13: False True Love
"In truth, Terenil, this is indeed schizoid," Eric said dubiously, taking his stance where the elf-Prince pointed. "I don't think I like it. I feel as though I am me and you, too. It is quite weird, feeing myself like this."
"I would imagine," the elf agreed; he moved to about twenty feet away from Eric, and stood with his legs braced. He shook his hands to loosen them, and flexed his fingers. "But giving you my memories is the only way in which I shall face an opponent of equal strength and skill. I used to spar thus with Korendil—"
"Well, he's in no shape to do that right now anyway." Eric shook his head to try and settle all the alien thought-patterns. They kept floating around inside his skull, intruding when he least expected them to. Strange patterns, somehow delicate, yet fraught with an intensity he had never—
Oh shit, first I start talking like him—now I'm starting to think like these pointy-eared jokers, too!
"Am I going to keep this shit in my head forever, or can you get rid of it when you're done?" Eric asked plaintively.
"Without my sustaining the memories, they will fade, and quickly," Terenil assured him with a faint smile. "I am just as pleased to be facing you, in truth—Korendil is no kind of mage, and Perenor is both warrior and mage. If I am to confront him again, I shall need my skills at both."
"Well, how'm I supposed to know what to do?"
"You do not," Terenil said, with just a hint of maliciousness. "You simply react—"
He pointed his finger at Eric.
And suddenly a there was a burst of trumpet-blare, and a bright glowing ball was hurtling straight for him.
Shit!
Eric yelped and dove for the floor.
"Interesting, though not particularly effective," the Prince observed. "Granted, I would not have thought of that."
"But—" Eric protested from his position on the mat.
"Dodging will not help you a second time, Bard—"
This time two of the orange balls of flame were coming at him. He threw up his hands in a pathetic attempt to ward them off—
And one of those other memories stirred. Without understanding what he was doing, he reached for . . . something. And when he had it, he twisted it into a C major arpeggio, strong and resounding.
And a ball of red flame intercepted Terenil's two, consuming them.
"Excellent!" the Prince laughed. "And I would not have thought of that, either!"
"What's that supposed to mean?" Eric panted, getting to his feet.
"You have my memories of working magic—but you use your own powers. Like so—"
Roar of brass. Lightning lashed down where Eric stood—
Except that he wasn't standing there anymore. He'd dodged again, arid that something inside him acted. He heard a musical run like a trombone cadenza, saw he was sending a streaming lance of fire—like a flamethrower— straight at the Prince.
Who deflected it (crash of cymbals) but not easily.
Hey, I'm not doing too bad at this! Eric Banyon, mage-warrior, just like something out of Tolkien! Hah, take that, Prince Terenil!
Then Terenil got serious.
After a few moments of being chased around the dojo, Eric began searching—frantically—for those strange memories, calling them up on purpose instead of being used by them. He began fighting back. The Prince was grinning.
And while Eric wasn't exactly relaxing, he was beginning to see what was going on. There was a distant source of energy, of power, that he could touch, use.
The nexus—
And he could do things with this power. After several more exchanges, he began to see the patterns, the relationships between what he heard in his mind's ear, and what was actually happening.
"Couldn't you have made yourself a robot or something?" he squeaked, when a lash of fire came a little too close and he realized that Terenil was not holding back.
"A simulacrum would not have free will, Bard," Terenil replied, dodging Eric's return volley. "It would be like fighting a mirror. Not good enough. I do like your evasive maneuvers, by the way. Perenor will never expect me to drop to the ground to avoid a flamestrike."
"Hey, whatever works, y'know?" Eric yelped again, as a little tongue of lightning snuck around behind him and connected with his rump—
I'm gonna charge you for these jeans, you pointy-eared creep!
He fired off a series of things like Roman-candle balls (staccato bursts of clarinet), none of which connected. But the attempt forced Terenil to move rather briskly, which at least was some comfort.
At least I'm giving him a run for his money—
Then Terenil hit him with the Big One.
A thundering D minor chord from a double orchestra—
A whirling wall of light descended on him.
And the memories momentarily deserted him.
