Authors: Justina Robson
human version of history.
'If I hadn't
been looking, I'd never have seen it,' Malachi said uncomfortably
.
'I'm not sure - it could be
an echo fragment of the explosion, you know? Like a geological fault? Trouble with Bomb fragments is
that they often look like they're something they're not, especially ejecta from so close to the original site,
which is, unfortu-nately, pretty much everything from Bay City to Old Salt
Lake. I need more help to find
out. Probably have to dig down.'
'But
if it's been there that
long then it's very unlikely to be anything to do with rock stars and their
publicity is it?' Lila said, rather surprised at
her own spitefulness as she spoke the words.
'Getting up your cuff is he?' Malachi asked with a smile, glad to be changing subject
.
'Nothing I can't manage.' Lila checked the time and got
back on her bike. 'Give you a ride back? I'm
going to see Sarasilien.'
'Darling!' Malachi objected and pointed to his smart clothes. 'I'm strictly a car boy. Say hi to the old
charlatan from me. And put
a helmet
on.'
Lila waved and tried not
to notice how Malachi had failed to completely quell her disquiet. She spun
the bike around in an entryway and, as she passed him on the way back, saw him studying the ground of
the parking lot
outside the studio with such absorption he didn't lift his head, only his hand in a farewell.
Her ride to Incon's facility was hot and dusty and full of lazy midday traffic. Lila was later than she
meant to be when she finally rode into the subterranean garage of the undistinguished office block on the
city outskirts. She took the express elevator down, bypassing the street
levels and the administrative
floors
.
Barely was the dust out of her hair before she presented herself before her - she didn't know what
he was any more; healer, friend? - before Sarasilien, the only elf agent within the NSA, and the one who
had saved her from death of her magical wounds.
His rooms were the largest
and most peculiarly appointed of all the
strangely outfitted rooms in the building
.
Technology and magical instrumentation fought for space across
several tables and desks. Sand trays and inkstands lay under the glow of virtual keyboards, marked with
the awkward runes of a dozen magical languages. Giant
sized Berrypics covered the walls with
manuscript, evidence charts, duty logs and glorious vistas of other realms. Server racks hummed quietly.
Magical test
rigs, filling the air with strange, light bending archi-tectures, funnelled I-space contingencies
out
of the room and out of the universe
.
Sarasilien's tall, blue-and-grey-clad figure stood at one of these.
To Lila, even though they bore no physical resemblance, the elf's tall, elegantly spare form and long,
silvering chestnut and gold hair immediately reminded her of her father. When he turned to greet her the
strong slanting of his features on their angular bones and the sudden small movements of his long ears -
their attenuated tips were as high as the crown of his head - should have put paid to that impression, but
they didn't
.
She couldn't even detect a trace of warmth in him as he came towards her, silver stitches in
his clothing glinting, his face as stern as a patrician statue, manner as composed as a king's.
Sarasilien's
andalune
body had always been tightly controlled - he kept it completely subdermal for
most of his time in Otopia, she understood - but, since encountering Zal, Lila was suddenly much more
aware of the possibility of its presence, and curious, since she had never witnessed Sarasilien displaying
it. His control of it was, she knew, a sign of extreme self-mastery, a thing as rare in elves as any race. Its
absence had been a key factor in the comfort she felt with him before. Now, that
comfort seemed to be
gone.
Her awkwardness with him made her self-conscious, and that made her more awkward
.
She was
suddenly ill at ease before his calm, and cast her eyes towards his boots rather than his face
.
She thought
suddenly of Zal, though Zal had never once made her think of Sarasilien. Her reasons for being here, at
all, were suddenly unclear to her. Now that she saw him she became more sure that the need she had to
talk to him was nothing to do with the case, but entirely personal, and that seemed like a weak and
insubstantial reason to be here.
'Lila,' Sarasilien said and lifted her chin with his hand, so she must look at him. 'Are you well?'
His concern manifested as a much slighter expression than it would
have merited on a human face. Even when moved deeply his face showed only hints of what
he felt. But
Lila was tugged by the care, mote than she wanted. 'I'm fine. Sorry. It's been tougher than I thought'
Sarasilien looked down into her eyes and the ghost of a smile made his lips turn at
the corners
.
His
cheek dimpled very faintly and she saw the tips of his long ears turn more closely towards his head
.
He
was really very glad to see her. 'You look well, although your presentation has more of the urchin than
the goddess about
it. Town must
be busy.'
'It
was,' she agreed and then she stepped forward impulsively and hugged him. She had missed him.
She'd had no idea how much until that second. Perhaps it
was to be expected, after they'd worked so
closely for so long to get her fit again, mentally and physically at least. Emotionally she clearly had a way
to go.
She felt his
andalune
body very briefly on the exposed skin of her hands and face, like a breath of air
that
had come off the tops of a cold and lonely mountain. After a second of his normal reticence he
embraced her back, and then he set
her from him, not
unkindly. 'What
brings you here?'
She sat
down on one of the guest chairs, looking around the familiar room with its oak-panelled walls,
library bookshelves, and the largest of all the Berries, showing the white-capped mountains that
Sarasilien called his home, very far from Otopia. 'Isn't seeing you enough?' she asked, not certain she
could tell him everything on her mind.
'Yes, but
that's not the matter.' He was standing close by a book table suitable for viewing very large
volumes. He closed the one that
lay open there and folded his hands in front of him.
