Keeping It Real (21 page)

though in the glare of a private sun. It
drew suddenly very close to him and then vanished. He pulled part

of his shirt over his face to take a breath with his eyes screwed shut, everything about
him turning the soft

beige shade of the earth. Then Zal sang the circle, just
one breath, a few elvish words, a few clear notes

that
made Lila aware of the junction between her flesh and metal body as cleanly as if they were being

cut in two.

She felt a change in the air, in the temperature, and the quality of the ground but she had no time to put

these things together before they were surrounded in a boiling yellow gale of fire. Lila flinched

auto-matically from what she thought
would be blistering heat, but the air against her skin was cool.

Through a gap of a few inches she stared into a roiling heart of flame and felt nothing of it.

Zal coughed and spat. "This won't hold for long against that. And whoever is its master.'

'Why not?' Lila asked, looking down at her feet and seeing they were standing on lilac-coloured sand,

looking up at the sky and seeing the most
delicate of rose clouds against
a turquoise blue. She and Zal,

alone inside a column of fire, standing in another world.

'I can feel how strong that thing is,' he said and to her questioning gaze gave an awkward shrug. 'Who

were you expecting? Mithrandir?'

'How long?' The fire curled and licked at
the invisible barrier greedily. Lila would not
step away.

'Minutes,' he said, closing his eyes. Suddenly he yawned.

'What are you doing?' Lila was alarmed. She couldn't believe he was relaxed enough to feel like

yawning.

'I'm tired,' he said. 'And holding this is very tiring. You wouldn't understand. I'm sure you'll have

another plan by then. That jousting thing was very cool.'

'Can you take us to where this circle is for real?'

'No,' he said. 'Not
nearly.'

'Can we walk and take it with us?' she asked, starting to feel desperate.

'No. I didn't think about that. It's fixed on the earth. Part of earth elemental magic. I could have done it

in air but I wasn't... it wasn't what I did.' He shrugged and peered more closely at the fire. T think we're

inside a phoenix. That's interesting. I didn't know they were fire all the way through. I thought they were

hollow, like those disappointing chocolate Easter rabbits.'

Lila pushed thoughts of impending death and strangling him to one side, 'Zal, do you know why these

people are out to get you?'

'Don't like me.'

"The Great Spell,' she prompted.

Zal was very serious now. 'Yeah, that. I do somewhat fit the recipe for global disaster there. But
they

don't
really want
that. Might think they do. Who knows?'

'Someone clearly thinks so.'

'Yeah, no prizes for guessing who they are.'

'Enlighten me.'

'Nobody wants to cut off their kingdom from the pollution of other races and their ideas more than

those bastards in Sathanor.'

'The High Elves?'

"The High Elves,' he said, his ears flattening to his head completely
.
Lila saw that he was starting to

struggle to stay upright
.
He folded his arms across his chest in determination
.
'Not all of them. Some. All

it
takes. And by the feel of this they've been building their strength a long time. We've got
another two

minutes, maybe one and a half.'

Lila bit her lip and thought. If this was down to who he said it was,

no way would they want Zal dead. She decided to take the gamble and quickly stripped off her bike

jacket.

'Is this my two-minute charity window?' Zal asked, frowning.

'Put it on,' Lila ordered, pushing the jacket
into his arms. She stripped off the trousers too, leaving

herself in her military issue shorts and vest, all metal exposed. 'And these. Move!' Her boots would have

to lie wherever they were for ever, lost
in time and space when the circle expired.

'Why?' He obeyed her. He was more dextrous than a human man, and more graceful, even when

stuffing his Elf sleeves into her clothes.

'We're getting out
of here,' she said. 'And it's going to be very hot, and then very, very cold.'

'And how does your not
wearing anything of note .. .'

'Nuclear reactor core,' she said absently, peering at
their surround-ings. She could feel heat
on her

arms and shoulders, face and chest
now, slowly increasing. 'How you doing?' Zips and poppers sounded

like flame crackling.

'Thank god neither of us likes cakes,' he said, but without any zeal.

Lila turned and saw him swaying on his feet. She caught him before he fell and braced him against her.

At the last minute she grabbed hold of all his long blond hair and twisted it rapidly together, jamming it

down the neck of the jacket. 'Stand on my feet. Go on. Do it. Okay, let the circle go.'

'Hmm?'

She glanced at him, mistakenly, and made eye contact
.
As the ports on the soles of her feet were

opening onto the lilac ground she lost
herself in a deep and puzzling warmth and darkness. The jet

systems in her ankles came online and she felt the fire's heat wash away in a sudden cool, like mountain

water, as Zal's aethereal body flooded out of him and leapt free of the tight control he had kept
it
under

during the casting of the Zoomenon circle. It
gushed over her like a tide, before falling back to its normal

place a half an inch beyond his own skin.

It
didn't
mean anything, she told herself, though she inwardly registered it
as a definite embrace.

She shut
her eyes and allowed herself only the smallest
of interior smiles at the vision of all-leather-clad

Zal in her arms. Timing was everything. She had to get it right. She felt the subtle vibrations coming up

through her skeleton as the intake vents behind her calves

opened up and she felt
the ground move away, heard the sheet
and scatter of sand being blasted, being

made into glass under her toes. 'Now!'

The cool air of their envelope met
the inrushing hot ionised gas of the phoenix and its oxygen gave the

fire a sudden white brightness. It
licked around Lila's legs and singed the leather of her trousers and the

soles of Zal's boots, but it was confounded by the huge wash-out
of her jets as she and Zal rose straight

up on their own blazing trail. The phoenix recoiled from them as she had hoped; happy to imprison them,

but afraid to damage what it was guarding.

