A Fair Fight (21 page)

“
Warmongers...?” Megan thought about nearly all the Scandinavians. “Oh. Okay.” She reflected for a moment. “We will. But if it helps any, this war kinda came pre-mongered."

"All wars seem to," the woman replied simply, rolling the dice at the books again with a small frown.

"Well, we've been trying to think of a way to stop some of it before it starts. Who knows? Maybe none of this was necessary. Maybe back at Murias, they already have a new plan."

Tinna tilted her head, looking at Megan curiously. "Trying to stop it?"

Megan nodded, "We want to delay the Fimbulwinter, stop the dark elves getting out, and all of that."

"How do you intend to do that?"

"We're gathering people against the Fomoire. If we can stop them sooner, we can make it so all those other things don't follow."

"And how do you intend to stop the Fomoire, exactly?"

"We haven't figured that out yet. That's part of the point of the diplomatic meeting."

Tinna nodded. "I will talk to the rest of the elders. I do not trust the warmongers, but I believe your intent." She paused a while, looking thoughtful. "I do not think I'm ready to leave this world yet. So, when you figure out the answer to my question, come back to me. I will trade you that answer for a favor... because if the answer might delay the war, it's well worth it."

Chapter 30: Divided

So much for thinking they might have a new plan
, Megan thought as she approached the table at Murias. She couldn’t have understood what half the people were saying, even if they’d bothered to speak one at a time.

Her father
did
seem to understand everything being said, from the grumbling in Greek to chattering in…Megan was fairly certain it was something Native American, but she really didn’t know that guy—or two thirds of the table, for that matter. Knowing everyone’s words didn’t seem to make the Unseelie King any happier about them.

He was receiving no help from his fellow monarch of An Teach Deiridh, who was busy staring at her nephew. She’d occasionally turned to glare at Riocard, the word “Consultants?” carrying in Orlaith’s elocutionary voice over the crowd and the distance. Obviously, the technical term Megan’s father had settled on to avoid making Tiernan a guest of the realm had not made her happy. The golden-haired Spanish girl, who seemed to be trying in vain to take notes on behalf of her employer, was getting silent sympathy from a very vexed crow-tengu.

That was as close as Megan got to the table. She was walking, flanked by the cats, with Ashling and the Count on her shoulders and Cassia and Justin directly behind her, holding the cauldron handles. The cauldron itself was covered with a thin blanket they'd picked up from the Huldufolk in exchange for Kerr's soup recipe. Lani and Kerr trailed behind them. One of the satyrs—the other mixed-faun-looking one—was in the way suddenly.

“
They’re kind of busy,” he said.

“
Obviously,” Cassia said. “And as soon as you stop wasting our time, we'll join them.”

“
Let's keep the discussion between people who know where they stand,” he said, pressing into Cassia's personal space. “People who've already run out on one place might run again anytime.”

“
Eis korakas
. The next time I'm running,” Cassia said. “It's going to be with a bunch of losers like you between me and whatever's giving chase. Lani? Kerr? Take our luggage. Sir Justin will want to watch after his lady. Not that this jackass is dangerous or anything." Kerr and Lani each stepped up and took a handle while Cassia and the other satyr snarled at each other.

“
The bakwas and the gada'zhe, the djinns and the peris, the domovoi and the ljosalfar ... well, it's all bar-bar-bar to me,” the satyr said, starting to circle around Cassia. She kept herself between him and the group, turning and shifting as needed to keep him in front of her, and away from the cauldron and the mortals alike.

“When she's not glaring, your scarred-up queen keeps trying to back her general,” the satyr continued. “But she's got knockers tapping on one shoulder asking about expense and Yan-an-od tapping the other shoulder asking 'if this can be put off until lambing season's quite done,’ The Spanish and the Japanese just sit there looking disappointed—why are they even here?”

Megan winced slightly hearing the last one, but the satyr's eyes were on Cassia as she turned to remain faced off with him. True to Cassia's statement. Justin stepped up to be immediately at Megan's left. He kept the Sword of Light sheathed, but he had his shield on his arm.

The satyr kept talking. “Don't know what we're going to do if we don't start hearing some good points about what this'll do concerning the Titans. You know how Marcus Flavius feels about working with Riocard, what with the incident at Hadrian's Wall.”

“
Oh, yeah. I heard that one. That'd be the incident where his high-and-mightiness got his ass handed to him by a barbarian elf-boy barely out of diapers? Now just think of where that leaves you.”

The other satyr's face twisted into a snarl, before he lashed out with a hard right cross. His expression gave his intent away, and Cassia ducked her head back, letting the fist fly by, an inch from connecting with her chin. Cassia's own punch didn't miss, as she dropped him to the ground with a left.

“
Oh,
thank you
,” Cassia said. “I wasn't going to throw the first punch.” She spat at him, stepping back and gesturing for him to get up and fight. "Come on, gutless."

“
Cassia!” Megan called. “Come on, he's not worth it. We have bigger things to attend to."

Cassia hesitated, but stopped goading him, starting to turn towards Megan. "Yeah, all right." The other satyr started getting to his feet, tensing as if he intended to lunge after her, but low growls from both cats, moving to their mistress's side, convinced him to let them pass.

Megan had never met the bearded man who was speaking as she approached the table, but she'd had the domovoi explained to her long before, even if she mostly just thought of them as 'Russian brownies.'

“
The Scandinavians are trying to solve with spears what should be solved with hammers. If your lake is no longer sealed, then build something over it before the Fomoire break out. It's not armies that should be on the way to Gorias. It's engineers.”

“
I'm afraid that's impossible,” General Inwar was beginning, but then Riocard held up a hand as he looked to Megan.

“
Yes, dearest? Had an interesting time lately?”