He had no idea what to do, how to counter the thing—and there was no place to run from it. He reached in desperation, gathering everything he could find and throwing it—
A major.
The wall stopped, not two feet away from him, held there by the glowing shield he had somehow erected between himself and it.
"Enough," said Terenil, and the light vanished. Eric stumbled backward a few steps, and when he reached the wall, collapsed against it and slid down it.
He was sweating, and exhausted, and panting hard to catch his breath. It was no compensation to see that the Prince was in the same shape.
"You did very well," Terenil said, lowering himself down to the floor beside Eric. "Very well. Better than I had anticipated. Forgive me; I forgot that you are not a trained sorcerer there at the end. I had not intended to use that bit of magery on you; it is far more powerful—even when muted—than I would ever have used in practice against anyone but an experienced magician."
"Oh," Eric replied, feeling somehow deflated. "That's why I sort of lost everything. So you stopped it?"
"Why . . . no." The Prince gave him a peculiar look. "You did."
Eric had hardly enough time to get his breath back before Terenil had him done up in a copy of his own scarlet-and-gold armor, facing him with sword in hand. The armor turned out to be no more uncomfortable than a set of motorcycle leathers Eric had once tried on. The sword, however, felt very strange, and very alien in his hand.
But the actual sparring proved to be easier than the stuff Terenil had been putting him through up until then. The memories he needed here were simpler; physical memories only. He could relax, put his mind in neutral, and let his body take over. It was kind of fun, actually—
Until it got to be work.
Then hard work.
Then painfully hard work.
Finally Terenil called a halt, and made the armor go away. There was a low bench at Terenil's side of the dojo; Eric sprawled on the floor with his back braced against it, head thrown back, eyes closed, getting his wind back.
I'm sweating like a horse. I don't think I've ever worked this hard before in my life.
"Here." He felt the familiar chill of a metal can in his hand, and didn't stop to wonder where it came from. Terenil had magicked it up somehow, of course—
I'm beginning to take this magic stuff for granted, like microwaves and telephones.
"Thanks," he said; fumbled for the pop-top, and took a long pull, all without opening his eyes.
"Yeah. Nothing like a Coke, sometimes.
"And here." Eric opened his eyes at the tap on his arm. Terenil had done the thing with the fifty-dollar bills again; he held out two to Eric. "I will not leave with you," the Prince said. "And you will need a cab, true? Just be very careful not to spend these in the same place."
Eric took a good look at them, and realized they had exactly the same serial numbers. He raised one eyebrow at the elf.
"As I told you," Terenil said shrugging. "We cannot create, only copy."
And I bet the Treasury Department would love to talk to you about that . . .
"So," Eric said, after his second swallow. "What's with all this? Why did you suddenly decide you wanted to take Perenor on again?"
The bench creaked as Terenil settled beside him. Eric opened his eyes. The Prince looked as completely exhausted as he was; hair dripping sweat, the leather tunic gone, muscles trembling with a little weariness. He was slumped over, elbows on his knees, hands wrapped around his own can of soda, looking at a point on the floor between his feet.
"Because I must," the Prince replied. "You know, you came very near to defeating me, Bard. More than once. I am not what I was."
"I'm not Perenor—"
"Precisely." The Prince sighed. "If I were to meet him as I am at the moment, the result would be the same as last night. All that saved me then was Korendil's luring him away from me. If Perenor has a weakness, it is that he prefers a moving target to a defeated one."
Eric couldn't think of anything to say. Except—"But you'll still challenge him anyway?"
"I must," the Prince said simply. "For the sake of the others."
"You've seen them, Eric. Lost in Dreaming—I think it's kinder to pull the plug."
Maybe not exactly Ria's words, but certainly the sense of them.
"What makes you think you can do anything for them?" he asked bluntly. "I mean, I've seen them—"
And I saw you. A real brain-dead stoner, last night . . .
Terenil winced, as if he had heard the thought. "I do not know that I can, I only know that I must try."
It was Eric's turn to wince away from the conviction in his words. He covered it by draining his cola—and as soon as he put it down, there was a second, water beading on its sides, on the bench beside him.
