Elvendude (12 page)

Say what?
Adam leaned forward in the chair, his hands fidgeting. "Should I?"

"Then it has happened," she said softly, but Adam had the distinct feeling she was not speaking directly to him.

Sammi stood and holstered her Glock. "Did you drive here?"

Adam nodded. "Who is he, Mom?" he asked plaintively, hoping she could somehow explain all the weirdness away.

"I don't have time to explain," she said, picking her purse up. "But this Marbann is a friend. I'll explain everything when we get home. You follow me."

"But . . ."

"No buts. I'll tell you later. This office is no place for explanations."

During the ride back to the house, Adam tried not to think about
anything.
But his mind continued to spin.
She knew about Marbann, at least, knew he was 'of Avalon.' What in hell's name is going on here?

He resisted an urge to turn off and start driving anywhere, as far as he could. In the little Geo, which still had a full tank, this would be quite a distance, particularly with the twenty-dollar bill he had in his wallet. New Mexico was within driving range. But something urged him to stay behind his mother, proceed to the house, and see what this was all about.

They both pulled into the drive, parked, and started for the house.

"Mom, don't you want your gun ready or something?" Adam said nervously.

"Don't be silly," she said. "Marbann would never harm either of us." She paused at the door, added, "You, in particular."

It's all probably a big joke. If it is, Mom looks like she's really into it.

Adam followed his mother into the living room, where Moira and Marbann were still sitting. Marbann sat on the couch, calmly reading a
Newsweek.
Moira was buffing her nails and didn't seem to notice them when they entered.

"My lady," Marbann said, standing. Then, bowing briefly to Adam, said, "Thank the gods the King is safe."

Adam rubbed his eyes, studied his mother's face. No answers yet.

"Marbann," Sammi said, and embraced him. The man, or whatever, kissed her on the cheek.

Now Mother looked afraid . . . or was it grief?
What is she grieving over?
Adam thought frantically.
The loss of our sanity?

"They have finally slain the King," she said sadly, in a tone of voice Adam had never heard her use before.

Adam stepped closer, not liking the idea of this creature being so close to his mother. "Mom, what the hell are you talking about?"

"I'm afraid so," Marbann continued, glancing at Adam, who flinched when their eyes met. "The Unseleighe have assassinated the royal family, seized the palace, and are now searching this human city for Prince—no,
King
Aedham." He bowed again, this time more elegantly, before Adam. "I am at your service, Your Majesty."

Sammi turned to Adam and said, "The time has come for an explanation, young King."

Adam started walking backward down the hallway. Then he turned and fled into the bathroom, slammed the door shut, and locked it.

Wonder what kind of LSD it was,
he thought morosely as he sat down on the closed toilet lid.
Who did it, and when? Was it in the 7UP I had this morning? Product tampering? Practical jokes by the clientele of the Yaz?

Then he saw the chain mail vest, which looked like it had been blown open by a shotgun blast, lying on the floor next to the john. In the sink lay bits of bloodied cloth. He remembered the stranger's bandaged arm.

He sensed their approach to the bathroom door. "This isn't going very well, my lady," he heard Marbann say from the other side.

No, it couldn't have been at the Yaz. Spence wouldn't drug me. Maybe those weird chicks in the leather who were leaving Skary did . . . something. But what? Did they prick me with an LSD-tipped pin when I wasn't looking? Wouldn't I have felt something?

"Adam, come out here this
instant,
" his mother said angrily.

"Not until you tell me what's going on," he said, starting to sweat in the windowless bathroom. "If this is all an elaborate joke, I think you've had your fun by now. If this is
Candid Camera
or
Totally Hidden Video
or something entirely new, you've had your laugh." He looked around the bathroom, checked the medicine cabinet. "Nope. No camera in here. Looks like it's out there somewhere."

"Aedham, this is not a human prank," Marbann said.

"It's useless to reason," Sammi said. "I'm just going to have to . . ."