The spell creature turned its massive head to watch them, beak opening as it spread its wings again

and took to the air. But
Lila was very high, too high and too fast. She navigated the bitter cold Jetstream

above the cloudline and felt
Zal's physical shock at the sudden change, the loosening of his hold on her

as his hands lost their strength. Con-densation was rapidly turning to frost in the tendrils of hair around

his face. And still the firebird climbed after them.

She saw an eagle, as large as the phoenix, coming out
of the west. She glanced at Zal's face - his lips

were pale with cold, almost white, but he was grinning at her.

'Did you notice how we're always together like this?' he said. 'And there's an eagle behind you.'

Lila cut the jets. They fell like stone. The eagle swooped after them, folding its wings into an arrow

shape, but it was too big and the air resistance would not let it pass quickly enough. The phoenix, a

con-juration that
was seriously challenged for sustenance in unmagical Otopian space, was diminishing,

its power fading as it
literally burned away the magic that kept it alive. Such a thing could only be

temporary here. Lila looked down at the fast-approaching earth and saw two dark figures on a single

bike riding to the spot where her lovely red machine had died and become a blackened, deformed

wreck. Finally her call out was answered
.

'We can't get to you in time,' Malachi said
.
He sounded awkward, but
Lila didn't
have time to think

about
that
.

'Fuck,' she said under her breath, and then to Zal. 'Can you swim?'

But her final, desperate sea-ditch plan flew out of her head as they were suddenly hit
by a terrific side

impact. Another eagle, the size of a roc, had swept in lower and it struck them at an angle, seizing them

in its huge claws. If she and Zal had been close before they were crushed

together now in the force of its grip. The sharp claw tips barely scratched Lila's metal skin but they cut

into Zal and he gasped in pain. His breath didn't come back easily either.

Lila employed power hydraulics and levered the claws apart around them, but she didn't have the span

to create a gap big enough to free them, only enough to create breathing space. The eagle righted itself

into a smooth gliding arc and bent its head down, looking at them with one, great golden eye and then, in

a move of great deftness, used its other foot and pressed two sharp claws around Lila, pulling her away

from Zal. She clung on in resistance, the yellow scales of the foot that
held Zal easy to grip, only to see

one huge sickle of horn curve in easily towards Zal's stomach.

'Let go, if you want him to live,' the beast
said clearly. The claw punctured Lila's leathers effortlessly.

Zal had frozen with the absolute stillness of mortal fear. She trusted his assessment
of the magical

creature's intentions, although it
made little sense to her.

'You need him alive,' she retorted, neither letting go nor struggling back.

'There are others who will do,' the eagle said. 'Shall you see me prove it, little toy?'

Lila looked once into Zal's face. 'I'll come for you,' she promised.

He gave her the slightest of smiles, 'I should think so. It's your job.'

Lila let go of the eagle's foot and without a second's hesitation the eagle let
go of her. They were out

over the ocean. She radioed her position in as she fell, watching the bird soar high and beat its way

steadily north, towards the nearest Alfheim gateway
.
The pale effluvia of the firebird's remains had

scattered over the desert like marshfires. She saw the two elf agents watching her fall. She saw the

tankers that had blocked their way start up and drive away, faeries at the wheel.

Faeries? She glanced again at the elves and saw them signalling to her. The eagle was a dot in the sky.

Lila realised that
she could not
simply go barrelling into Alfheim after it. They would shoot her easily.

Instead, she took a deep breath and descended, coming to land a safe distance from her old bike. Her

jets blew up more dust into the gleaming morning air and she had to walk through it
alone this time,

furious and ready to fight.

Dar was sitting on the ground next to her bike when she approached the two of them. One of the dirt

bikes lay close by. He was clearly in considerable pain and his breathing was so shallow it
was nothing

more than rapid gasping. A pale red foam had gathered at
the corner of his mouth and he was too hurt

to brush it
away. Both his arms were strapped across his chest. He glared at
Lila, but
without the fire

of anger she expected. His blue eyes were the same colour as the clear sky. His partner stood at his

side, her face taut and grim.

'Agent Black,' she said stiffly. "The time has come for a moment of honesty between us.'

'I'm all ears,' Lila said.

'We do not seek to murder Zal, nor to harm him. We are trying to protect him.'

'You've got a funny way of showing it,' Lila retorted.

The female elf's face was impassive, but her fingers strayed to Dar's hair, touched it
briefly, and Lila

realised they were in aethereal contact, talking to one another secretly. The agent
mastered whatever

she felt
about
Lila and said, 'Zal would have been taken to a safe place, beyond the reach of those

who have captured him now. Your efforts have had the opposite effect
to the one you desired. You

have made it
quite impossible for us to do what
we must. Such strength and cunning are to be

congratulated, and your feelings are clearly - involved.'

Lila opened her mouth but
the elf cut her off smoothly.

'Curb your anger, I mean no slight
by it. We are all prisoners of the heart. Still, this has become a

very difficult
matter in the last few minutes. Dar would ask me to ask you if you would ride with him

now, back into Alfheim, to pursue your mission. He will soon heal, once you reach Lyrien and then he

and those loyal to the true Jayon Daga will help you.'

'Forgive my scepticism, but
in that
case how come you were send-ing all those poison pen letters

and messages by arrowshot?' Lila demanded.

'We did not send the letters,' the agent
replied icily. 'The Daga has enemies within. We have