Authors: Scott V. Duff
“And if the I exchanged the participant for any other man in this room?”
“I would have to answer that question in stages, Lord.”
“You can exclude me, my First, and my brothers,” I said, smiling.
“In a majority of cases, the exchange will not produce any significant differences in the outcome. With the soldiers with the taint, their chances increase to perhaps 1 in 100. In the case of the Agents, the odds change in their favor to 100 to 1. With your assistants, 1,000 to 1. With Mr. Borland, the odds would be insurmountably against us.”
“And if we exchange Torec with an elf?” I asked.
“Then the soldier’s odds would be insurmountably high with or without the taint. The Agents’ odds would fall to 1 to 1,000. Your assistants would be roughly equal depending on the elf’s level. And I would be unable to estimate Mr. Borland’s abilities at that point, but we have seen Mr. McClure punch another Lord of Faery and send him flying several feet.” That particular statement caused a shrieking cheer through the brownies in the room, startling the soldiers and causing an embarrassed grin in my father. They faded into view in the stands as they stomped the floors and cheered raucously. All I could do was stand and laugh as my father blushed and ducked his head in embarrassment.
I raised my hands to regain the room. At least half of it was very happy. “I’m sorry, I’m being selfish here and doing something I said I wouldn’t. I asked the question of Alsooth originally to help assuage Sgt. Strickland’s embarrassment, not to point out class differences. The point is do not underestimate the Fae. I would not leave you in their charge if I thought them incapable of both protecting and helping you. But there is no reason to abuse and ridicule them, either.
“Would you care to add anything?” I asked my brothers, looking up the aisle. Peter wanted to say something, but he was still too nervous about misspeaking again. He definitely had that penchant. When no one came forward, I started replacing the floors. “Then I’ll return everyone to what you were doing. Thank you for listening.”
The Fae flowed out of the gym like a river even as the floors slid into place silently. I honestly couldn’t say what the men were more astounded by, the floor or the overwhelming number of short people they suddenly found themselves surrounded by. This finished any tasks that needed doing with the barracks and pretty much the Palace Fae in general.
I pondered what to do next. I supposed now was as good a time as any to talk to Gordon again. I picked up Jimmy and shifted us over to the Castle in Ireland.
“Hey, Billy, it’s Seth,” I said, beginning the call-in procedures on the phone. “I’ve got First with me.”
“Morning, Seth, we’ve been expecting you,” Billy answered. “They’re in Gordon’s office now.”
“Okay, I’ll be down in a minute,” I said, slowly replacing the phone in its cradle. “I’m ‘expected.’ Wonder what that means?”
Little Brother, where are you?
Kieran called.
On my way to talk to Gordon about something I discovered last night,
I responded as Jimmy and I meandered through the castle hallways.
Apparently, I’m expected.
We should talk before you do that, Seth
, he said across the link.
By then we were standing in the outer offices of the Cahills and it was a bit too late to just “talk.”
“Hello, Sean,” I said, simultaneously pushing the words through the link to Kieran. Darius Fuller’s son sat flipping through a magazine in the waiting room of Gordon’s office. “What brings you to Ireland?”
Yeah, I bet we need to talk, big brother.
“Hi, Mr. McClure,” Sean said, nervously, standing up in a hurry and dropping the magazine to the table. “Honestly, I’m not sure why he dragged me along. Dad said I might be helpful and that I needed to start learning about politics anyway, so… here I am.” He shrugged, helplessly.
I felt the transitions of Kieran, Peter, and Ethan as well as the large entourage they pulled along with them—everyone but the soldiers. They must’ve changed their plans with the FBI. A burst of laughter from Gordon’s office made me look through the walls and see who was inside: Felix, Gordon, Bishop, Fuller, and Phillips. I’m sure I wouldn’t find whatever they laughed at funny, at least at the moment.
“Well, I’m sure we’ll find out what it’s all about soon enough,” I said, sitting in one of the other empty chairs. Kieran, Dad, and Ethan were already on their way down while Peter and Richard were doing something with the other six men—I couldn’t exactly tell what through the castle’s ward and I didn’t try that hard. “Oh, Sean, this is First. First, Sean Fuller, Darius Fuller’s son. He’s the president of the US Council of wizards or whatever it’s called.” They exchanged polite greetings as I used the foundation Stone to create a wall between us and the door. Then a fairly simple but strong veil brought the image of the wall behind us forward a little, making us virtually invisible.
Kieran, Ethan, and Dad tore through the office, flinging the door opening, and rushing in without invitation. “Seth—” Kieran started then realized I wasn’t inside the office he just stormed into. “Where’s Seth?”
