Going Under (30 page)

Zal shivered and shook his head. "I misjudged this. She is much stronger than I thought. I couldn't deceive her. We are far inside. I was never that adept at magic, unlike many of the other elves. Unlike ..." he glanced at her and then down at her chest. "I don't know that much about these levels but I think it may be best if you let Ilya do the walking and talking. One cheap shirt isn't going to hold them all off and I have a feeling that any of them down here will know what you carry on sight, though it's interesting they have no sense of it even close at hand." His face, white and grey in the moonlight, was full of misgivings. "And I hesitate to recommend it because the levels of aether here ... everything has consequences, and I can't see them." He radiated discomfort. Lila could see his andalune body glowing, illuminated and full of points of light, as if it was a mirror for the sky above them. It shifted restlessly.

"Aether here is dark," Thingamajig asserted, hunching down on Lila's shoulder. "Turned with the light. That's old work. Twists things about. I've been here before. You should be more at ease with it, shadow, but you've burned too long in demonfire, lost your edge."

"Mmn," Zal said uncertainly. "Perhaps. It doesn't taste like Alfheim's dark or shade though. Has a life of its own here. A kind of will. The same one that brought that," he pointed to where the necklace hung on Lila's chest, just where the armoured bodice began. "Feels like giving it a way in, and I don't let anything in. Don't advise anyone to. Don't even want to talk here. Everything wants to turn."

"Heark at him lie his head off," the imp snorted. "One fire elemental and he's anyone's, and he has the nerve to talk about purity."

"Whatever," Lila said. "We'll carry on like this for now. I trust him."

Inside her chest Tath was quiet. She forgot about him a lot recently. It was like he was her, almost. His feelings her feelings. She was so used to him. She wasn't even able to feel the same level of discomfort about it that she had.

She saw Zal watching her, waiting for her to speak or move.

"Let's go," she said, unwilling to talk about Tath. As they turned to take the path side by side the imp leapt ahead of them, igniting himself a little more to show the way. She looked at Zal's stern face, flickering with grey and blue shadows, and felt a barrier between them. Sorcha was part of it. Maybe a part they wouldn't be getting rid of soon. But there was more to it, and here some more had been added, strange and undefined, another layer of bricks made up of his hesitation and this place and her silence. She saw it so clearly but she had no idea what to do about it. Maybe with dawn it would lessen. For the time being, they walked the path.

alachi met the others on the beach. It was dark, but there was light from the nearby houses and paths. The tide was out and to their right, some distance away, people were out with torches, digging for clams and other things. They stayed together, in case of moths, though it was rare to see one near any large body of water, especially the ocean. In the darkness the figures of the demon and the three other fey looked deceptively ordinary, and, in the case of the two girls from Zal's band, oddly glamorous. As usual they were dressed to party. The taller one, Viridia, was the more aloof, but she clung to Poppy's shoulder as she rushed up to Malachi and said, "Oh, is it Zal? What's the matter? This demon won't tell us anything."

"We need you to take us into Faery," Malachi said, measuring his words carefully.

"But you can do that," Viridia replied, adjusting her sarong against the warm night breeze.

"I can only walk another into the upper regions," Malachi said.

"You want to go deep," Poppy said with dismay. "That's easy enough I guess. But what're you doing down there?" She shuddered at the notion.

"Are you afraid?" Teazle asked her, his arms folded, clearly contemptuous of so much being made of something so trivial.

"No. Not exactly," she said, sticking her tongue out at him. "Only, some places aren't as easy to get out of as they are to get into and the further down you get the more ... fundamental ... everything becomes. Some of us don't enjoy the fundaments, you know. We're more civilised beings these days."

"Not what I hear," Teazle said. His deep voice broke through the soft rush of waves and the girls' voices and made them frown as their slight charms failed to persuade. "We are wasting time."

Poppy wasn't so easily discouraged. She turned to him completely and flirted, "You're very handsome, for a demon."

