Summoned to Tourney (3 page)

Oddly enough, it was Kory who had provided that. He had reminded her that most autos were too painful for him to ride in. Then he had mentioned, wistfully, that it was too bad that horses were no longer common—he could have called up a pair of elvensteeds for them in a trice. Beth had narrowed her eyes in sudden speculation, but it had been Eric who had said, as if a memory had suddenly surfaced, “Elvensteeds?

But what about that white Corvette I saw Val driving? The one that was a horse, except it wasn’t a horse—”

“Elvensteeds can counterfeit anything,” Kory had said without thinking. “They will not stand up to much of an examination, but they can counterfeit the appearance.” Then he had hit himself on the side of the head, in a gesture unconsciously borrowed from Eric. “But of course! I can call us elvensteeds, and ask them to counterfeit us cars—”

Beth had shaken her head. “Too conspicuous—and there’s always the chance that somebody would try to mess with them in the parking lot, and then what?” She’d bitten her knucide in frustration. “No, what I wish is that we had some way to get a pair of bikes.”

“Bikes?” Kory had said, as Eric blanched. “You mean, motorcycles? But the elvensteeds can counterfeit those, as well!”

“The parking lot—” Beth had protested.

“Well,” Eric had put in reluctantly, “we could leave them and get off and walk and they could go hide themselves. People would think we’d gotten rides or hitched, and the ones who saw us ride in would just think we’d put the bikes inside one of the Admin buildings or something. Then when we needed them, Kory could call them in again. And it wouldn’t be that conspicuous for us to have bikes around here, not like a car, anyway; I know lots of buskers that have bikes.” He’d gulped. “There’s just one thing; I can’t ride.”

Beth had shrugged. “So, ride behind me. Kory? You think you can pull this off?”

He had nodded. “I can copy enough of Thomas’s Ninja to make ours pass, I think. I know a way to keep them from being meddled with in public places. And I can conjure us leathers, easily enough.” Beth had rolled her eyes at that, but had agreed, taking safety as a prime consideration. Kory had taken advantage of the situation to conjure leathers in “their” colors: burgundy and silver for Eric, scarlet and gold for himself, and black and silver for Beth. She had made a face and muttered something about the leathers being anything but inconspicuous, but she wore them anyway.

So their problem had been solved; and if they always arrived dry even when it rained, that could be chalked up to the San Francisco weather patterns, that would have one side of the street drenched and the other bone-dry.

“Then let us wear leathers,” Kory said with relish. He loved the outfits; loved the way they felt as if he was donning armor for a joust, or hunting garb for a wild ride. Eric sighed, ate another biscuit, and headed back up the stairs to change.

Beth took the time for another large cup of coffee; Kory finished his tea, reached for a bit more Power, and clad himself in his leathers between one sip and the next, planting his helmet on the table next to him with a muffled
thud
.

Beth shook her head. “I can never get used to you doing that,” she complained.

“Hazard of living with elves, lovely lady,” he said, standing up, and tucking the helmet under his arm. “If you’ll excuse me, I’ll go fetch the steeds from the garage.”

“Thanks, love,” she said, blowing him a kiss as she turned to run up the stairs. “For that, I forgive you for running out the hot water.”

He grinned, and trotted back down the kitchen stairs, taking another path than the one that led to the hot tub. This one wound around the edge of the privacy fence and ended at the tiny garage occupying an otherwise useless odd-shaped corner of the garden.

It wasn’t much of a garage; it would have been barely big enough for a sub-compact car. It held the two elvensteeds quite comfortably, with plenty of room for them to transform into their normal forms if they chose. Kory’s steed matched his colors of scarlet and gold; Beth’s twinned her black and silver. Kory had based them loosely on the Ninja models of what Beth called “murder-cycles,” but he had made up a style-name— “Merlin”—and a company—”Toshiro.” That way, if people thought there was something wrong with the way the bikes “should” look, they could blame it on the fact that they’d never heard either of the company or the model. The names were private jokes; a merlin was both a small falcon, and the use-name of one of the greatest of Bardic Mages, although few humans these days seemed to realize that Bardic connection. And “Toshiro” was for the human who had created many great movies of Japanese culture, movies that Kory had often watched in the long hours of the night when Beth and Eric still slept.