“We thought he was with you,” Gordon said, worried now, as he stood up and pushed into the castle’s ward. “Billy called and said he was on his way. He should have been here by now.”
“Where’s Sean?” Fuller asked, looking out into the outer office for his son.
For the first time, I realized how nervous everyone was, exactly how high the anxiety levels really were. Phillips stepped into the doorway, examining the outer office.
“This room is smaller,” he said quietly, his eyes darting from side to side.
“Very good, Mr. Phillips,” I said, dismissing the veiled wall and standing up to face him. “Even my brothers, who should have caught that immediately, walked right past me.”
“Seth, we really need to talk about this,” Kieran said over Phillips’ shoulder.
“Oh? Why? So you can explain to me why my family has decided that I can no longer make my own decisions?” I asked acidly. “Wait, not even that. I don’t even get a voice in making them at all. I don’t even get to give an opinion, do I? Really don’t understand that. I was smart enough to haul your dumb ass out of a paradoxical universe but I can’t make a decision about who does and does not attend a party? How fucked up is that?”
Even Sean snorted in surprise and I don’t think he had a clue as to what I meant. Phillips moved into the room, followed by Fuller, my Dad, and Ethan. Kieran stood framed in the doorway.
“I guess I should thank you,” I said, meeting Kieran’s gaze with a hard stare while he tried to find the right words to placate me. “When I looked into the Princesses, what I noticed most quickly was the emotional gaps, but you seem intent on making me hit everything. Well, ya’ got betrayal down now.”
“Seth, that is not fair,” barked my father angrily.
“The hell it’s not,” I barked back, just as mad. “Come on, First. My workload just doubled.” I shifted the two of us to the Throne room and sealed Gilán tightly against further transfers, shutting us in. The Named Callings began immediately from both Kieran and Ethan, then Ethan tried pushing through the anchor. “Don’t,” I said emphatically and clamped down on it hard. I’d blocked everyone before and I could do it again.
Jimmy stood at the bottom of the steps looking lost and confused, but unwilling to leave me alone. “I don’t know what to do here, Seth,” he said quietly.
“I don’t either, Jimmy,” I admitted. “Ethan is the only one who has said
anything
that I can understand and that’s not enough to explain what’s going on in their heads. Why they’re shutting me out. Again.”
With the shield around Gilán thickened, their attempts to shift through it felt like dull thumps in the back of my head. Their cries for my attention, both through the diamonds—Dad’s, Felix’s, and Gordon’s—and the Named Callings of my brothers were piteous whimpers in reality, but were hitting me like fingernails on a chalkboard. Hopefully both would slow soon and I’d be able to release the hold on the shield, for Ian and Marty’s sake if nothing else. I’d still be able to block everyone else, but there were a few people that needed to have the emergency exit available to them.
“Well, I’ve got over a million reasons not to sit here brooding about it,” I said, grabbing both armrests and heaving myself up. “Let’s go look at some geasa.”
~ ~ ~
Jimmy and I made fifty-seven stops before I saw even the slightest problem in any of the geasa of the Faery here and it was a slight, almost atomic, difference in the little slip of a she-sprite. There was nothing wrong with her or the geas itself that I could see, though. Everything was in its proper place. The bindings were there to keep her alive and would flow properly to her children. We moved on and found more. Not many, comparatively speaking, but enough to worry about, a few thousand.
By sunset, I was sitting on the rail of the overlook facing the Palace as the sunset behind it, pensive and moody and confused about the problem I was seeing. All staring at the problem did for me was exacerbate the irritation I felt for Kieran. Jimmy’s bindings were too different to help constructively. The spell itself looked exactly the same on each faery. The problem was in the energy flows. Each problem I found was infinitesimally small fluctuations in the energy flow between the subject and Gilán. It looked like it could propagate with time and possibly break the geas’ control, doing
what,
I couldn’t say.
“You’ve been at this all day, Seth,” Jimmy said quietly beside me. “Maybe you should take a break. Try to relax some. Get some dinner, maybe.”
“I wish I could, Jimmy,” I said, rubbing my face tiredly. “But I’ve got to figure this out by dawn.”
“Yeah, and if you pass out ahead of time because you didn’t eat and didn’t have the energy to do it, that’ll help out how?” he said sarcastically.
That clicked in my head. “Not enough energy,” he said, and I recalled the first sprite I noticed the problem in, peering at the affected area. Then another brownie and another. A sprite and another. All of them, one after another, the problem was so similar I have no idea why I didn’t see it before.
My head shot up and I jumped off the rail, cackling and dancing around in circles. “Jimmy, you’re a genius!” I shouted. “Yes! Yes, I can fix this!”
“Whaddido?” Jimmy asked while watching me act the fool.