Yeah, so maybe he can't handle his drugs. But he's not so gone that he still can't think beyond himself. He wants to do something meaningful, even if he isn't actually capable of carrying it off. And what have you done with your life, Banyon?
Not much.
"What's with this thing between you and Perenor?" he asked.
The Prince tossed down the last of his soda and magicked himself up another can. "Hate," he said, "That is what is between us." He grimaced. "One of the two emotions that we are taught to avoid at all costs . . ."
"Huh?"
Terenil pulled damp hair behind his ear, and turned his head a little to look at Eric. "We are virtually immortal, Bard. Our lives are measured in centuries, not decades. That can be as much curse as blessing. Firstly, we are few in number. Secondly, strong emotional ties bind for centuries, not mere decades. Your legends call us light-minded and frivolous in our affections—but think you for a moment. Suppose you have a love that turns to dislike. But you are tied to the place where that love dwells, and there are perhaps a few hundred inhabitants of that place. Try as you will, you must see that love every day. For the next thousand years. Unless one of you finds a way to leave." He shrugged. "So do we avoid both love and hate, granting either only when there is no other choice."
"So, why are you and Perenor—"
"A fundamental difference in the way in which we see you and your world, Bard. It began when we journeyed with Maddoc of Wales, knowing there was another land at the end of his sail. We left because we were being crowded by humankind. I thought, and the Queen, that if we could establish ourselves and put down deeper roots than those we had aforetime, we could coexist with your world. Share it, despite your use of Cold Iron."
"Sounds like a good idea to me," Eric offered tentatively.
"So it has proved, most places. It was only that here, I misjudged in placing the nexus. Or perhaps—" He looked up at the wall opposite himself, frowning, then shook his head. "I cannot recall. It may be that Perenor urged the placement there. He may have been working against me even then . . . Well, our Queen took a group north to establish Elfhame Misthold; I remained here with a second, smaller group, mostly of Low Court elvenkind who must be tied to physical places. I established Elfhame Sun-Descending. Then Perenor began showing his true motives."
"This was how long ago?" Eric asked.
"Before the Spaniards." Terenil frowned again. "Perhaps . . . ten to fourteen of your centuries. Time does not hold as much meaning for our kind."
Jesus, I guess not! Eric stared at a being who looked no more than forty years old, and felt a little stunned.
"So. We had found a place for a nexus; the Queen's Bard—a human, like yourself—opened it and created the anchoring point for it, and the Queen and most of the High Court had gone on up northwards. Then Perenor began spreading his poison. Why, he said, should we be subject to the vagaries of humanity? Why should we allow their lives to rule what we did? We had magic at our disposal; our lives were infinitely longer—why should we not rule them?"
Terenil took a swig from his can, and tightened his lips, angrily. "He did not mean only to rule—he meant to enslave. I could see that—and fortunately, so could most of the rest. And that was enough to keep him in his place for many years."
"God." Eric shuddered at the notion of having Perenor as "Master."
Somebody who can read your thoughts, and touch the innermost part of you . . .
"Jesus, Terenil, how the hell did you guys see through him? And—I mean, why didn't you just go along with him?"
Terenil gave him a lopsided grin. "You humans make poor slaves, Bard. Your own history should teach you that. Soon or late, you rise beneath your chains and go for your masters' throats. We had all seen enough of history to know that. And . . . there was still another reason. Of all the wondrous things we can do, we cannot create. Our 'culture,' if you will, is made up of what we have borrowed from you humans. And a slave generally is very poor at creation. After all, why should he create anything, when it is his masters that have the benefit of it, and not himself? There are deeper reasons, too, but these will suffice."
Enlightened self-interest. It never fails. Eric chuckled to himself.
