Summoned to Tourney (29 page)

Except for the half-dozen Costuming Nazis, who wore completely
authentic
clothing, and expressions of complete hostility.

“They probably figure we’re from the Women’s Lib meeting down the hall,” Kayla observed, absently. “Uh—yeah. The guy in the green and black tights with the great ass, the woman that looks like a Rose Parade float, and the chick with the pregnant guitar. They were all at the conference.”

“Sandy?” Beth asked. The elf peeked out from behind her shoulder. “The young man in the particolored hose, the woman in the Elizabethan farthingale, and the girl with the lute.”

“They’re all strongly Gifted,” the elf assured her. “And imperfectly shielded.” She squinted a little. “Unless I’m greatly mistaken, the woman and the young man are related. And I
think
I see a Celtic knotwork embroidery pattern on the woman’s gown that used to be used as an identifying agent among the devotees of the Old Religion about twenty or twenty-five years ago.”

“Oh really?” Beth’s eyes narrowed, but she couldn’t make out anything special amid all the decoration on the gown. “If you’re right, we might have hit paydirt.” She tumed her attention back to the speaker on the dais. “I think they’re going to break for refreshments in a bit. We’ll move in then. Sandy, you try for the lute-girl; Kayla, you take the guy and I’ll take the Architectural Monument.”

They waited, patiently, enduring the glares from the mortally offended, until the Seneschal finally ran out of wind. When people began leaving their seats, Kayla and Beth headed for the woman and the young man, while Melisande took a lateral to intercept the musician before she could join the others who were gathering in a corner.

“Hi,” Beth said cautiously, as she stepped in front of the Farthingale, forcing the woman to stop. “You don’t know me—but you do know a friend of mine. Her name is Elizabet—”

“And she’s the teacher of that charming and obstinate little child who’s trying to back my son into a comer,” the woman said, with a faint smile. “Since you don’t have that nasty ‘desperately mundane’ look of those goons that were lurking about the conference, I assume you must be all right. Or has Elizabet sent you to warn me about them?”

“Uh—sort of” Out of the comer of her eye, Beth watched the lute-girl shaking her head violently at whatever Melisande had told her. Her face was white, and her hands clutched the neck of the lute like a lifeline. “Listen, this is awfully complicated, and well—”

“I know just the place.” The woman waved at her son, who nodded at Kayla and gestured at her to precede him with frill High Court grace.

Wonder if there’s a touch of elven blood in there somewhere?

All three of them followed the woman out into the hail, to a little alcove with a pair of loveseats. The Farthingale needed one all by herself; the son took up a seat on the arm of the sofa, and Kayla and Beth took the other seat.

“By the way, I’m Marge Bailey. Which was
not
the name I used for the conference, if you’re interested.” The woman smiled again, this time wryly. “Call me paranoid if you like, but I’ve always had a suspicion that some day some government goons would show up at one of these things and start taking names and addresses. So I only use the SCA post office box, and one of my old persona names.”

Beth grimaced. “Just off hand, I’d say that this time your caution was entirely appropriate…”

Fifteen minutes later, Marge and her son Craig were pale with shock, and Beth was dry-mouthed and talked out. She nodded to Kayla, who took over.

“We’ve got a plan,” she said. “We think we can head this thing off. But we need—”

“A circle,” Marge interrupted, leaning forward, her eyes afire with intensity. “A circle. The kind the witches of England gathered in to thwart the Armada.”

“Wow!” Kayla went round-eyed. “I didn’t know that! Yeah, that’s exactly what—”

“When and where?” Craig said. “We’ll be there; Dad’ll come, and maybe we can get a couple of others.” He took a deep breath. “We knew something wasn’t right; we’ve been getting signs for weeks. But none of us are real good at prediction. That’s why we went to the conference in the first place; we figured if there was anyone who’d know what was up, he’d show up there.”

Beth felt a great weight lift from her shoulders. This was her thirteenth body—and one, maybe two spares. “Mount Tam—if you’ve been up there, you know the place. As soon after sunset as you can manage.”

Marge nodded. “No problem. Did you plan on checking the Paper-gamer’s Club meeting for some more recruits?”

This time it was Beth’s turn to be surprised. “Uh, yes. Why?”

