Roadside Magic (9 page)

P
avilions stretched under a dusk-darkening sky, each tall and fair with its sides held open to permit passage. Pennons snapped in a warm breeze. In some tents, sap flowed up through stumps coaxed from warm, forgiving earth; in others, evergrape and honeywine, eldar liqueur and more potent drinks dripped into jugs and were measured out with generous hands by brown-skinned, leering satyrs. Outside the pavilions, dryads and naiads fluttered by, unwilling to approach the goatborn and not needing liquor on this marvelous night. The wind, pregnant with appleblossom and a hint of salt from the Dreaming Sea, was draught enough for them. Dwarves of the Red Clans clustered in groups, their cunning, filthy hands at work upon marvels—fireworks that would rise later, showering the crowd with light and scent and perhaps small trinkets, tiny popping chantments tossed freely to laughing nymphs or cautious brughnies, evanescent ornaments made of sighs and hair-fine glittering threads. Come dawn they would revert to cobweb and leaf, but for tonight the flash and fire was enough to delight every sidhe fortunate enough to attend.

Music roamed the crowd, bright and sprightly, Summer’s
own minstrels settled in corners and nooks, perched in tree branches, plucking gitterns, lutes, pipes wailing. A vast open greensward, growing tall and fragrant and studded with star-white, starshaped
eltora
flowers, was the dance floor, and the drums of stretched skin too fine to be animal stood at the left-hand side of the temporary dais hung with dark green and the flames of jewels that echoed the stars even now beginning to glimmer above.

The drummers were motionless, their beaked and feathered masks quiescent above oiled chests and hanging arms. Some had two, some had four, and the Master of the Drums, a massive mountain of half-troll muscle with four fine upper appendages, crouched near the huge
taiko
named Heartbeat.

They poured onto the green, the highborn fullblood. Lady and lord in velvet and silk, coruscating chantments attracting the gaze and quickening the pulse. Long flowing hair of every shade, high-pointed ears, the slim six-fingered or extra-jointed hands peeping from trailing sleeve. The men, fierce and beautiful at the same moment, bowed to their ladies, each pair arranged to please Summer’s eye—or gratify her vanity.

“
Summer!
” The cry went up from many throats, the throng pressing against the borders of the sward, impatient for the dance. The musicians struck up a merry tune, and the fullblood highborn moved through a slow, ancient pavane, bow and curtsy, hands meeting and feet treading stately measures. The high and mighty of Summer’s Court danced, each lady with an extra flutter at her left wrist. It was the fashion now, a scarf or something graceful knotted about that arm, to ape the Queen’s adoption of such an ornament.

Those who had not been chosen for the dance clustered at its edges, painted lips behind piercelace bone fans, darting glitter-glances. A sharp thrill ran through them and the crowd
behind—naiad, dryad, dwarf, selkie, wight and woodwight of the Seelie, those-who-could-speak. Behind them, the mortal-Tainted, from the Half to those with only a drop or two of sidhe. Behind them, more pressed of the Lesser Folk, drawn to the heat and light, the Tongueless but not nameless.

Some of the whispers held there were fewer of the mortal-Tainted this year, that some of those accorded pride of fullborn place had a mortal ancestor or two, and claimed insurance from the blackboil plague. And at the very periphery, knights in armor held guard—for the last revel had been broken.

“
Summer!
” The cry went up again, an edge to its sibilant. Did they think they could command her appearance?

The traditional dance ended, and the drummers tensed. A ripple went through the assembled, and the fullborn turned as one toward the dais.

Silence, broken only by the pennons snapping, the sough of the sweet night breeze. Normally such a dance would be held in the orchards, but a blackened scar slashed through those fleece-blossomed trees, a tang of smoke still lingered in their branches, and their bark-grown faces were shallow-drawn, not thick-graven as they had been before, though their roots were just as deep.

One moment the dais was empty. The next, before the low bench serving as a throne, there was a quiver . . . and
she
appeared.

Tall and fair in jade silk, her mantle deep-pine velvet, her golden hair just as deliciously lustrous as ever, the Jewel at her forehead glowing green—no hurtful spear of emerald radiance, as was usual, but a considerable light nonetheless.

“
Summer!
” they cried, as her ladies-in-waiting appeared behind her, the Veil parting lovingly, caressing them as they stepped through in her wake.

Sometimes she would toy with them, allow them to anticipate. But not tonight. She lifted her arms, the scarf at her left wrist a deep heartsblood crimson, knotted gracefully and allowed to flutter.

“
My children!
” she cried, the ancient words of Danu herself, in the mists when the Folk were united and mortals merely a bad future-dreaming. “
Dance for me!
”

Thud. Thudthud.
Heartbeat spoke, the Master of the Drums beginning his long race, and the sound reverberated through every corner of Summer, spreading out to lap at the edges of her realm.

