Robert Charrette - Arthur 03 - A Knight Among Knaves (34 page)

"How can you work with people who tried to kill you? How can you trust them not to try again?"

"Their motive is gone. Caliburn is drawn, and the magic that bound it is loose. There's nothing that they or anyone can do about that now. They understand that-."

"But we spoiled their plan. Didn't you say they hold grudges?"

Bear nodded. "They pride themselves on their practicality.

The general who devised that strategy is gone, as are a number of good men, all in the service of a failed plan. There is no point pursuing a grudge against me—-or you, if that's what worries you. I am valuable to them now. As I said, we fight the same war."

"If the dwarves are not the enemy, who is?"

"The serpent lovers who have fallen under the sway of darkness and want to drag us ail down with them. They are behind much of the woe of the world and they are the most dangerous foes we face."

"Who are they?"

"They are fools and idiots, power-hungry self aggrandizers. They have abandoned all that is good and wed themselves to i he creatures of the outer darkness, the haters of life and eaters of souls. The things that they worship are enemies of all living beings, including themselves, but they are blinded to that truth. We roust fight the serpent lovers now as good men have always fought them and their lies. It will not be an easy battle for they are a subtle, crafty, and persistent foe."

"And the dwarves fight this war too?"

"Yes. They knew that the convergence of worlds would make it possible for the serpent lovers to call their unnatural masters. They sought to prevent the possibility by preventing l he release of magic."

"And killing you would prevent the release of the magic that was holding you in the otherworld."

"They were too late for that. But there were greater magics encasing Caliburn. Those they sought to keep in check."

So the dwarves had thought that they had a good reason to kill Bear. Holger still felt unsettled, distrustful. "Are they listening to us?"

"This is one of their places. Don't they have the right?" Bear shrugged. "What about your Department M, are they listening?"

"1 don't work for them anymore." He felt his head, the hard spot behind his ear. "I don't know if they're listening. They might be."

Bear smiled. "I like honest answers."

"I didn't come looking for you to betray you."

"All right, why
did
you come looking for me?"

"I'm not sure."

That answer, too, seemed to satisfy Bear. "If it makes you feel better, Wilson tells me that they are blocking the transmissions to and from your commo thing. I don't understand the technical details, but they say they can keep your former masters from hearing. I believe them."

"Then I will too. But I don't understand why they want to help me."

"They are not helping you because they are altruistic," Bear said. "They are suspicious of you and even more suspicious of your former masters. Some of my friends believe that you may be a spy."

"I can understand that, but I'm not. At least not intentionally." Lord, he did not want their fears to be real. If they were, he was less in control of himself than he could tolerate. "If they are so suspicious, why are they bothering?"

"They're bothering because I asked them to."

"Why are
you
bothering?"

"Because you came to me, Mr. Kun."

"Aren't you suspicious of me?"

"In former times, my life depended on being able to judge a man quickly. I needed to be able to see into a man's heart and gauge his strength. I got rather good at it."

"What about—"

Bear didn't let him finish. "Not perfect, Mr. Kun. Perfection is not for this earth. Do you think that I'm wrong about you?"

"I hope you're not."

"I don't think I am. We worked together before, remember? Your present uncertainty and confusion will pass when you realize what you are looking for. Deep down, I think you know."

Did he? He knew that he felt yearnings. His own? He thought so. "I want to help." "I would be pleased to have your help. If you're feeling up to it, I need a refresher on modern firearms. With all the work of getting the foundation going, I'm afraid I've neglected my arms practice. If you want to help, you can start liy helping me there."

"Arms practice? Are you expecting trouble?"

"The worst kind."

CHAPTER

30

- '

Walking the route had been easier when Bennett had led the way, but John managed it well enough. Unlike the last time, he felt the unevenness of transition where an other-world hill faded and he stepped onto the surface of the elevated garden of the Nikko Hartford. The builders had removed the hill in the sunlit world, the better to site their multitowered construct. Was it only luck that the congruency remained between the Faery hill and a pocket park set two stories above the sunlit ground, or had the architect dreamed of the land as it should have been and included the park in his design as an apology for the rest of what he was doing? Whatever the reason, the match had served Bennett last year and served John now.

John's trip through the otherworld had been short—as short as he could make it—and if he had been able to think of a better way to avoid going through the hotel's street-level lobby, he would have taken it. At least he hadn't been seen.

Standing at the entrance to the elevator shaft, he looked up at the tower that held the luxury suite where Dr. Spae had stayed when she was working out of her office in Hartford. She was staying at the suite now, according to what her synth secretary had told John. He took the elevator up, using the security code he'd used before. The door rotated open on a darkened entry, and only then did John realize the lateness of the hour. He went in anyway. He could wait for the doctor to rise in the morning, but he wasn't about to spend the time till then standing in the elevator.

The place was as fancy as he remembered it, but it looked more lived-in now. The corp must have gotten a long-term lease for the doctor. Here and there he saw clothing that (ouldn't be hers and had to be Beryle's. So she was still seeing him. Beryle was some kind of journalist who specialized in the fantastic and John had been seeing his byline a lot more frequently these days, but John had never much cared lor the guy even if Dr. Spae liked him. What she saw in him, John could only guess. At least John didn't see Beryle's portable, which probably meant he wasn't here right now. Off on assignment, probably.