"You're commonly backhanded, for a faery," he replied. "Of my true form you'd speak less prettily. And if you don't do as our mutual friend here asks then shortly you will be closer acquainted with it than you'd like." His tone was as silvery as theirs, almost a perfect match. He smiled coldly.

Poppy stood with her mouth slightly ajar.

"Been too long with silly humans," Viridia muttered. "Time we got down to some business other than breaking hearts and playing cards."

"It's that necklace, isn't it?" Poppy said, turning and poking Viridia sharply in the ribs. "You had to go and pick it up, give it to her."

"Don't blame me!" Viridia snapped, poking back just as hard with a scowl. "You saw it first. It was your idea."

"Ladies," Nixas said gently, stepping forwards between the two of them, his grey and silver hair tipped with black like a strange fox pelt in the moonlight. He was as prettily handsome and charming as they were beautiful. He took an arm of each. "Let's not argue about what's past. You did your best to avoid disaster but the key is an artefact that has a way of doing what it will. There can't be blame. The question now is, will you answer its call? After all, it chose you, of all of faery, to bring it back into play. What a pity to waste the chance of a lifetime to take a part in great events when the very meat of our beings demands you take your part."

Malachi grinned inwardly, though he didn't let it show on his face. Nix had charm to burn. It worked even on experts like Poppy and Viridia; and he thanked the gods he hadn't had to make that speech since, coming from him, it would have had less the ring of greatness than despair. Tricky wording was never his suit. He caught Teazle's eye and saw the demon thinking the same thing.

Poppy simpered for a moment and then turned her head indulgently towards Malachi. "So, where are they?"

"Umeval," he said.

"Aieeee!" Poppy slammed both hands over her delicate ears and squealed a long squeal of agony. She looked around at them as they shook their heads and scowled at her. Far off dogs began barking and cats yowled in reply. "The still point!" She looked pointedly at Teazle. "He can't know about it. I bet Zal doesn't know. Do they? They don't know about it. No way out and Jack hunting endlessly. We can't go there and become slaves in his caravan! We can't! No way!"

"Pop," Viridia said sharply. "Lila has the key."

"And Jack wants the key!" Poppy said. "He'll kill anyone who tries to keep it from him. He's completely insane! We can't be anywhere near it! It was madness to take it there. One sniff of it and he'll tear them to pieces. Malachi, what were you thinking?"

"I think that what Viridia meant is that Lila has the way out," Teazle said with slow deliberation and mimicry.

Poppy blinked. Then, after a moment she said sulkily, " I don't like going under. I like it here, where I'm good. Fun, anyway." But she sniffed a deep breath of the sea and sounded doubtful. "I don't want to die."

"If you don't take us now then Zal and Lila will both die," Malachi said.

"And you as well," Teazle promised faithfully, flexing one of his hands as though it was stiff, and showing that he had claws. His face was completely deadpan.

"You don't have to terrorise us," Poppy said quietly. "We were going to say yes." A spark of defiance shone in her gaze. "And you'll like us less shortly."

"I'll risk it," Teazle said.

Malachi took the stone that he'd just stolen from the museum out of his pocket and handed it to Viridia. "Here's the marker."

She turned it over, put it to her mouth, and licked it, then handed it to Poppy who did the same. "All right." She took a deep breath and shuddered, then began to strip out of her sarong and bikini, kicking her sandals aside. "Pop, you can take Malachi and Nix. I'll have the demon."

"Thanks," Malachi said, almost sick with relief. "I wouldn't ask if any of us had the speed ..."

"Yeah, whatever," Poppy said, taking her clothes off and looking at them on the sand where she dropped them with a pout. "Bye bye pretty designer thingies," she said and took Viridia's outstretched hand. They walked out towards the water, and the others followed closely. As they reached the surf the two girls let go of their hands and moved apart and then, as Malachi watched, in a few strides they had changed, as if they were made of nothing more substantial than the softest light and shade.