The little lock on the doorknob popped out, then the knob started to turn. Horrified, Adam looked on.
How are they doing that?
Then,
How did she find a screwdriver that fast?

He grabbed the blow-dryer and held it up, like a club.

The door opened. Marbann and Sammi stood there, looking at him with—what, pity? Then he saw his mother in the darkened hallway. Like Moira, she now had pointed ears and green cat's eyes.

Adam stepped backward, pulling the blow-dryer's power cord taut.

"Get back!" Adam screamed, and turned the blow-dryer on.

"Or what?" Moira said from behind the both of them, sounding amused. "You're going to style our hair? Got any gel?"

"I mean it!" Adam said, then felt suddenly silly.
But if those prosthetic ears are wax, then—

He stepped forward with the blow-dryer and turned it on "HOT—HIGH," grinning as he waited for Marbann's ear to melt. His stomach curdled as he caught a whiff of the man, an acrid but clean smell, definitely not human.

"Don't be ridiculous," Marbann said, plucking the blow- dryer from his hand. "You still think you're a human. How terrible
that
must be."

Adam pushed his way past them, started running down the hallway, intent on getting into his car.
New Mexico looks pretty good right now.

But as he reached the end of the hallway, a bright light flashed past him. Something hit his back and caused him to stumble, but whatever it was cushioned him as he rolled into a wall.

He lay there, unable to move for several moments. Moira, Marbann and his mother stood over him.

"Are you hurt, Your Majesty?" Marbann asked with sincerity.

"Uh . . . I don't think so. But I can't move."

"The effects of the low-level bolt will wear off," his mother said. "Marbann, would you carry him to his room?"

"Certainly, my lady," Marbann said, then scooped him up in his arms as he would a load of laundry and started down the hallway, sideways. "My, young King, you have grown even as a human," Marbann said good-naturedly as he deposited him on his bed.

Adam said nothing, resigned to the long wait it would probably take for the hallucinogens to filter out of his body.
And when I wake up, I'll either be in prison or an insane asylum.
Under the circumstances, he looked forward to those prospects.

"Now, young King," his mother said, leaning over him. "You will go to sleep. Then I will conjure a spell to
break
a spell."

Against his will, he did as he was told.

He stood in what had once been a great hall, overlooking the ruins of what was once a great castle, wondering who he was and what he was doing in this particular place. Jagged, fallen walls reached for the sky with tortured fingers. Death lingered in the air, along with the acrid stench of a recently fought levin bolt battle.

He made his way through the ruins, wondering how he was connected to the carnage that had taken place here. The dead bodies he found offered no clues to his identity, except that the victims had long pointed ears like his own. The victims wore various grades of silver and gold armor, portions of which were mangled beyond usefulness, or blown completely away from the wearer. They were mostly young males, with a few older elves fallen as well, still clutching weapons: clubs, bows, blades. This battle must have been a last stand, a final showdown before the conquerors prevailed and the owners of the castle died, or fled to places unknown.

Still, he remained ambivalent.
Did I live here, or was I somehow related to those who died?
he wondered, but these questions were unimportant now; his main purpose was to wander and explore, get in touch with his soul, and then, if within reach, his past. His ears, he knew, were a clue.

Would my ears, and eyes, seem strange to me in another life?
he thought, and the more he pondered this, the more he felt certain this was so. Why they were odd, he didn't know.

I have no name,
he realized.
I don't know who I am.

His lost memory did not alarm him as it might have in another life. He would learn his name when he was ready, but now was not that time. He walked past the bodies, down a short flight of stairs that remained intact, though significant chunks had been blown away by some fearsome weapon.

Levin bolts did this,
he knew, and shuddered at the strength these bolts must have been to bring down the castle. He had a dim recollection of mages, and their ability to wield these weapons, but the images were shrouded in murk.
The present is what is important. Examining my past must come later.

He examined the impact the levin bolts left. The pocked craters penetrated a hand's breadth into the stone and mortar. A residue of the magic remained, trickling from the crater like blood from a wound: a dark, evil power, alien to his touch. He recoiled from the damage, as from a hot flame.