“
Yeah, Dad,” Megan said as Cassia and Justin helped Lani and Kerr get the package onto the table. “It's been a trip." As she said it, she turned and drew the covering off of the cauldron. "We brought back a souvenir, though."

There were numerous reactions, some whispered inquiries to others within delegations, or of neighbors, a few gasps, presumably from those with some suspicion what it was, and a few hushed words of doubt. People stared at the cauldron. Tiernan stared at Megan.

The Perez Mouse was the first to actually speak directly to them. “
Princesa
, is...that what I think it is?”

“
Lani, take it away!” Megan was unable to resist a bit of a grin and a showbiz flourish as she said it, gesturing to the cauldron.

Lani proceeded to take her thermos out of her backpack, dump the soup into the cauldron, then completely re-fill the thermos from the cauldron and set it on the table. She then dipped the screw-on cup from the top of the thermos into the cauldron and set that on the table. “Still got soup,” she said.

Megan smiled sheepishly at Senor Perez and at the dragon's assistant who sat next to the mouse. “Sorry things haven't been quite as cordial as promised, but at least there's a hot meal?”

“
Well,” said the mouse. “We certainly would not want to be unappreciative of hospitality.”

“
And whose hospitality, exactly?” asked one of the satyrs, the one who looked the most fully like a Roman faun. “It seems the Unseelie King is distinctly in d—”

“
Thank you so much for the cauldron, dearest,” Riocard's interrupted, smiling at Megan. “I have just the bookmark to give you for it. It's on my shelf at An Teach Deiridh right now, but you can pick it up later.”

Megan smiled back, relieved, because in these circles, debt was a four-letter word. “Sure, Dad. What is it?”

“
It's a scrap of canvas from a Botticelli—all that was found left of it after the Bonfire of the Vanities.” Riocard looked wistful. “They say Botticelli threw it on the fire himself. It's amazing how adept otherwise-useful people can be at self-sabotage. Speaking of which... where were we?” He looked over the table's assembly with a raise of his angular brow.

“
I was being advised about the lake at Gorias by someone who has never been there,” Inwar said blandly.

“
Perhaps we should listen to the Russian...” Tiernan trailed off, clearly in an uncomfortable conundrum.

“
Excuse me,” asked someone at the table, gesturing with a hand that appeared to Megan to be made out of fire or plasma or something. Still, he didn't seem to be scorching his chair. “The...persons of mixed heritage are understandable if one of them is the Princess, but why exactly is there a mortal at this conference?” He was looking at Justin.

Megan was looking at the … was he a djinn? She tried to gather her thoughts before answering.
The mortal is doing his gosh-darn job, a job that has saved the day on plenty of days, more than plenty of faeries, and he is also my boyfriend, and why does the job thing come before the boyfriend thing? Is our relationship always going to take a back seat? Is his real-life, pay-the-bills job going to come ahead of dating, too? Or is this actually just a way more grown-up and healthy approach to—

Eventually, she realized the Queen's ringing elocutionary voice was answering for her. “I found Sir Justin lost on the paths and recruited him,” Orlaith said. “The errand proved less useful than I'd hoped, but he was serviceable, and Her Highness has quite an affinity for human resources.”

The djinn nodded politely. “Ah. That is a queen's prerogative, certainly.”

Chapter 31: Fair Deals

“
Soup's on?” called a booming voice as two familiar huge figures, one with the basket, the other in irons, led a small group of ogres toward the table. Adjacently, a familiar dwarf with a large tupperware of cookies led a handful of his fellows. The most familiar pair of all was leading both groups. The Count wasn't flying at his most jaunty, and Ashling wasn't looking her most cheerful, but they were all there, and no one appeared more immediately hostile than being ogres required.

Megan was a little confused by who greeted them. The two cyclopes, who'd been sitting behind the satyrs in silence, rose immediately and strode over to the ogres. “Jack! Tsonoqua!” Hands were shaken, after which all four participants counted the fingers of their right hand as if to confirm they were still there. And Megan had thought the salute between brownies and menehune was a weird secret handshake.

Amidst the noise of the greeting, the dwarves made their way to the knockers, giving quiet greetings of their own. Megan couldn't make out all of the details amidst the much louder speech of the bigger ogres and apparently associated cyclopes, but she was pretty sure the miners and crafters were saying hello via exchanging ledgers and trade offers.

The cyclopes soon returned to the table. “We're in if they are,” one told Riocard.

Now the satyr-types rose from their seats. “What?!” exclaimed the most faunish one.

“
Marcus Flavius, shut up,” said the cyclops.

The satyrs and centaur with them all tensed, looking at the cyclopes through narrowed eyes, but didn't say anything. After several seconds of glaring, they took their seats again.

"Well, are you in?" Riocard asked, glancing to the ogres. The rest of the table fell silent as all eyes fell on the two leaders of the brutish group.

"Depends," Jack said. "You planning to return the cauldron?"

"No," Riocard said. Various surprised comments were cut off as soon as he continued speaking. "Don't imagine that just because we're on the verge of war, I'm going to deal any more easily."

Jack tensed, stepping forward, hands curling into fists. "You traded it to us, fair and square."

"And then you lost it," Riocard said. "And just now, I have need of it... and look at that, it fell back into my hands. However, when this war is over, my need for it ends. Should you happen to be around when that occurs, and in my good graces, I'll swear by the realm that you'll be the first to get to negotiate for it."

Three of the ogres with Jack started forward, baring their teeth and readying their weapons. Riocard's guard likewise drew their own arms and took up defensive positions. Before anyone had a chance to attack, though, the ogre in the lead was halted by Jack's callused hand on his shoulder, pulling him back, just before Jack-in-Irons started laughing uproariously.