Going Under (19 page)

"Lose?" Lila repeated.

"It was better to lose it ourselves than see it plundered and used to create very bad things," Malachi said. "So we took them and pushed them over the edge. Hence, the fall."

"Edge of what?"

But Jones was nodding slowly, her eyes narrowing with thought, "Over the edge of the world."

"Yes, except in Faery it isn't like a dinner plate with an edge that bleeds off into the Void. Faery has aetheric gravitation. It's like a black hole in the physical universe. The Void bends into Faery. Anyway, we pushed the magic off the edge and it was lost below, in Under."

"So, how were you ever going to get it back?"

"Ah, it's like trying to drown pixies, these things pop up when they feel like it," Malachi said, with a dismissive wave. "My only point is that your necklace there seems to be from around that time. We'd never waste so much force on a charm these days when it's more peaceful."

Lila frowned and thought of the sights in Bathshebat. "But faeries are collecting magic. Isn't that for ... some kind of. . . " she suddenly didn't want to say war.

"It's the War Effort," Malachi surprised her. "Periodically we go out and try to get back what we lost before, and anything new that looks too dangerous."

"Why?" Jones said.

"It's better we lose it than you use it."

"Why didn't you lose nuclear weapons then?" Lila asked. "If you're so patronisingly sure that nobody else can be trusted with anything?"

"They're physical only, I'm afraid," the black faery said. "And inanimate to boot. Can't touch 'em. As for being so trustworthy, I think a quick glance in a mirror might answer your questions there." He quirked an eyebrow at her but he was only reflecting her own annoyance.

"Bit harsh," Jones said.

Lila shrugged. "You don't know anything. That's okay. It's fine."

"Have you tried taking it off?" Malachi said and mimed lifting something up over his head.

"No," she hooked the line with her fingers and pulled. It caught on her chin. She eased it there and it caught on her ear; she lifted it there and it snagged in her hair. Whichever way she moved it it was always just a bit too small to come off.

She flicked a blade out of one finger ...

"Hold y'er horses!" Jones exclaimed, moving back sharply and almost falling over at the sight.

... and cut through the thin leather but somehow it wasn't cut through after the blade had passed.

Malachi nodded. "It's old."

Lila held the cord, not quite believing it. She didn't want to cut it one more time and look like some newbie unbeliever, and resolved to try again later, when she was alone. But a chill had gone through her, from heart to the soles of her heavy boots. She dismissed it. Quite ridiculous. Of course it would come off. Later.

"So, is that the reason I'm here wasting time with you and drinking your expensive headwash?" Jones asked, fixing her ferocious eyes on Malachi, then inclining her head in Lila's direction, looking at her hand.

"Did you ever see things like that on your travels?" he asked in response.

"I hardly seen anything now," Jones said, leaning back from Lila slightly.

Lila glanced at Malachi and he gave her a small nod. She decided that if he trusted Jones enough she would too and raised her right arm. She didn't even have to create an image in her mind's eye. The changes came as simply to her as opening and closing her fingers.

"Demon hunting: long range."

The near invisible whir and click, the dance of the atoms ... from shoulder on down she was missile launcher, empty of ammunition.

"Close range, honour weapons."

Fssss. Blades and something more resembling an arm and hand. Fingers, but not all of them.

"Sniping." Rifle.

"Midrange." Hand cannon. Pistol set under.

"Aerial." Missiles again.

"Elven." She got her arm and hand back, plus a longbow that almost speared the top of the tent.

"Can you do anything that's not a weapon?" Jones asked as Lila sat back.

Lila felt tired, slightly greasy. "Joke things." Bottle opener. Lighter. Torch. Fan.

"And do ya ever get tired?"

Lila frowned, not understanding where this was going. "No."

Jones sat back and pushed her drink aside half finished. She scowled and rocked a little, then said, "You know how hard it is to do that kind of thing in physical space ..." It was a leading statement, half a question.

"It's not possible by any known forces in physical space-time at this scale," Lila said.

"And it's not easy in the aetherical expansions either. Almost instantaneous transmutation. Is there a mass loss and gain?"