Marge chuckled. “Because my husband’s in there. Ask someone to find Chuck Bailey for you; he’ll round up the couple of gamers with—ah—esoteric talents. That should save you some time.”

Beth didn’t know quite what to say. “Marge—thank you. I think you just bought us our chance at making this work.”

Marge shook her head. “Well, I grew up reading old J.R.R. and the Norse sagas—I always wanted to be Galadriel, the Ringbearer or another Beowuif. You know what they say about being careful what you ask for.” She recovered some of her color, and managed a weak chuckle. “I suspect you’ve had a time convincing some of the others to get involved.”

Beth nodded. “I’m still not sure why you agreed so easily.”

This time Marge Bailey laughed out loud. “My dear Beth, it’s really quite simple. I may be crazy, but there’s one thing that I’m not.”

“What’s that?” Kayla asked.

“Stupid.” Marge rose majestically. “I’d better get back before the others think you’ve recruited me for your biker gang. And we will see you tomorrow night.”

“With the proverbial bells on,” Craig added, as a dejected Melisande approached from the door of the meeting room. “Listen, I know Mom. This is going to work. If she can make the Kingdom Seneschal back down and
apologize
for screwing up the demo we had for the science fiction fans at ConDiego, that earthquake hasn’t got a chance.”

CHAPTER 14:
The Light in the Window

Eric’s head was spinning from everything that had happened, and all the concentrated magic lore that Dharinel had rammed between his ears. He leaned against the cold glass in the window seat, wishing he could wake up, pretend that it was just a nightmare, that all of this would go away and never trouble his thoughts again.

It didn’t matter to him that the elves thought his actions were justified. It was the look of horror in Dr. Sheffield’s eyes that kept coming back to haunt him, that look that said one word:

Murderer.

So he’d sat quietly through the remainder of the war conference, as an amazingly recovered Beth and the others left on their various errands. No one had noticed as he slipped away from the gathering of elves in the living-room, continuing a discussion of whether or not the humans should carry firearms, or if the magical firepower would be enough.

The war plan seemed straight-forward enough: gather the elves and the human magical/psychic talent of the Bay Area to use in case the earthquake device was triggered prematurely, to try and redirect the energy wave. Meanwhile, an elven hit squad would deal with Blair himself and destroy the machine and the other equipment in Dr. Susan’s lab, so it couldn’t be used again, at least not until they were
certain
that Blair was no longer a threat.

A great plan. Except that he remembered the security levels of that laboratory complex, and could guess what it’d be like with increased paranoia about a break-out. Translation of that formula: someone, or more than likely several someones, in that elven assault team were going to die.

He couldn’t deal with that thought. There were too many deaths in his memory and on his conscience: the elven warriors lying still and lifeless in Griffith Park, Dr. Sheffield’s colleagues.

Death follows me like a watchdog.

Maybe it didn’t have to be that way. He thought about alternatives. Like running away. They could still do it—gather their friends and run. But then something else intruded. Not a memory, but a vision.

San Francisco in ruins, the Nightflyers gliding noiselessly through the streets, drifting over the corpses lying on the cracked sidewalks…

No. He couldn’t leave, not now. But maybe he could arrange things so that no one else was in danger.
I started this whole mess; I can finish it. Just me, alone.

“Eric?”

He looked up to see Kayla standing in the doorway. She walked in and sat down on the edge of the waterbed. “Back already?” he asked.

She stretched like a cat, and yawned. “Look at the clock, Bard. It’s after midnight. Everyone’s downstairs, still making war plans, but I wanted to do something other than that for a few minutes.”

He glanced at the clock involuntarily, surprised at how much time had passed. It seemed like just a few minutes ago that the others had left on their various quests. “Did you have much luck?”

“Oh, yeah. We’ll have a United Wiccan Liberation Front to go up on Mount Tam tomorrow, no problem.” She yawned again. “Wish I could understand all this Wiccan witchcraft stuff. Doesn’t make any sense to me… what good is magic that you can’t see?”

He blinked at that. “What do you mean, that you can’t see?”

She gave him a tired but wicked grin, and held out her hands. Faint traceries of blue light appeared on her hands, brightening and moving in flickering patterns over her skin. “Elizabet taught me how to work without showing off, as she put it.” The fine blue lines faded away as suddenly as they appeared. “gut this Wiccan stuff, you just kinda pray and hope something happens. At least, that’s how it seems to me.”