He wheeled them out one at a time, setting them up in the street in front of the street-side door, and waited for Beth and Eric. They came out quicker than he’d had any right to expect; Beth on the run, stuffing her hair down into the back of her jacket, with the bags containing her costume, his, and their instruments slung over her shoulder. Eric followed more slowly, locking the door behind himself and, as always, settled himself behind Beth rather gingerly. Although Kory couldn’t see his face, he had the feeling that Eric wore a look of grim and patient determination.

Poor Eric; he never felt safe on these pseudo-metal beasts. Kory wondered if he’d have felt any better if they had been in their proper horseshape.

Probably not.

He looked over at Beth, her face hidden behind the dark windscreen of her helmet, and nodded. She handed him his bags; he stowed them safely in the saddlebags on the “flanks” of his steed. Although these elvensteeds needed no kick-starting at all, they always kept up the pretense that they were real bikes by going through the motions of starting them.

Of course, with an elvensteed, there was never any nonsense of struggling with a motor that wouldn’t quite catch… The bikes roared to life with twin bellows of power; Beth let out a whoop of exuberance, and shot off into the lead. Kory followed, grinning happily. Beth had needed this for some time; to get back into the Faire circuit, to see old friends without worrying if the mysterious “Feds” were going to catch them—and she especially needed the party tonight.

For that matter, so did he, He hadn’t had a celebratory party in—

Danaan, is it
that
long
?

High time then.

An odd humming reached his inner ears, a musical sound that accompanied a trace of magic energy; he leaned over the handlebars of his bike and smiled as he traced it forward. Eric was humming—

So was Beth.

He laughed aloud, and popped a wheelie.

It was going to be a most excellent day.

CHAPTER 2:
As I Walked Through the Fair

Eric Banyon kept his eyes shut tightly through most of the ride, his stomach lurching with every turn. He joked with Beth and Kory about his fear of riding; he never let them know how real that fear was. At one point in his life he had actually envied some motorcycle maniacs who had stunted their way past a bus he’d been riding; now that memory seemed to belong to another person entirely.

I was high
, he told himself,
or drunk. Or both
. There were drawbacks to going clean and sober.

Or maybe it was so simple a thing as the fact that something that looked easy when you had no prospect of engaging in it—well, relatively; as opposed to, say, piloting a 747—became something else entirely when you
had
to do it.

And the simple truth was that Eric had been terribly sheltered in this one aspect of his life. He had never once owned a vehicle of any kind. As a child, he’d been driven from place to place by his parents; as an adult he’d cadged rides or used public transportation. He
did
have a driver’s license, which he’d taken care to keep updated, but he’d obtained it by taking the test on a dare, when high on a combination of grass and mescaline. He had no memory of the test, or even whose car he had taken it in.

Like many things that he’d done back then, it had seemed a good idea at the time.

Kory had a license—kenned from his, with Kory’s picture substituted for his own. So long as no one ever asked him to produce his at the same time, there should be no trouble. Kory
could
drive; he could probably drive anything, Eric suspected. Or ride wild mustangs or pilot a 747. In all likelihood, no one would ever even think of stopping Kory, he was just that competent.

Or even if they did, he or Kory could probably play head-games with the officer to make him give them warnings and ignore the licenses. The “Obi-Wan-Kenobi Gambit,” they called it. “These are not the elves you’re looking for—”

Eric had never once driven anything that he remembered. He may have driven any number of times that he didn’t remember; there was a great deal of his life that was lost in an alcoholic or drug-enhanced fog. But now that he was sober and staying that way, he had no intention of being at the helm of any vehicle when Beth and Kory were around to drive it. Hell, he wasn’t even certain he knew how to start these things! Let them deal with the motorcycles —even if Beth did drive like a graduate of the Evel Knievel School of Combat Driving. He’d stay a passenger, unless, of course, it was a dire emergency and both of them were incapacitated.