They crowded the greensward, leaping and gamboling, the fullborn retreating to before the dais to engage in their more-mannered gyrations. The quickening Heartbeat spread through dell and clearing, forest and pasture, even the homefast sidhe or those who paid only nominal homage to Summer hearing it through the ground, a thunder communicated through whatever foot a sidhe wore, spilling through the air itself to turn birds dizzy-drunk, even those a-nested for the night.

Heartbeat settled into a rhythm, the Master’s oiled limbs weaving complicated chantment, and the first fireworks arced high over the revel, light and scent showering all underneath. Sweat sprang early, satyrs chasing nymphs who shrieked and leapt to escape, selkies whirling and splattering salt water, naiads sinking down to writhe on the rushed grass, a sharp expectancy cresting through them all.

It went on and on, whirling color and motion, fireworks flashing, the Queen motionless upon her bench, her face a statue’s. Tonight she was not the laughing nymph a dance sometimes provoked her into seeming.

No, tonight Summer looked . . . worried? Certainly not, she was Queen of all she surveyed, and—

A single drop of poison in the ocean of sidhe. A lone, stumbling step, a naiad with long cinnamon hair and sharp white teeth falling, twitching as the dancers leapt away from her. Normally, the weakened or the overly mortal could drop and be trampled, their blood and bone worked into hungry earth beneath, but this was not such a thing. The crowd exploded, screams piercing even Heartbeat’s thundering.

For the nymph lay, her scattered blue and silver finery smoking all about her, and twisted upon the bruised grass. The small, white, starlike flowers crisped, blackening, and died. Black flowers bloomed on the naiad’s skin—she was of the Echo riverfolk, the pattern of daggered raindrops worked into her skirts said as much—and hardened, crusting as the horrified onlookers stilled.

They burst, those black cancerous boils, and the screams took on a fever-pitch. Heartbeat faltered, and the Queen rose angrily, her white hands turned to bone-slim fists, stalking through the sweating, scurrying folk.

She arrived just in time for the nymph to choke on a tide of blackened excrescence, heels drumming as the river-maiden turned to sludge herself, even sharp fishbones dissolving. The Queen’s face did not change. She stared down at the bubbling, steaming mass.

When the illness struck, it took the lowborn sidhe the quickest. A highborn could stave off decline by pure will, it was rumored—but only for a while. Once the black feather brushed, it was only a question of time.

“
Plaaaaaaaaaague!
”

Ever afterward, nobody could agree on who screamed the
single word. The sidhe fled. Howling, gibbering, they broke the pavilion supports and trampled the smallest among them. Even the Half and mortal-Tainted fled, even the Queen’s ladies, mad with fear.

The blackboil plague, the scourge of the sidhe untainted by mortal blood, was loose in heretofore-inviolate Summer.

A
slow, sleepy afternoon, Daisy cuddled against her side in the sagging single bed. “What are we gonna eat, Rob?”

“I don’t know.” Robin lay with her arm over her eyes. In a little bit she’d get up and figure it out. There wasn’t likely to be anything in the fridge. Mama was at work, and Robin was babysitter today. Daisy, usually so easy-tempered, was fractious and whining. Robin had tried everything—stories, games, even turning on the ancient black-and-white television—to no avail. A little girl was hungry, and there was nobody to feed her.

“What are we gonna eat?” Daisy whined again, and Robin pinched her, hard. “Ow! Rooooob! Why’d’ja dooooooo that?”

“Shhh. Shut
up
.” Robin tried to think, but the hole in her own belly was so big. Maybe she could chance the corner store. Stealing was bad, but Daisy was
hungry
and what was Robin supposed to do?

What could she take? A jar of peanut butter? Maybe too big . . . a stick of butter, anything?

At least when Mama let Daddy Snowe come back there would be food. But then Robin’s throat might close up, making it hard to swallow when he fixed her with those paralyzing blue eyes of his and—

A short, sniveling sob from next to her, hot breath against her neck. A bright spear of hatred speared Robin—but she couldn’t hate Daisy, God would surely strike her down into hell if she hated her sister.

So she stirred, a little. “I’ll go to the store.”

“Can I get a magazine?”

“Maybe. Let’s look for quarters in the couch.” Except she knew there wouldn’t be any, and Robin would begin to steal. There was no way around it, and it wasn’t like they would be in this park long enough for it to matter.

Sooner or later, Daddy Snowe always came back.

A deep chill woke her.
Ugh. Dreaming. Daisy. She was so small.
She pushed herself up on her hands and knees, conscious of the desire to get moving but not quite sure why. Her eyes opened, but everything was a haze. She was, for the first time in a long while,
cold
. Something hard underneath her.

A persistent nudging at her hip. Robin groaned.

That’s me. I’m Robin Ragged. That’s my name.

Names. So many. Mama’s name, before and after Daddy Snowe. Little sister Daisy Elaine, soft and mortal and full of laughter. Daddy Snowe’s names, and what he called both Mama and Robin when he was mad, and then later, among the sidhe . . .

Sidhe. Danger. Get up.

Waves of shivering poured through her. Her arms almost refused to straighten.