The two horses turned back, their manes and tails as long and thick as princesses' hair, tangled with seaweed. Only a glance at their legs showed that instead of hooves they had strange thick webbed feet, and where feathers of hair would have been on a knight's charger, fins.

Poppy tossed her head impatiently and pranced on the spot. She waited as Malachi jumped easily up to her back and put his hand down to pull Nixas up behind him. Teazle raised his white brows but seized hold of Viridia's mane and kicked himself up onto her back as though he'd spent his life as a circus rider. He was much more startled when the hair of her mane swiftly slithered up his arms and tangled him fast and close to her neck. She snorted in horse laughter and without warning wheeled around towards the ocean, powerful muscles bunching and pushing them into a headlong gallop straight at the waves.

Malachi thought it would be unpleasant. He was right.

Poppy smashed headlong into the breakers, swimming with more power than any ordinary horse could have dreamed of, and the water welcomed her, breaking easily over and around her. It was damned cold to Malachi's skin as it soaked him quickly. He felt Nixas's grip to his waist hard as they plunged out of their depth and the water rose to their necks, slapping against open mouths and screwed-shut eyes. Then they were under and diving, down and down, much further than the shelf of the continent would ever have allowed, and they could feel the water mixing-the cold, salt ocean and a darker, colder, and more bitter water that was not fresh but not salt either. Their breath began to burn in their chests and pressure began to crush their ears. Above the humming of his blood Malachi could hear the distant sound of basso profundo voices chanting an ancient lay, so old that the words themselves turned them around in the waters and made the water pull them further beneath as if the water were made of sound and the sound knew what it was doing. Behind his closed eyelids he saw sparks. His body started to scream for air and he felt the distinctive lightening of Poppy beginning to shift. He went with her gladly into the strange grey uncertainty of the void, where at last the water became what it wanted to be all along-aetherand they were dragged in its stream according to the kelpies' song. Around his wrists Poppy's hair stayed fast. He listened for any trace of ghosts or the hunters but the song was wild and dragging him away. At least, he thought, at least the kelpies are old enough to be able to reach this region easily whereas he hadn't been there in so long he'd forgotten nearly everything about it. Briefly he wondered what would become of him there, but it was too late to worry about it.

They entered a timeless, empty region of cold so profound that he lost all feeling.

The next thing he knew, he was lying in mud, vomiting up semistagnant lake water. The cold was agonising, so less cold than before. He stood up and found himself on all fours, shaking himself vigor ously and spraying water in all directions. He tried to speak and felt his mouth shape itself clumsily around too-big teeth. A growling noise emerged, but no words.

At his side Nixas crawled further up the bank they were lying on, coughing, and sat for a moment, his body almost entirely transparent, made of water. The surface shone weakly in what passed for sunlight under the grey, winter sky of Umeval. His fine features were gone, replaced by suggestions of a face that wavered in and out of being. Petals and bits of stick moved idly in the volume of his translucent body. He looked as stunned as Malachi felt.

On the trampled grass before them he saw the legs of horses-not the fine black mares that had stormed the sea back in Otopia, but shorter and sturdier ponies with heavy hooves and thicker hair. Their manes and tails moved idly, floating in the air as if in water. Their black eyes were empty and far colder and hungrier than Malachi ever remembered. He couldn't see the girls in them at all, and then one of them shivered into her change and he saw it was Poppy, though a shorter, fatter, and much more buxom Poppy. She wasn't green and pretty but dark haired with dun skin. She had a voluptuous beauty of a kind but a look on her that was far craftier than she had ever worn in his knowledge. He knew that she was looking at him and seeing what he saw in her-a much older form of himself, from ages long gone in human memory, even from his own. He feared suddenly that he had no other shape than the cat and tried to change, scrabbling for the feeling and the charm with a desperation that felt inept and clumsy.