“Me, too.” Eric thought about his own magic, that quiet pool of—something—that he drew upon with his music. “But it seems to work.”

“Sometimes. I’ve seen Elizabet cuss a mean streak ‘cause it didn’t, though.” She grinned and sprawled out on the waterbed. “I prefer the kind of magic that I can do. I know it’ll work, every time.” Her face clouded. “Well, almost every time,” she said in a low tone.

The girl’s calm seemed nearly supernatural to Eric.
How does the kid manage it? he wondered. All I can think about is how many people are probably going to get killed tomorrow, and she seems so calm. Maybe she doesn’t know enough to be afraid.
“Are you scared of what’s going to happen tomorrow?” Eric asked.

The kid shrugged. “Yeah. A little. I hope it’ll be quick and easy, but I know it probably won’t turn out that way. But that’s my job, to make sure everyone gets out okay.” She gave him an odd look. “Hey, Bard, don’t you want to be in on the war conference downstairs? They could probably use your input.”

He shook his head. “They’ve got half the army of Middle Earth down there, they don’t need me.”

“What’s eating you, Bard?”

He glanced up to meet her wry dark eyes. “Is it that obvious?”

“Only to someone standing within five miles of you. Up close, it’s even more obvious.”

He looked out at the street, at the cold glow of the streetlights. “What do you think it is, kid? Do you think I’m used to killing people? Fourteen people died in those labs the other night, and a lot more could die, and it’s all because of me, because of what I did. Knowing that doesn’t make me feel like dancing in the park, y’know?”

“I know. I was there, remember?” Kayla’s voice was quiet. “It was scary, Eric. I didn’t know what you were going to do, but I knew this much—you weren’t in control. That’s why those—
things
—went on a killing rampage through the building.”

Cold settled around his heart. “Are you scared of me, Kayla?”

She didn’t answer for a long moment. “I don’t know. Maybe.” A flash of a grin, her teeth bright against the dimness in the room. “All I can say for certain, Eric, is that life is never boring when you’re around.”

“Thanks,” he said grimly. “Welcome to another war zone, kid. Sorry, I didn’t intend to screw up your San Francisco vacation this way.”

“Hey, I already saw a war before that mess in Griffith Park, thank you very much.” There was an odd catch in her voice ... Eric saw something strange in her face, a shadow of an old pain.

“I never heard about that.” It occurred to Eric how little he knew about this girl, other than the fact that she was Elizabet’s apprentice.

She spoke quietly. “It was in L.A. I was running wild on the streets— this was before Elizabet adopted me. Things got a little hot between two street gangs, and I was caught inthe middle—see, they both wanted me, and I didn’t want any part of either of them. So I played ‘em against each other. A lot of people died in that one, too, Bard. And you could say it was my fault, sure.” She clenched her hands into fists, staring down at them, then looked up at him, her eyes bright. “I think it’s a curse we have to deal with, Eric. We’re different, unusual… you have to learn how to deal with it.”

“How do you deal with it?”

She grinned. “I try not to hurt people, unless I want to. I try not to do anything that’s unethical, or will put someone else into danger. I just try very hard.”

Not put anyone else in danger…

“What would you say,” he asked, choosing his words carefully, “if I said I had a solution to this situation that didn’t involve a lot of people risking their lives in a major assault on the Dublin Labs?”

“I’d say I’d like to hear more about it,” Kayla answered cautiously.

“I think it might be possible for me to slip myself and maybe one other person into the labs, undetected. Then we could go down to the level with that earthquake gizmo, take a couple sledgehammers to the machinery, and get out of there again.”
Well, getting out would probably be a lot more difficult, but…

“It’s a better idea than taking fifteen people in there, guns blazing. I can handle the heavy magic, you can make sure…”
Make sure that I don’t kill anyone else by accident…
Make sure that my back is covered, and that no civilians get hurt this time.”

“That’s very true.” She gave him a sidelong glance. “You keep surprising me, Bard. I never know what to expect with you.” Her voice took on a more businesslike tone. “I’m guessing that you don’t want the others to know about this, since they’d definitely try to stop you.”