Above Half, there were truenames. Half a share of mortal blood, or more, meant no truename for you—which was a gift, since it couldn’t be guessed in a riddle or used against you. It was also another pinch on a bruise, because in the Old Language, only the Named had, well, names. Everyone else was approximated.

Another nudge at her hip, an insistent nose against the silk of her skirt. Robin forced her eyes to open, to
remain
open, and stared at her dirty hands against wooden decking. Milk-pale, and the slice along the back of her left forearm smarted. Crusted over and queerly pale at its edges, it stung as she made a fist, swaying a little on her other hand.

Ouch. Why isn’t it healing?

As soon as she wondered, she knew the answer. She sank back on her haunches, pushing the rest of herself upright, and found herself on an expensive deck next to a shattered table, and the prodding was the nose of a sleek, massive golden hound with wide dark eyes.

No, not so dark. More indigo, a blue so deep it mimicked summer’s dusk.

Eyes, in fact, the color of Robin’s own.

“Oh.” A hurt little noise, as if she’d been struck.

It was as big as a
cu sith
, but not greenish as those large tail-plaited wonders. It pranced a little, its nails clicking on the wood, and nosed at her again. A candy-pink tongue flicked as it licked its sharp white teeth, but it didn’t growl or bite. Its tail, fringed and fine, whipped back and forth, and Robin’s childhood distrust of dogs rose briefly, filling the back of her throat with sour heat. There was a faint reddish bloom to its fur, each hair tipped with a suggestion of crimson, and the nausea wasn’t just from being so close to a canine.

Well, I’ve gone and done it now
. She swallowed, twice, wincing. Her skirt was faded, and some of the needle-chantment was loosening. The mendings, clearly visible now, were scabs of indigo against frayed periwinkle silk.

She touched one of her curls. Faded as well, the red leached out, richer than dishwater blond but still not sidhe-vibrant.

Am I mortal now?
No, the music under her thoughts still
rumbled along. The noise was faraway, though, not pressing insistently for release. Like the subway in the city, a great beast dozing.

She whispered a word in the Old Language and immediately winced. It stung her tongue dreadfully, and she tasted blood.

No chantment for a little while, then. She needed milk, but whatever was in the house behind her was almost certainly soured by deathbringing sidhe.

Besides, going back into that place, with that smell . . . no.

The hound—bigger than a Saint Bernard, the size of a pony and with enough fur to make it seem even larger—bent its head and licked at her forearm. Robin tried to snatch her arm away and almost overbalanced. The dog continued licking, mildly, and the cut eased itself together, knitting slowly as it continued.

Not a
cu sith
, then. Perhaps a dandydog, or a gebriel without a human-shaped head. It had four toes and large blunt nails, so it was more like a gytrash, but she’d never seen a gytrash this color.

A new animal, then.

It pressed its face against her shoulder, almost knocking her to the deck again, and gave a little hop of delight when she pushed at it. It was always Daisy who could coax a skeletal stray into eating from a can Robin stole from a corner store or supermarket, Daisy who lit up every time a mangy kitten wandered by. Daddy Snowe called her “pets” diseased, kicked at them with his cowboy boots.

Once, he had drowned a whole sack of mewling kittens in the rain barrel while Daisy sobbed and Robin looked on, her face frozen.

She shook the memory away, and the hound whined. It shoved its face in hers and licked her cheek, a wet, warm,
real
touch. Another whine, deep in its barrel chest.

“I know,” she whispered, even though she didn’t. She didn’t have a single fucking clue.

Her teeth chattered, and when she wound her fingers in the hound’s fur, warmth jolted down her arm, the feverish heat of a creature from the sideways realms. Her head cleared a bit, and she gazed out on the mortal backyard, blinking furiously as the sun shed a robe of cloud and poured down onto mildly shaggy grass and fence alike. An anemic sapling in the back left corner was furred with green, and when the hound folded itself down and wriggled, Robin found she could indeed hike her leg up over its back.

“Be careful,” she whispered, and sagged against the creature’s vital heat. “They’re chasing me. You could flee, and leave me to—”

The hound growled, another low thrumming sound lifting the fine hairs all over her body. A mortal response. Her arms and legs did their best to clamp down, to keep her on its back, and it rose carefully, finding its balance.

“I wish . . .” There was nothing to wish for. So Robin swallowed the taste of blood and bile and whispered the name she’d knit together in the Old Language. Translation was difficult, but she wet her cracked, dry lips and tried anyway.

Thankfully, she didn’t have to pronounce any chantment. The use-name was there, lying over the top of the thing’s truename in a gossamer shroud. It would be impossible to guess the real shape, the exact constellation of blood and breath below, if Robin or the hound didn’t teach it.

“Pepperbuckle,” she whispered. “Let’s go.”

Pepperbuckle threw back his shaggy head and howled, a long, trailing scarf of a cry. He bunched himself, and the world fell away underneath him.

Robin shut her eyes, clinging to warm, vital fur, and simply held on for all she was worth.