Selling Out (11 page)
Authors: Justina Robson
But Lila was bored of waiting. She used the net to tightly truss up the elf, paying no attention to what it looked like, and then with one hand caught in the tough webbing she dragged it behind her towards the door. The landing area was flat, smooth stone, so it would not be too painful. However, before she reached the door she realised that she had nowhere to save this person, nowhere to put them. The house did not have cellars due to being built on pilings, and although it retained a traditional Catchment where trespassers against the family could wait for justice, she didn’t think that leaving an elf to the passing whims of a nest of demons was wise. She was lost in thought, staring out across the lagoon, when she noticed the coloured smokes rising from the Yboret Souk where aetheric trading went on. Somewhere down there would be a demon good at casting who would sell spells.
As Tath saw the idea forming in Lila’s mind he bubbled with misgiving but she ignored him. “It’s a good idea,” she said, annoyed at how defensive she sounded.
It is a lousy idea
, he said.
Even going there is a lousy idea that stands out in the brief yet terrifying history of lousy ideas you have had since I have known you. Naturally, since you have no magical awareness and almost no cultural sense here you will go immediately to the highly sensitive area of aetheric business dealings and attempt to duel wits with some of this world’s most powerful and no doubt unscrupulous mages. You have a lot to hide, mostly me, so of course we must go straight to the place where we are most likely to be discovered and all because you cannot be bothered to wait two hours until the light of the sun uncloaks this shadow
monger so it can be made to talk, when, I have no doubt, it will inform you that it is
loyal to some unheard-of faction back in Alfheim determined to exact revenge on the person they consider to be the catalyst for the war. We do not even need to bother asking. Just tip them into the canal and be done with it. In terms of honour alone you would be doing them a favour.
Lousy, Lila said to him, going inside and then hoisting the netted elf over her shoulder for the walk down to her rooms.
Listen to you. You’re getting more like me every day.
!
She thought he was right. He was always right, sod him, and she could not admit it, at least not enough to make her change her actions. Maybe she was even doing this so as to not feel like Tath was the one taking all the major decisions. Yes, that hit a nerve, she thought, feeling her jaw muscles go tight. But now she couldn’t go back because that would be a double weakness, it seemed, and so there was only onward.
The elf became suddenly doubled in weight and Lila almost fell over. It let out a piteous whimper that managed to be both very angry and very sorry for itself. Lila longed for the march to her room never to end. As long as she was moving she was okay and need not face the bothersome doubts about bullheaded stupidity and embarrassment which crowded her. But by the time this wish had formed she was already there and there was not even a moment’s hesitation before she dumped the elf on the floor and left it to struggle feebly with the tightened net while she went to wash and get into some serious clothing. That was the problem with having to maintain control, you could not stop moving. She thought this, moving continuously, aware that if she stopped something waited to overwhelm her which, if she continued, could not rise up and show itself.
Zal screwed up the ninth attempt at a letter and threw it at the bin. It missed but he didn’t care. His aim had been out on the other eight too. He looked at the hotel notepaper with dislike and then threw the entire pad into the bin where it lay curled up in the bottom, accusing him of profligate waste, selfishness, and cowardice. He walked across, recovered it and put it back on the desk, opened the desk drawer, took out the religious book there, and threw that into the bin. He suppressed an impulse to retrieve it and instead looked across to where Poppy, Viridia, and Sand were playing cards. They were using jumbled tarot decks and, after several attempts to decipher the game one time, he had realised that his failure to learn the rules was because faeries played with constantly changing rules, and the rules changed according to who was winning at the time or what the stake was or both. Because they mostly played in silence or communicating across some aether he didn’t have contact with Zal didn’t even find it particularly compelling to watch although the play absorbed the three of them, or any visiting fey friends, for hours. It was how Poppy lost most of her money and won all her pixie dust. She had a bad habit, and he grimaced with Malachi’s accusation about his own.
Yes, he had told Lila truthfully that his conjuration of Zoomenon was necessary for his health now that he was exiled from Alfheim. But exactly how it related he had fudged somewhat and now his head was filled with explanations that sounded like excuses. He had started the practice when he was in Demonia. It seemed a long time ago. He had no idea what would happen if he really stopped. Thinking about it made the idea of Zoomenon seem suddenly important, vital even. He disliked that most of all. Addicts never wanted to think their preferences had a grip on them, but that was how control always worked at its most successful. Zal ground his teeth and derailed that thought with what he had been attempting to write in the letter besides the admission of weakness. He had wanted to tell Lila about his time in Demonia and that seemed the most inexplicable experience of all.
Incon had sent her there to discover the mechanisms of his transformation, he was sure. They’d asked him and he’d refused to answer. She hadn’t asked. It irked him slightly. He had the impression that for some reason she preferred being separated from him by at least one dimensional shift and also that she wouldn’t have trusted his story. Couldn’t fault her instincts on that one, he thought. Even if he had been a great writer it would have been difficult to put into words and it would also have led, inescapably, to mention of the Others. Zal, like Malachi, was confident of human ignorance on this score and since none of them who liked to think they knew something about the subject really knew anything at all, well, a conspiracy of silence was the natural thing. He was so used to subterfuge he could almost convince himself it was in the humans’ best interests.
He set his pen down and gave up. Ahead of him the day was filled with annoying small events: magazine interview, radio phone-in, rehearsal, some songwriting time he always penned in but had lost the habit of using. Thank fate Sorcha had offered him a duet role on her cover song or he’d have nothing to be doing. In fact the lack of stimulation here and the obsessive attentions of the fan club with its million human teenage elf wannabes and the rest of it was all too distracting. He needed a break. He should go to the place where music lived and find himself in that. Then he wouldn’t even care about Zoomenon. No. He definitely would not.