"So, there was mistrust of Perenor on my part, hatred on his. Your people moved to this valley—and then it all began to fall apart for us. You moved too quickly for us to be aware of what was happening. We learned too late that you were trapping us in mazes of Cold Iron, cutting the groves off, one from another. I and those of the Lesser Court who were mages worked to find a solution—for without an Adept, which we did not number among ourselves, we could not reestablish new ties to the nexus, or move it elsewhere, I was so preoccupied with this that I did not watch Perenor. Finally I learned that he was working forbidden magic against the humans, draining them to his own use. I caught him in the act—"
Terenil stopped, wiped the back of his hand across his eyes, and finished his soda in a single gulp.
"I caught him in the act of draining a child. A child who would have been a Bard. I realized then that he had probably been doing this evil for as long as humans had been within his reach—and that he had destroyed our chances of moving the nexus by destroying the children who could have grown to be Bards. That is when I exiled him."
"But he didn't leave—"
"Not so. He did, for a brief while. He found a human woman who could have been a great magician if she had chosen to train her powers, and fathered a child upon her—yes, Bard, that is possible, although it requires the intervention of magic. He raised that child himself, training her in sorcery and elven magic. Human magic—it is very rare, but it is powerful. Perhaps because it is buttressed by all the potential of your brief lives . . ."
Terenil brooded down at the floor until Eric got tired of waiting for him to pick up the story again.
"Then what happened?"
"Oh. Then he returned to challenge my rule again." He discarded the can he was holding, and magicked up still another. "That was not all that long ago. I fought them for days, with young Korendil at my side. Korendil. He was—is—my best hope, you know. He has scarce two centuries, yet there is such wisdom and courage in him—he amazes me. Sometimes he frightens me—he is so like a human—so passionate. I have tried to warn him from passion, from caring so deeply—"
"The fight," Eric prompted.
"Oh, aye. We fought them and drove them out again, though not without cost to both worlds. I was badly exhausted. We roused things across the Barrier that were best left sleeping, and the battle itself started a fire, the one that burned out Bell Canyon." Terenil looked at him, and blinked. "Are you old enough to recall it?"
"I read about it," Eric said, half to himself.
"I thought I had banished them. I thought . . . I don't quite remember. Danann, it all fades, it all blurs . . . Then Korendil vanished, and left me the only one of the High Court still aware, with all the rest of Sun-Descending lost in Dreaming. To try further seemed . . . so futile. Perenor gone, the girl-child gone, Korendil gone. Nothing left—enemies, friends, all gone—"
Too late Eric heard the slurring of his words, the rambling. He had seen the familiar red-and-white cans they were both drinking from—but the meaning of those soft drinks had not occurred to him.
Caffeine. Terenil had downed at least three cans of Coke as they'd been sitting there, and was working on the fourth.
"—nothing left," the Prince murmured. He looked up as Eric got to his feet, but didn't seem to recognize him. His eyes were glazed and unfocused, his hands shaking.
"Mortals," Terenil said sadly. "'Don't open your heart to mortals'—that's an old saw, and I told Korendil that, over and over. They die and they leave you. Leave you alone. Don't you, Bard? You always leave us, no matter what we do—"
The elf's head sank; his hand loosened and the empty can of Coke fell from it, to roll around on the floor. As Eric watched, Terenil slid from the bench to curl up in a drunk—or Dreaming—stupor on the floor.
The cab ride home was very depressing. Sunset was grayed-out by haze tonight; in fact, the whole world seemed grayed-out and lifeless. Eric had never felt so alone.
God. Maybe Ria's right, maybe it's better to pull the plug on them. Even the best of them can't stay straight for a single afternoon.
He rethought everything Ria had said, compared it to what Terenil had told him. He couldn't see any flaws in what she'd told him about herself, and she'd admitted that her father was doing things she didn't approve of. And yet—yet it didn't feel quite right, as if she was telling the truth, but not all of the truth.
I need Beth, I need Kory. I have got to talk to them.
The cab pulled up outside the tacky pink apartment building, and pulled off as soon as Eric paid the driver. He hadn't asked the cabby to wait, but he had been figuring he'd just duck into his apartment, change his shirt, grab his flute, and warn them he was coming.
He got the first two done inside of a couple minutes—but when he called Beth's apartment, all he got was her answering machine.
"Beth?" he said, when the recording ran out. "Bethie, it's Eric—are you there?"