"Yes," Lila said, easily answering because the differing weights of things was so obvious.

"But no changes of element?"

"Maybe the metals ..."

"I mean you can't make a bunch of flowers."

"No."

Jones stood up. "I'm gonna head out now," she said and the long tendrils of her wild hair started to rise and glow.

"Just hang on a minute," Malachi said, reaching out towards her. "We had a deal."

"I came here and talked," she retorted. Her forehead suddenly looked extremely pale and shiny in the dim light. "If it wasn't what you wanna hear, that's not my problem."

"You're holding out on me," Mal's eyes became long slits of vicious red. Lila was startled, she'd never seen him so obviously angry. "I can see just by your face that you know something."

"Well take a good look, faery, because that's as close to my knowledge as you're gonna get." She hesitated at the end of this line and reassessed their faces, like a little girl facing her parent suddenly wondering if a furious statement she's made has gone too far. She held out her hands in the air and made defensive actions, her tone easing but speeding into a jabber, "Okay, the stone amulet I really don't know but I guess it's a faery thing from the old time. The spiral is clearly ... well, I hardly need to tell you what it is. You don't want to know or you'd already see it, I mean, every faery has to know. And as for the other stuff, that technology whatever, I'll tell you this much. Just let it alone. It works, you live, you're fine, you let it alone. Don't go trying to find who made it or why or all that stupid orphan shit. You don't wanna know where that came from and I am doing you such a huge favour by telling you nothing more about it that you should stick the end of the rainbow right in my pocket." She whacked the side of her old coat where it hung empty and turned to Lila. "Really. I wish I had better news. You're Zal's girl, huh? You two have some interesting friends. Did Malachi tell you all about the Sisters?" She flashed Malachi a wicked stare. "No? You do surprise me. Well trust me on this one, it's really better you stop now than go looking for those kinds of trouble. Seeya. Wouldn' wanna be ya." There was a snap and a smell of ozone and she was gone.

Lila looked across a small sea of empty bottles at Malachi. "She was really scared."

He nodded, his mouth turned down. "That's not good."

She saw his eyes moving side to side, looking down, thinking hard.

"She must have seen the technology from I-space," Lila said. "Somewhere out there, wherever she spends her time looking."

"Maybe, but you know, maybe not. Things brim up all the time, stuff washing up and down the beach of reality, then washing out."

Lila stood up decisively. "I have to ask her again, get her to show me."

"Sit down," Malachi said, soothingly.

Lila looked at him with determination and anger.

"Sit. Down." He was authoritative this time, no sympathy in him. Then he added more softly, "No need to go running off yet. Whatever else she is, she's not lying about the key. My guess is what scares her keeps her honest and she ain't lying about the rest either. In which case you and me need to sit and talk just a bit longer. We need plans and we need to get our stories straight."

Lila sat down but didn't let him off. She kept a tough look focused right on him.

He sighed, and his shoulders sagged briefly. His voice became calm and very quiet. "I guessed that your necklace there might be the key, but then I thought it was too unlikely. Anyway, we can close the case on that one. There's many an old demigod in Faery would give anything to have their hands on that, so you'll carry it, and hide it, and we won't speak of it ever again. At least not till we have to. Not till we ... need it." He matched her stare. His gaze entreated her not to argue.

"Key to what?"

He sighed and the invisible burden on his back grew even larger. "To Under."

She was so surprised and dismayed by the revelation that she agreed with him on the secrecy, even if she disliked the notion that this object had chosen her, or she had been chosen for it-possibly by Viridia and Poppy of all people. She wouldn't have trusted them to give her street directions. It was a mistake or something. Perhaps they meant to lose it. But anyway, she nodded understanding and meant to keep her promise. Malachi had done a lot for her today.

Inside her Tath's slow, regular spin stalled.

"I don't like the direction any of this is taking," Malachi said, twirling his bottle in his fingers. With a little flick he made the whole thing disappear behind his hand and then reappear again. It was a sleight, she was sure of it, but a damn good one. He mused for a moment, repeating his trick. "Do you trust the others? Which, I realise, seems to indicate that I don't. I wish I could deny that but I can't entirely. I don't know Teazle. And where's the other creature?"