Lila was sure she had his full attention and it daunted her. 'I don't think I can carry through this job,'
she confessed.
'Why not?'
T don't know. It's too much like facing everything too fast.'
'Because Zal is an elf?'
'Because Zal is
no
t
an elf,' Lila countered, glancing into his green eyes and seeing the sympathy she
was looking for, bound inside a world of strict expectations; emerald in ice. T was ready for him to be
like you. Not as kind. Even like the Daga agents maybe. But
like you. And he isn't. And he is. Oh, hell. .
. I'm getting this all wrong!'
'Tell me the facts.'
That
was more like it, Lila thought, wishing she'd done that
to begin
with. She found coherence now she was on familiar ground
.
'A lot
of the hate mail the band receive is
standard stuff, nasty but
not
danger-ous. The letters that
made Incon decide to act
are still coming - I
brought them.' She took them out
of the pocket of her armoured vest and the dagger with them and held
them out
to Sarasilien.
He took them, careful not to touch the knife but balance it
on the envelopes. He set
them on the book
table and with one finger pushed them apart. As he inspected them and began to open the letters Lila
continued.
T can't
read magic, despite everything we've tried. I can't do that
and I don't
think he tells me what
they really say. And the knife . . .' She explained the whole story of that incident as Sarasilien read the
letters, one after another. She could see him controlling his reactions carefully so that barely a twitch of
one ear betrayed him. Nonetheless he sighed with relief when he was able to put
them down.
She didn't
tell him all about
the knife. Not
the part about
Zal touching her or the remark he'd made. Or
the Game they were playing. She willed Sarasilien to guess it, so that
she didn't
have to admit
making
such a stupid move, so he'd take her off the assignment
and she could avoid the shame. But her will had
all the effect of her efforts at
sorcery
.
Sarasilien examined the dagger very closely indeed
.
He spoke to it and Lila saw words deep within the
metal rise to the surface at his command. Wisps of black and silver ran along the edges of the blade and
dripped into the air at
its tip only to swirl and vanish quickly. As he went to put it down, the knife twisted
somehow in his fingers and she heard him take a sharp, short breath.
Blood ran down the knife together with the white and black, the orange-hued scarlet
of elf blood
quickly deepening to crimson as it
fell and bore magic with it onto the letter paper underneath
.
Immediately all the pages burst into flame,
Sarasilien spoke a single word and the burning pages and the bloodied knife became frozen in space
and time, as though in a photograph
.
He muttered over his finger and went into the bathroom suite that
led off his rooms to tend it
.
When he came back he sat down beside Lila on the other guest chair and
looked into her eyes, He seemed very sad and she braced herself, for she'd never seen him make a
mistake before, and although the cut was small and the sleep charm already used up, she was afraid.
'You did well to get
them here. The blade was spelled to want
to cut
elf flesh. It
was a magic of higher
than the Seventh Level. I don't
doubt
that if it had found its way close to Zal it would have done more
than make him sleep. But you say an elf carried it and used it against you?'
"That's what Poppy - that's what
the faery said. But
they were in league. She may have lied.'
"There's more than elvish magic in it,' Sarasilien said, pressing his cut finger gently with his thumb, a
rueful expression on his face.
Lila sensed he was calculating what to say so that
he didn't upset her, or perhaps for political reasons
.
Silences within Incon were even more obscure than ordinary elven silences.
'I cannot tell you any more until all of this has been discussed with my masters,' he said. 'Only that
this
is not about race hate, or anything to do with the purity of the musical industry. It
wears those faces,
even through the Daga, but
they are only servants of another intent.'
T thought
the Daga served Alfheim and its goals,' Lila said with disappointment, ignoring the flash of
fear that had streaked through her like lightning when he spoke.
'So they would have us believe,' Sarasilien said. Now his face was troubled and Lila really began to
worry.
'Isn't
it
so?*
'Possibly.'
He was quickly lost in labyrinths of thought, Lila saw. Tentatively she reached out
to touch his arm, the
hurt
one. 'Talk to me?'
He looked at her hand, smiled his slight
smile that
was never truly joyous because it
held too many
years. T cannot. I will when I am able.'
'Tell me at
least
if it's personal or business then.'
'Both. Come, that's not all you had to tell me.'
'Diverter,' she accused him gently. 'Well, the other thing is that
I've tried to find out who Zal is and
there is no record
.
It isn't his real name I suppose, but how do I get further? Like an idiot I already told
him mine so I can't even trade for it.' The words sounded efficient, unlike the beating of her heart
which
was far too fast
for someone merely sitting in a pleasant
room. Behind Sarasilien's shoulder she could see
the frozen fire of the vellum and the knife in mid-air, holding to his word.
He didn't
question her research. 'So, it's not
in the names of the living,' he said after a pause. 'What
about
the dead?'
Lila blinked. 'You think necromancy? He's not
Undead. No way.'
'Not
necessarily,' he said. 'Mistakes are made. Elves are hard to kill.
Sometimes they are thought
to be dead, are buried and rise again, alive, much later when time has
healed them
.
Records aren't
always updated. Outright deaths are the only straightforward ones. Even
great wounds and sickness aren't
always fatal, and the same goes double for magical attacks. Also, the
magic of Resurrection does not always create Undead ones, though I am not
versed in the
Necromancer's art.'