There was no answering click of the phone being picked up.
He went blank for a moment, then took a deep breath and went on. "Beth, some stuff happened back at the demonstration, some pretty heavy stuff, that's why I sort of bugged out on you. Beth, I'm on my way over, I've got to talk to you and Kory real—"
Click. Dial tone.
He hung the phone up carefully, and stood there for a moment with his gig bag dangling from one hand. His mind just wasn't working; he just couldn't picture what could have happened that she wouldn't be there.
Oh God—what if they're in trouble, and I was out fooling around with Terenil. What if Beth didn't make it here? What if she got arrested back at the Llewellyn Building—
Strike that. Terenil said she was shielding Kory. So she took him from my place. They were together then, and I'm pretty sure she wouldn't leave him alone. Which means they're still together. In her apartment. And they're not answering the phone.
Which means what, Banyon?
He thought about them, closing his eyes the way he had when Ria had tried to . . . contact him—
He blushed at the memory. But he tried it anyway, reaching out with that something he'd been working with, thinking very hard about both of them. It seemed like there was a "Bethness" and a "Koryness" that were both tied into him somehow, a tiny touch, as though they were both resting a hand on his shoulders, and that he could follow that to the real people.
It worked; he started to see very vague images against the blackness of his closed eyes. But not that vague. Beth and Kory—together—
Anger flared and banished the images from his mind, and he could not recapture them. He struggled for a moment to calm himself down, but every time he tried, he could see them—
You've been played for a fool, Banyon. All that talk about "commitment," being a team, and the first thing Beth does when she gets Kory alone is jump into bed with him. Damn her!
His hurt and jealousy settled into a burning lump in his throat and the pit of his stomach. He clutched his flute against his chest and struggled to breath slowly.
I ought to—
No, violence never got him anything. Violence wasn't the answer.
I could be wrong. This could be my own lousy imagination. I have a dirty enough mind. I can't stop thinking about how Kory is such a hunk, how Beth must be attracted to him. That's probably all this is—just me and my overactive imagination.
He trembled with suppressed anger and with indecision. I ought to go over there, and see for myself. I could be wrong. But if I'm right—
The cab ride into Tarzana was accompanied by a growing rage, and an increasing sense of betrayal. He had taken long enough for a shower and a change of clothing, trying to wash some of his unhappiness and anger away. It hadn't worked, and he spent the ride in silence, his throat aching, his flute case clutched in both hands. By the time he reached Beth's apartment building, he was no longer sure of anything.
"You'd better wait," he told the cabby, as he passed him the change from the first of Terenil's fifties. "There's a good chance I'll need you right away."
The cab driver shrugged, pulled out an SF book, and kept the meter running.
He'd been tempted, back there in his own place, to throw the money in the trash and send the boots after.
But Terenil hadn't been the faithless one; the Prince had tried (noblesse oblige?) to make up for the damages that had been inflicted on Eric. He hadn't strung Eric along; he'd been honest with him.
"Don't open your heart to mortals."
Yeah, guess not. Don't trust them with the real truth, either.
Still, Terenil had been fair to him. So he had put the boots on and stuffed the cash in his pocket and called another cab.
He ran up the clattering wooden stairs, stairs that led up the side of the building to Beth's second-floor apartment. He was so knotted up inside it felt like he was going to have to double over any minute. He knew where to go; he'd been here before. He headed straight along the balcony until he reached the end and the last doorway. He started to pound on the door, but it swung open at his first knock.
"Eric, if that's you, I'm in the kitchen," Beth called from somewhere beyond the half-open wooden door. "If it's not, you're in trouble, whoever you are."
He froze, hand on the door handle. He really didn't want a confrontation.
I could go away now, and never know—never have to face what's been going on.
No. I have to know. He pushed the door open, shoving it a little harder where it caught on the carpeting.
