles. He sank
down sighing. "We'll think of something. Hell is full of devils, after
all."

"Don't remind me," she said. His
leg stuck straight out before him. She took it gently, supporting the knee, and
eased it into a more comfortable position. When she looked up into his face,
she smiled at him from a distance of a few inches.

He smelled like rust and sweat and blood
and dead things. She wrinkled her nose, and kissed him anyway, because she
wanted to. Softly, on the mouth, the unicorn-healed scar of the caduceus across
her lips rough and tender.

He licked his mouth when she leaned back.
"You realize, of course, that I'm far too old for you."
"Please,"
she said. "What are you, really? Like, twelve? Sticking your tongue
out at strange women? Besides, I like boys with glasses. And I'm not like other
girls."

Matthew grinned at her. "I'm told I
don't know much about them, anyway. Hello, Kit." "I'll return,"
Kit said, pausing so his shadow blocked the sun. "If I'm
interrupting."

"No," Lily said. "Keep him
company. I'm going to find him a drink. And you too."

"And thee," Kit said, and
brushed her arm with fingers like trailing feathers when she slid past. They
traded a secretive smile, provoking Matthew to laughter. "Will you flirt
with anything?"

"As long as it flirts back." Kit
settled beside him, so he wouldn't have to look into the light to talk.

"Morgan says Ian will recover. And be
King.

"A relief to all concerned, I
imagine."

Kit glanced sideways, his mouth pulling
down. "Such irony."

"A little." Matthew closed his eyes,
the better to appreciate the grace notes in the symphony of throbs and aches
echoing through his body. "You know what
really
sucks?"

Kit bumped Matthew with his shoulder, the
way, once upon a time, he might have nudged another friend. "What?

"Felix was right. It's
not
fair.
He wanted the talent. It should have been his. Not Geoff's. Not mine." Kit
sighed. "The man who put a knife in my eye was no poet, Matthew Magus, nor
ever wanted to be."

Matthew's head rocked in time to a silent,
disbelieving laugh. "And you're going to sit there and tell me you didn't
earn that bit of double-dealing, Christopher Marlowe?"

"No," Kit said. "But know
you this ..."

"What?"

The poet smiled as he stood. It wasn't
pretty. He patted Matthew's uninjured shoulder before he moved away. "When
you're moved to count Felix's ambitions forgivable, remember: I never put a
knife in
Will's
back."

Kit came up behind her, ran a touch up her
spine from the small of her back, laced his fingers through her hair. She
leaned into his touch, one hand spread wide on the shattered wooden doorframe
of the ruined tower prison. "I forgive thee all thy cruelties," he
whispered, through her hair, against her ear, as he had whispered to Lily so
very recently.

Morgan shivered, from his breath or from the
words, he didn't know. "Thou mean'st it not."

"But I do." He turned her face
between his hands, one gentle on her cheek, the other grasping hard, and
brushed his lips across her face. "Because I remember now. Things I never
remembered before. This story, that story, all of them different. Every one
contradicting the others. I used to know history. Now I don't even know my
own, who I was, who I loved, how I lived — "

"It's all true."

"It's all lies."

"False things are true," she
answered, and tugged restlessly against his grip on her hair. He opened his
hand and let her go. "What color is my hair?"

Black," he said, combing the
strawberry locks through his fingers. Black as sin, black as sorcery, and shot
through with silver like moonlit spiderwebs."

But it's always been red."

"Yes," he said. "I
remember. I could end up like the Devil, all my stories at war."

"You 'won't. You're one of us now.
Among the legends."

"What was it like to change?" he
asked. "Do you remember it? When you were just a woman?" "No,"
she said. "But I was born a story. You were born a man. You'll
manage."

"You sound certain."

She smiled and turned to kiss his palm.
"I haven't failed a student yet. Choose your story, Kit." "Which?
The stories choose us, not the other way round."

"Ah," Morgan said. "You
know, that's where you're wrong. Still, where there's life there's hope. And I
hear these days they're changing stories all the time."

She shook her hair free and stepped back,
but she never stopped smiling. Even when he went to seek the Devil.

Who waited for him atop the wall, not far
from a sulking angel. "I hoped you would wait," Kit said. :I hoped
you would come. How does it feel to win?:

Kit snorted. He laid his hands on the
battlements and rubbed his palms over white stone. He should say something
cutting, rough as those sun-warmed rocks. "Win?"

:The long-term goal of the Prometheus
Club, in the honest analysis, has been to remake God, whatever lies they have
offered over the years. You've lain in wait four hundred years, sweet Christofer.
Your opportunity presents.:

"The Devil speaks of truth?" And
there was the old Kit, acerbic, mocking. But his heart wasn't in it. You remade
the Devil in your own image. How much more awful the task of God? You've
your
absolution still to earn.:

"I thought I'd just live
forever." Kit looked down at the one iron ring on his hand. "Tell me
about Christian."

What is there to tell?: the Devil asked,
and Kit nudged him with an elbow.

:Christian likes his chaos and hates his
God. He enjoys playing his brothers against each other. He'd be loath to see
Satan unite the Hells and reign, and he'd hate to see me escape them. And then
there was the opportunity to cause trouble in the mortal realm, cadge a soul or
two. Such things matter to him.:

"And not to you?"

Lucifer laughed.

"Art finished plotting,
Morningstar?" Acerbic, the voice of an angel, resonant and true. Michael's
face was twisted around the smile she forced, unpracticed. She rustled, and
folded her wings. "Art ready to go home?"

:Never done plotting,: Lucifer answered.
His wing cupped Kit's shoulder briefly, a fleeting warmth, replaced by the
chill draft of the lonely sea below as it flickered away once more. :And never
more ready to go home. Never fear, brother—there are stories that end
differently. Thou wilt not go unemployed for long.:

"I never liked thee," Michael
said, as they ascended.

And they all lived, ever after.

Originally from Vermont and Connecticut,
Elizabeth Bear
spent six years in the Mojave Desert and currently lives
in southern New England. She attended the University of Connecticut, where she
studied anthropology and literature. She was awarded the 2005 Campbell Award
for Best New Writer.

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