He called Jolene, the band manager. “I’m going to take a break for a few days.”
“You can’t. You’re booked into the studio the day after tomorrow for Sorcha’s track and there’s a concert a day after that.”
“You can put it off until next week. This can’t wait.”
“No, Zal. You’re always messing up the schedule. Just hold it together for . . .”
He ignored the powerless pleading in her voice, “I’ll be back on Sunday. It’ll be fine.”
“Jelly will go ballistic.”
Jelly was the owner of Zal’s record label. No doubt that was true and he wouldn’t have to face any of the flak. Jolene would get most of it and whoever was standing next to her would get the rest. He had a big mouth but he was mostly wind and noise. “I’ll make it up to him. I’ll write songs.”
There was a moment of tense silence. “Where are you going?”
“Demonia.”
“But you can’t . . .”
Zal apologised for spoiling her plans, honestly, and hung up. He watched himself from a short distance of detachment as feelings of annoyance, worry, and uselessness at his feeble position flooded him with the desire to run, jump, sing, or throw all the furniture out of the window. He felt himself grow hot with inner fire, but did none of those things, just waited. After a time the horrible feelings slunk away and the fire dimmed to a glow. He went quietly into his room and looked through his things, spoke with the faeries about his plans just enough to keep them informed, and then left by the fire escape.
CHAPTER EIGHT
T
he flare and storm of demons fighting with the elements lit the dawn cloud over Bathshebat with many pretty colours and boomed through the air from the distant Playing Fields with soft vibrations that shook the crystal light catchers around the lamps in Lila’s room. The elf, securely tied by the net but with head and legs freed, sat on her bed propped against the headboard with her eyes shut. Lila sat on the floor opposite, her wrists resting on her updrawn knees and her hands loose. They had been like that for some time.
The elf was not like others Lila had known. Her skin was grey-blue, her hair quite black. She had Dar’s features, typical of the shadowkin, their faces seeming to be stretched from the tips of nose and chin, their ears also sweeping back like those of bad-tempered horses. She was dressed in poor, ragged clothing and was stained with soot and coloured earths in various ochre shades though much of this had run in the lagoon and become a muddy film. Her long, wiry body lay utterly still, as if she was dead, betrayed only by the slightest movement of breath in her belly. A soft shadow like the spill of ink onto wet paper covered her and, except where it was held fast to her by the net, spread from her into the air and over the bedclothes. It shifted and flickered slowly, larger than she was by several inches at all dimensions. This
andalune
, aetheric body, the only one Tath had left, was utterly unlike any Lila had seen before, and she had seen a few. They were not generally visible in Otopia, nor in Alfheim, but in Demonia, apparently, they were. Lila had watched this for some time and saw it changing frequently, forming appendages almost like fingers or tentacles, or spongy, diffuse portions that spread wide, or other shapes; a Rorschach mystery. She could not see it without remembering Zal’s touch, and shivered.
“Zhid’nah,” said the elf suddenly. “Tubbuuk nan shivvuthek. Zhayadbhalja mik seppukha.”
Lila had never heard the language before but Tath translated uneasily,
She asks for mercy at the cost of her honour. She wishes you to bring
her
something to write with so she can put down her death poem and something sharp so she may end her life with honour.
I’m not going to kill her. Give me the words . . .
Tath supplied Lila’s mind with the right phrases and his memory guided her lips and tongue to the strange syllables. She only had to think of what she wanted to say and, almost as normal, she spoke, “You are my prisoner for now. You won’t be harmed.”
The elf sighed through her long nostrils and said with contempt, “It will not be your choosing. You cannot protect me in this land.”
“Of course I can . . .”
The elf opened her eyes for the first time. They were dead white with fine slits in the centre and she had to squint horribly in the light. Her voice was contemptuous. “You are lucky to be alive. The aura of the white demon ruined my shot. It was a fine shot. Your death was in my hand.”
“Seeing as we’re on the subject,” Lila said. “Why do you want me dead?”
“Not I,” the elf said, closing her eyes again and turning her head away from the window. “I am the hand of another. If you do not kill me the demons will, if they do not then he will and if he does not then I will. Bring me paper and a pen. I demand a final request.”
Do not give her any opportunity to make symbols. She may be sincere in her will to die but I doubt she wishes to go alone.
“Enough,” Lila said. “I was going to haul you to the market and buy a spell to keep you at my side where I could see you. Then I thought I would get one that made you into a guard of mine, something along the lines of Do Me No Harm. Then I thought I’d add one that made you tell me the truth. But actually I’m sick of the whole business.” She sat down on the end of the bed and looked at the prettily damasked walls, the beautiful curtains, the soft sweep of majestic loveliness that ran in a perfectly judged theme of reds and ochres through furniture, decoration, and placement of things. She did not look at the elf but addressed her with conviction.
“You don’t want to talk but I do. You want to kill me for reasons I have no clue about and I think you don’t know me at all, so as far as I see it you can damn well listen to me. I’ve been here a few weeks now. Most of what goes on here I miss because I have no ability with magic. Everything means something. That chair being there, for instance, it has a special meaning I can’t remember. Something to do with the flow of aether in the room but also the significance of waiting and resting in relation to the outside air. See, I don’t get most of what demons do, I just know that it’s important to them to set the table right and important to them to kill for passion and those two things are about the same. Now to me they’re nothing like the same but what can I do about that? Sorcha was supposed to help me out too, but all she wants to do is go to parties and shows. I get the feeling she’s trying to put me off of something. So that sucks because I like her but I think she’s in my way.