Beth's voice floated down the hallway, past the living room, guiding him. "Eric, I'm sorry I didn't pick up the phone when you called, but we were bus—"
He stepped in through the door of the tiny yellow-painted kitchen and stood staring at her from within the frame of the door. She was standing beside the window in a T-shirt and a pair of cutoffs, her hair plastered wetly to her head, as if she had just washed it. He caught a whiff of shampoo-scent as she turned. She took one look at the expression on his face, and froze in mid-word.
He felt his mouth twitch, and shoved his hands angrily down into his pockets. Busy? Yeah, I'll bet you were busy.
Before he could get a single word past the hard lump choking his voice, Korendil (wearing nothing more than a towel draped negligently around his waist) strolled in through the other door—
The one leading to the bedroom.
The elf's long blond hair hung in damp, dripping ringlets, and there were beads of water on his shoulders.
Looks like he's sure made a full recovery.
Kory didn't seem aware of Eric's presence at all; he moved easily, gracefully, showing no signs of any of his injuries, and no hint of lingering weakness.
"Beth—" Kory made a caress out of the word, and leaned over, embracing her, to give her a very warm, very sensuous kiss. His mane of hair hid their faces, but Eric had no doubt that she was enjoying it. She had both her arms around him, returning the embrace—oblivious to Eric still standing there.
Like I don't mean a thing to her.
He started to turn to go. The gig bag knocked against the doorframe, and Kory broke off the kiss, pivoting quickly to face him, his hands coming up in a gesture of either attack or warding. Eric backed up a pace.
Korendil's wary stance relaxed when he saw who it was—but then he saw Eric's expression, and frowned in puzzlement.
"Yeah," Eric said slowly, ignoring the elf. "It looks like you were busy, weren't you? Too busy to even think about me."
"Eric—where were you?" Beth asked, pulling self-consciously away from Korendil. "You just vanished on me. I looked for you, I really did."
"Uh-huh." He sniffed, and swallowed, and couldn't clear the lump from his throat. "Yeah. I had to . . . I saw Perenor, Beth. He was in the building. I was scared shitless, Beth—" He blinked his burning eyes to clear them. "Why didn't you wait for me?"
"I had to move Kory before my protections wore off . . ." Her voice trailed off and she looked away from Eric.
"Sure." Eric shifted his weight uneasily, feeling as if his skin were off and all his nerves were screaming. Korendil began toweling his hair, carefully not looking at Eric.
Eric's insides knotted up. Korendil—God. A hunk by anybody's standards. Christ, why should they give a shit about me? Beth doesn't need me—not with him around. Okay, he needs this Bardic magic crap. So he's nice to me. Big deal, he's nice to me so he can use me, just like everybody else.
"So, what happened?" Beth asked, too casually.
"A lot," he replied. "I ran into the lady that runs the corporation. Literally. Her name was Ria. Ria Llewellyn."
Out of the corner of his eye he saw Kory stiffen at the mention of that name.
"A very nice lady, a very blonde lady, a very sensible lady. She had a lot of things to tell me. Things that made a lot of sense."
More so now than they did then.
"Eric?" Korendil said very softly. Eric wouldn't look at him.
"So, all things considered, I guess I don't need to stick around. You look like you're doing fine without me. Maybe you guys had better find yourselves another Bard, huh? Maybe a girl this time." Now he looked at the elf—or tried to. His eyes burned and blurred and he couldn't really see. "Yeah, that would be kind of nice for you, Kory. I . . . it's been real."
Eric pivoted and ran down the hall, down the stairs and out to the cab. He flung himself into the back seat, and fumbled in his pocket for the piece of paper Ria had given him.
They can find another sucker. It's time I started looking out for myself.
He rubbed the back of his hand across his burning eyes, sniffling, until he could read the address. But he couldn't— the letters and numbers wavered and he couldn't make them out properly.
And he thought he could hear someone calling his name.
"Here—" He shoved the paper and the second fifty at the driver. "Can you get me there?"
"Eric! Eric, wait!"
The driver glanced at the paper. "Hey, no problem. What about your friends?"
He gestured at the apartment building. Beth was pelting down the stairs, Kory behind her, both of them waving frantically at the cab.
"They aren't my friends," Eric said, huddled into the seat cushions, holding his flute to his chest. "Let's go."