A lot of books had been added to the wall shelves by the fireplace. John was starting to look them over when he began to get the feeling that someone was watching him, someone not entirely friendly. He tried to muster his magical defenses as he turned.

Dr. Spae, clad in one of Beryle's T-shirts, stood in the doorway to her bedroom, blue fire flickering around the ends of the staff in her hand. The flames died and she lowered the staff.

"Jesus, for a minute I thought you were Bennett," she said.

"Seems to be a common mistake."

"You do look a lot like him."

"Like father like son, eh? Not much of my mother in me is there? Either one of them." John knew that he sounded bitter.

"You've tried to see Marianne Ready, haven't you?"

She must have been paying more attention to his problems than he'd thought if she could put her finger on the cause of his distress so quickly. He told her about his disastrous reunion attempt and the nearly greater disaster that had ended It She shook her head at his foolishness in the first case and nodded approvingly at his handling of the second, agreeing with him that it would be best if he not go back there. He didn't mention Bennett's belated and unhelpful appearance.

Still, it felt good to have someone listen sympathetically. He had been right to come to her.

"I could use a little help, Doctor." He pointed to his face. "Not exactly man-on-the-street looks. Not the sort of face I should be wearing while someone is hunting me."

"You haven't learned to disguise your appearance?" She sounded surprised. "I would have thought that they would have taught you that. Bennett is accomplished at it."

"I never really had a chance to learn the trick. Besides, there's not much need
there
to pretend that you're human."

"No, I suppose not." She sat quiet for a while, thinking. "I suppose we can work a variation on one of the glamours you already know. We should at least be able to get that humanizing shift Bennett uses."

"It doesn't much matter what I look like, so long as I don't look like an elf."

"But you are an elf, John."

"I don't have to like it."

"You have to accept what you are."

"Why? Nobody else does."

She looked at him sternly. "Nobody? Very melodramatic, but hardly accurate. That kind of fuzzy emotional thinking won't help your magic."

"Magic runs on emotion a lot more than you like to think, Doctor."

"Otherworld wisdom?"

"If you want to call it that, go ahead. I'd call it empirical knowledge. I'm not entirely dim, you know. I can figure out things for myself." Elves hadn't gifted him with
everything
he'd learned since he'd last seen her.

"Maybe we should just try to do some work here," she said slowly, tightly.

Clearly she hadn't liked the tone of his last remarks. He was being a dode. Pissing the doctor off wasn't the way to get her to help him. He mumbled an apology, which she accepted gruffly, and they got down to testing John's knowledge of glamours and their construction. Working with the magic, they slipped with surprising ease into their old working patterns. John found that he had missed the interplay of stu
dent
and teacher, and the thrill of manipulating the magic just to see what he could do. She showed him what he should have seen all along, and he felt a little stupid that he hadn't seen it tor himself. Just as you had to understand, at least partially, the nature of what you were trying to duplicate in a glamour, you also had to understand something of what you were disguising, if you wanted to hide it well. Thus, to hide himself—an elf—he had to understand that he
was
an elf. Without such a basis, any glamour would be transparent at best. Okay then, he'd be an elf. What did he have left?

"That's it!" Dr. Spae exclaimed. "You've got it! You look like the old John Reddy."

The irony of that made him laugh.

Well, he'd gotten what he had come here for. "Thank you,

Doctor. I'll be going."

She stared up at him as he stood. "And just where is that?

If you're thinking about going back to your slump, think again. If the hunter was tracking you, he almost certainly knows about that place. He's probably watching it, waiting for you to come back."

"Let him watch. He won't see anything. I've got a way in that he can't watch." A hunter from the sunlit world couldn't lay an ambush along a trail in the otherworld.

"Maybe you do, but you can't spend your life holed up in there."

"I don't intend to." He didn't know what he
did
intend, but he 'd figure it out.

"I still have a place for you," she said. "The firm can use you."

Exploit the elf, eh? He remembered her desire to get Bennett to work with her. All her talk about learning about how an elf lord did magic, about learning the secrets of the other-world. "As a research subject?"

"John, you're being deliberately offensive."

"Isn't that better than doing it accidentally?" "It would be better if you didn't do it at all. You've picked up Bennett's habit of turning things around on people."

Had he? "Maybe I can't help it. Maybe it's part of being an elf. You said I should accept being an elf."

Dr. Spae didn't look happy at getting what she had asked for. "You want to be an elf? Okay, try this. I've been studying my elf lore. We've dealt in magic, you and I, and that's put a bond between us. I've helped you, now you must help me, and since we struck no specific deal, / get to say how, and
you,
Mr. Elf, will go along."

"I know those stories too, Doctor. Doesn't the human always get burned in the end when she forces the elf to do something that he doesn't want to do?"

"I'll take my chances."

"Very traditional of you."

"Respect for tradition is very strong in mages. Elves, too."

He did feel as though he ought to go along with her. "Suppose I buy into this. What is it you want of me?"

"I want your help in an investigation."

"Is this the thing you were working on that had to do with Quetzal?"

"It is."

Should he be surprised that he no longer felt the fear that he'd felt not so long ago? It was not as if there was anything to be afraid of; Quetzal was dead and gone. What the hell? He didn't have anything better to do. "Okay. Sure. Why not?"

"Great. It's taken me weeks to clear enough time to look into this. Maybe I ought to take your arrival as an omen."