"Thingamajig?"

"The imp."

"I don't know. He didn't come from Demonia with me. We had a falling out."

"And the others?"

She shrugged.

"Because of Sorcha," he said.

She nodded. "We were all very angry. It was like ... and how stupid does this sound ... it was like this giant over-the-top party, where anything goes, there's even a bodycount of people who were walk-on extras, and then something stupid happens and your friend is dead. How did I get so I can talk about this as if it were a party? How did we all think that what we did was anything but a bad idea? I said extras. And to be honest, that's exactly what Demonia feels like to me. Like some kind of movie set, where hardly anything is real. I don't know, the whole damn world is starting to feel that way." She took a deep breath and swallowed her horrible emotion. "Anyway, that's where it, me, and a whole lot of other things parted company."

Malachi nodded, his face gentle. "They're a savage kind. Their ways aren't yours. That's all. I keep trying to explain this to whoever will listen, but the plans to go ahead and open up Otopia to the demons more keep moving along. It isn't that they're evil, as so many would have you believe, but they aren't suitable for your world. First the party. Then the fight. Then the funerals. It's the funerals part that most people can't stand."

"Actually it's the waste," Lila said. "She was so talented and so young. And fun."

"The demons would say that the talent and youth are even more precious now. They wouldn't say it was a waste. They'd say ..

... it was the making of a hero." Lila nodded. "I know. As far as they're concerned I'm the one who's the dead loss." She paused, "Is that what you think?"

"You're not dead yet, so I can't say that," he said and grinned at her, a sly, funny, wicked grin.

She smiled, even though she wasn't in the mood to laugh out loud. "Heroes can't be self-doubters, Malachi," she told him. "I read it in the book of rules. That means I can't be a hero. So at least I'm safe from that one."

"That's the spirit!" He finished the last of his beer, turned the bottle upside down, and looked sadly at the single drip that fell out of it. "You could probably be a heroine though," he added. "You're in love, you're racked with self-questioning, you're at the mercy of society's higher forces, and you're riddled with a form of consumption. That's quite gothic."

"I'll try to look at it that way from now on."

"Do, if it helps. Meanwhile, I've got some advice. Don't mention either of the amulets to Williams."

Lila had already slipped them both inside the collar of her combat vest.

"Who do you think sent the technology here?" she asked.

"The Others," he said. "I think that some of that idiot Paxendale's theoretical mumblings are probably right. The worlds are inherently unstable and wrenching each other apart because of a gravitational problem caused by the absence of a substantial mass." He chuckled, "Hard to believe a faery ever said that but I like to get the lingo right."

"A seventh world."

"Yes."

"Has there ever been a seventh world?"

"Not to my knowledge. But my knowledge is only as long as the faery genealogy, so it's possible that a catastrophe occurred before anyone had any clue what was going on, before anyone was even anyone. This instability reportedly takes a long time to occur. Literal ages of time. What we see is the very final stage of the process, not the start."

"So, Otopia becoming more permeable at the Bomb Event ..."

"Compared to that the Bomb wasn't an event, it was a little slipup, and it only caused a slight increase in accessibility. Either the Bomb accelerated some pull effect and drew everything that bit closer or it was a symptom of the same thing. Doesn't matter."

"And you still don't buy the Bomb Event as creating the entire ...

Malachi darkened.

"I don't," she said. "It doesn't make a difference anyway."

"Oh yes it does," he replied. "If they reverse the Bomb and all returns to `normal' in Otopia or whatever it is, then everyone you know, more or less, will vanish, never to be seen again. Certainly, whether or not that happens we would then have the problem of the instability to contend with anyway, but you would have no say in it, always supposing we weren't simply extinguished with the experi ment. Not that the humans consider us real so I suppose that isn't important."

"They can't do it anyway," she said. "Reversing a thing like that isn't possible within an expanding universe."

Malachi looked at her, suddenly frowning but this time with surprise. "How'd you know that?"