I know this was a palace, but how do I know that?
He looked up at the mound of boulders and mortar, dotted with an occasional standing wall, and imagined what this palace looked like before the battle. Magnificent, it must have been, covered with brilliant white limestone, though little of the facing remained now. He felt sorrow, not because of any personal loss, but only because such a beautiful structure had been destroyed.

He wanted to know who destroyed the palace, and where they were now. The ruins stood on a high peak, which jutted from a plateau of gently rolling hills covered with emerald grass the texture of velvet.

In the distance stood a ridge of mountains. This natural barrier, he knew, formed a political boundary as well, and the conquerors, whoever they were, came from the other side. He did not understand why they would defeat these people and then move on. Perhaps nothing worth claiming remained after the battle, or maybe they wanted to kill for the sake of killing. Hate still lingered in this place, as thick and tangible as the fog that burned off in the morning heat.

As he proceeded down the side of the hill, the fallen rock and debris from the palace became less frequent. The moat encircling the palace was completely dry and growing with grass and wildflowers. The sight puzzled him at first, until he guessed that the owners of the palace must not have expected an invasion, in fact hadn't worried about the possibility of one for some time. The bridge crossing the moat, at least what was left of it, was overgrown with thick vines, securing it more or less in place.

Dreaming. This is called . . . dreaming,
a voice spoke from deep within him. The voice belonged to another entity linked to his past, but still a part of him, a fragmented portion he sensed wanted to become whole with him again. The message came through as a thought, but odd, runelike symbols represented the phrase: Dreaming. In this alien language, dreaming was not isolated to one word. There were different kinds of Dreaming, and this was only one of them, but when he tried to remember what the other forms of Dreaming were like the memory eluded him.

Above an eagle circled. It dove a short distance, pulled up, and circled some more. He watched it for some time as it meandered through the sky, turning in wide, lazy circles, growing larger as it descended. It was no ordinary eagle, or any eagle he was familiar with in any of his lives, as it was jet-black with no other markings. Also, not only was it larger than he was, it was larger than four of him laid end to end.

Talons extended, the eagle plunged toward him.

He didn't react at first; fear froze him in place. One of those talons was longer than his hand, he saw with sickening clarity as the bird attacked. Then the voice urged him to action, and he ran for the bridge, diving under it moments before the eagle struck. Talons pierced the bridge, sending splinters and boards flying everywhere. The entire structure shifted as the bird struggled to unhook itself.

Finally the eagle dislodged itself and flailed away, its shriek of rage a deep, terrifying scream that vibrated his very bones. He looked up through the holes left by the talons, knew then that the bridge would not protect him a second time.

As the bird gained altitude, he bolted out from beneath the bridge and ran up the stairway's remains.
Somewhere, up here, there is the entrance to an underground hallway.
The memory fragment offered itself reluctantly, the voice doling it out cautiously, grudgingly. He saw the passageway clearly in his mind, or rather how it had appeared before the invaders destroyed the palace.

The eagle passed over him as he reached the ruins, urging his legs to move faster. In the remains of the great hall he found a gaping hole in the floor, the only protection he saw. The eagle might trap him down there, but it would not be able to follow him.

He plunged into the darkness, and moments later the great bird struck at the entrance, sending a torrent of pebbles and dust after him, but no more. The eagle shrieked after him. The darkness became absolute, but he didn't care; he'd escaped death. He proceeded further into the passage's depths, feeling the walls for guidance.

He found a room at the bottom of the stairs. A thin veil of fog shrouded the floor, and beneath it glowed lights—candles or lanterns. He tried to count them, but his mind drifted, and he lost count.

He closed his eyes, because that is what the voice told him to do.

This is Dreaming. And the Dream is about to end. . . .

His stomach lurched as his universe shifted around him, and for a moment he was in free-fall; in vacuum, in darkness. His feet found solid ground, and he was standing upright again.