Not bloody likely—I hope
, he thought, and clung a little tighter to Beth’s waist as she rounded a curve and the bike began to lean. The elvensteeds weren’t metal; Beth had learned with great glee that they wouldn’t reflect radar-guns. So she only gave speed-limit signs any weight when it was obvious that the limit was there for reasons of safety. At any other time—well, he’d learned his lesson on the first ride. Now he no longer watched anything, not even the passing landscape; he just closed his eyes and listened to the music in his head. There was always music in his head these days; he was only now starting to learn what it meant, instead of flying on instinct.

His stomach lurched.
Better not think about flying
.

The advantage to Bethie’s driving, as he had learned when they showed up for pre-Faire auditions and rehearsals, was that they got to the Fairesite in a reasonable length of time. Beth must have really been pouring on the gas this morning, though, because he felt her slowing down much sooner than he had expected to, and he cracked open one eye to see that she was about to turn down the gravel “back road” to the campgrounds. He relaxed, and flexed his fingers a little, one hand at a time, as she pulled onto the road, gravel crunching under the bike tires.

Kory pulled up beside them, and Eric felt the gentle touch of inquiry, mind-to-mind, the elf sent to him.
I’m okay
, he thought back.
Just a little stiff from the ride
. Now that they weren’t racing along at ninety-per, he could enjoy what there was left of the drive, despite the jouncing. It was going to be a beautiful day, that much was certain. Not too surprising, really; some of Kory’s kin were coming to the house-warming party, and Kory had hinted they might Do Something to ensure cooperative weather.

Convenient. Wonder if maybe I’ll be able to do something like that someday…
With Southern California in the grip of a five-year drought with no end in sight, he’d be real tempted to tamper…

But would that be right? If he mucked around with the Southern California weather, what would that do up here? Would it have consequences that would reach even farther than that? What if he inadvertently created another Dust Bowl?

He mentally shook his head. There had been a time when he wouldn’t have thought about consequences, he’d have just done what he wanted to. Was this a result of being sober for more than a year, or was it something more than that?

Jesus, I’m getting responsible in my old age. Maybe it was watching Ria Liewellyn, seeing what she did to people and things by running over the top of them to get what she wanted
. Strange. He loved Bethie —but there was something about Ria… the memories concerned with Ria, half elven child of the renegade Perenor, were the sharpest of all of his recollections of the battle to save the elves of Elffiame Sun-Descending. There was just something about her—

He shook the persistent memory of blue eyes away, with just a faint

hint of regret. In the end, ironically enough, it had been Ria who had

saved them all. She had fought her father, when it became obvious that Perenor was mad, stark, staring bonkers—and that had given Terenil and Kory their chances to strike. And it had bought Eric and Beth time to move the magic nexus of the Sun-Descending Grove from the old, destroyed Fairesite, to a new Grove in the heart of Griffith Park, a place central to every elven Grove and a place that would—at least in the foreseeable future—never fear the destructive hand of humans.
That
had freed, awakened, and empowered the elves of the L.A. basin, who were slowly taking their lives out of holding patterns they’d been in for more than ten years.

Yeah, well, Ria’s at the Happy Home at the moment, with pineapple yogurt instead of brains. That Healer-chick thinks some day she may be able to bring her out of it, but frankly, I doubt it. Not being a fan of necrophilia, I doubt there’s much of Ria Llewellyn in my future
.

Some of Beth’s hair escaped from inside her jacket to tickle his nose, and he bnished it away with a grin. Now
that
was a distinctly odd circumstance: Beth with a full mop of dark red hair. The girl he’d broken up with just before his involvement with elves and magic started had red hair. Maureen —who, he’d heard from the grapevine, had really abysmal taste in boyfriends since. One had ordered her around and made like he was her agent until her real agent threw him out; the next one had sponged off her for six months, then disappeared; and he’d heard that the current one was a borderline psycho and leaving bruises on her, occasionally.

Yeah, well, I was no prize, either
.