“I’ve been thinking the problem was the Changed,” I explained. “But neither Ethan nor I could see why they were evolving or why that related to the geas problem. The answer is, it’s not! This is more like a traffic problem. It wouldn’t have been a problem at all if my connection to Gilán were as strong in the beginning as it is now. I wasn’t quite strong enough—no, strike that, I didn’t push strong enough, hard enough, everywhere.
“Let’s go eat! I’m starved,” I said, suddenly hungry. “Where ya’ wanna go?” He was confused by the sudden change in my mood. Couldn’t blame him; it was a pretty radical change.
“I figured we’d go and get dinner at the mess with the other guys,” he said, pointing vaguely toward the north wing. I turned and looked into the dining room, up a floor from here. A change of perspective allowed me to see the service line as they neared their peak. It felt kind of weird that I could do that, feel that space so clearly in my mind that I can see it as if working in the cavern in my mind. Now that was an interesting idea. Could Gilán be the external representation of my cavern?
“Ugh, I don’t think so, Jimmy,” I said, turning back to him. “They really seem to be enjoying whatever that meat patty-thing is, and I’m sure that potato mash stuff tastes much better than it looks, but I think we can get a better cut of meat. You can afford it. I believe you still have a few hundred in your back pocket.” He grabbed at his wallet to renew belief in the cash I’d given him earlier. He’d held a lot more than that, so it wasn’t awe of the amount of cash. I didn’t understand, but I didn’t pry either.
“Yeah, I think I know where we should try…,” he said as he pushed evenly on the shield around Gilán. I released the field to him and followed him to a reasonably familiar place, in Atlanta. I’ve never been to this one, but it was a chain restaurant, a steak house. I wondered what it was about it that had indelibly inked itself in Jimmy’s mind that he was able to link himself to it and find it from Gilán. We came onto the sidewalk in the shadow of a tree, startling an older couple as they strolled slowly along, window shopping arm in arm.
Jimmy hopped up the wooden plank steps lightly and walked through the crowded lobby. I doubt he realized he created a wake for me to follow as people just parted in front of him. He’d never been quite this confident before, that people would just
move out of his way
and now they did and he didn’t seem to notice. And he wasn’t the slightest arrogant about it, more… child-like really.
I walked into the bar while Jimmy talked to the hostess and ordered a couple of beers, tossing my passport on the bartop first. The bartender picked it up, unsure of what he was looking at initially. Once he found my magically-adjusted birthdate, he handed me the wallet back and got the bottles. Jimmy sat down in front of the second bottle beside me.
“There’s a forty-five minute wait,” he said apologetically, holding something that looked like a cross between a coaster and a cigarette ashtray. “Is that o—” The thing he was holding started vibrating and lighting in electronic convulsions.
“Must be all that sexy bursting out,” I said to him, grinning and standing up. “Bet the table’s near the door, too. Pay the bartender.” He fumbled with his wallet and the blinking box for a moment, leaving a meager tip before I reached into his wallet and pulled another bill out. We’d have to discuss the inequities of tipped employees soon. And I was right about the table being near the front. There was a direct line of sight to the hostess stand and our table, and Jimmy worked it as hard as he could, preening and grinning with them every chance he got.
“Just remember to use protection,” I chuckled as I looked over the menu. “I have no idea how your geas will travel to your children and Gilán is very procreative right now.”
“What?” he asked, turning quickly to me in confusion and alarm.
“The geas is passed to children as part of gestation in the womb,” I explained still reading the menu. “There could be… complications.”
“I wasn’t thinking of bending one over the counter and screwing them right here,” he said fervently, then cocked his head back to the lobby, leering. “Although that sounds hot. Maybe we can come back after they close…”
“Jimmy!” I said, choking a little on my beer and knowing he was kidding all the same. His schmoozing was sophomoric at best, and admittedly, he had the teenaged hostesses tittering for him, but I’d already seen Peter and Dillon work a room without trying and don’t even get me started on the Faery bitches in heat or their mothers.
The waitress popped up then, forcing Jimmy to concentrate on his menu as I ordered, giving him only about a minute. I wasn’t the one oogling the jailbait. He then proceeded to order three times what he could possibly eat in an hour, as well as another round. She carded him. As he nervously handed her his driver’s license I quickly snatched it out of his hand before she got it.
“Is that your new one?” I asked disingenuously, working a little magic on the ink in the plastic card, adjusting his birthdate so that he’d be five years older than he actually was. I handed it to her, saying, “Glad you got that fixed.”
“Be right back with the beers,” she said with a smile, handing Jimmy his license then bouncing away, all blonde and perky. Jimmy leaned over the edge of the table and watched all the bouncing parts as she went, then glanced at his license before putting it back in his wallet.