Keeping It Real (37 page)

doing something.

Lila contemplated nuking Alfheim's most
sacred spot, envisaged the mushroom cloud, the devastation,

the destabilising effect
on the inter-dimensional sheet, the shocking, complete sundering of the worlds.

Dar's hands slid around her head as she felt
rock against
her back. He put
his head beside hers as the

closing space pressed them together, gently at
first, then with a terrible authority. Lila's Al-self ran

through a thousand attempts at escape, none working
.
Dar's heavy hair brushed against her cheek and

pieces of metal began to bite their way into her ribs. She knew that she would be the last thing to break,

or burn. She kissed Dar's ear as the breath was pressed out
of them and the Water Gate arrived and

began to slowly push them up to the Fire Hall's waiting maw.

She put
her arm outside Dar's, her leg outside his. Her sleeve went
through first
and caught

immediately. The pain was indescribable. She couldn't help but tense against the tall elf body. 'Hold your

breath and close your eyes,' she said feeling the strain in his body as his bones began to suffer badly

under load. Her arm was burning, skin and synthetics in a conflagration but the temperatures weren't yet

high enough to spoil the action of her right
arm gun system.

The outside edge of her foot passed the barrier but
she had no real flesh there so it was only Tath's

boot
blazing for now. When it
got
hot
enough steel was a fuel, and in pure oxygen it
would continue to

burn until it was nothing but iron oxide, but that wasn't going to happen. Lila configured the grenade shells

in her arm for maximum burn and thrust her whole forearm suddenly through the shield. It
caught with an

explosion that
incinerated her nerves and superficial transmission systems so fast that
she felt almost

nothing, but
the gun assembled itself and discharged the full round into the hall as she used her

considerable physical strength to keep Dar and herself from going through the invisible circle.

Her gamble paid off. The grenades went off about halfway down the tube in a glory of blue and white

fire which flashed out instantly, filling the entire hall with a conflagration so extreme that the rock wall

began to glow and melt. But the magical barrier prevented it burning them.

Dar groaned in pain.

'Press your hand over your eyes!' Lila commanded and felt his pelvis against her metal one starting to

crack and one of the ribs she'd healed before broke again as she pulled free, dragging him with her into

the Fire Hall and through the few seconds of near total vacuum and sear-ing heat
that
was all that

remained. The grenades had consumed the oxygen and rendered it
into part
of their crumbling pale ash

and

molten slag. The pain of the heat
and the pain of near-explosion in the vacuum vied with each other.

Lila hadn't
given any thought
to whatever was at the end of fire. The oxygen level was rising fast
as they

ran, their boot
soles burning, hair smouldering, skin scalded by the heat radiating from the walls. She put

on a spurt of speed. Dar couldn't
keep up with her, so she turned and lifted him, as she'd lifted Zal,

throwing him across her shoulder in a fireman's lift, hurting him no doubt as the shear forces in both their

bodies racked up terrible loads. She felt pieces of her tearing free of other pieces, but it was minor

damage
.
At the same time Dar and Tath's combined aethereal bodies provided a kind of barrier against

the rising oxygen concentration
.

The rock surface slid under her disintegrating boots and then hardened, mercifully, but
the temperature

was so extreme that
the oxygen didn't
have to build up to its previous levels
.
Though the vacuum was

gone now things wanted to ignite readily. Lila felt Dar's clothes starting to catch light under her remaining

good hand. She set her jaw and put all the power to her legs, making the last
ten metres in a single leap

which found them both alight
as they fell through the empty rock ring and landed sprawling and gasping

on the unyielding cool of a jade floor.

The floor dropped them. Lila found herself plunging into cold water. Still holding Dar she kicked

strongly, but the weight of all her metal was making her sink. She couldn't swim with only one arm. Then

she felt
Dar's hands pulling her up, saw silver bubbles dashing past
her, moving down. Abruptly several

more pairs of elfin hands, came and hauled them both out of the lake water and, as they drew level with

the floor, the water itself seemed to solidify, becoming the jade that
had caught
them before
.
It
lifted Lila

clear
.

'Tath?' said a voice Lila didn't recognise. She dashed water from her eyes, struggling to get to her feet.

Tath's spirit body and this other's were in contact.

As
t
ar,
Tath informed her with sadness. It was someone he missed.

'Astar,' Lila made herself say though she could hardly see for the pain in her arm. But
Tath's glamour

covered this. She didn't even look particularly singed.

'What an entrance, My Lord,' said Astar's soft, feminine voice. Lila looked up at the person helping her

stand and saw an elf woman with black hair that curled and coiled around her shoulders in waves of

night. A single diamond shone from a silver circle on her brow and beneath that
her eyes were more than

a little concerned - not
for Tath's health either, Lila thought, and her suspicion was confirmed as she

heard another woman's voice, this one even softer and more melodious than Astar's.

'Tath and Dar, who would think to find you lacking in elemental kudos? There were days you would

have danced to my door.'

Lila jerked her hands back from Astar's gentle assistance before the other had time to feel a difference

and straightened up, fighting to stand. 'I have spent
too long across the Void in Thanatopia,' she said,

hoping this would be a good excuse to explain the situation. 'Some changes are . . . inevitable.' She

glanced quickly at
Dar, who had also gained his feet though he looked both burned and drowned. Two

strong male elves were on either side of him at
a fastidious distance. Both of them were supremely well

groomed and beautiful in that
way that set Lila's teeth on edge; they reminded her of salesmen. Thankfully

none of them looked like Zal.

Then Lila turned to see Arie
.

The Lady of Aparastil had eyes of the most intense grass green. They shone from within as though

they were made of stained glass and were set
before a gleaming morning sun. Her face was the pale

cream white of fine porcelain framed by a waterfall of coiling amber hair. A circlet of silver sat around the

Lady's temple, and her ears were set close and elegant alongside her head, at a neutral angle. She wore

watery, aqua robes of surprising practicality - Lila had expected dresses but Arie favoured britches,

boots and strong, forest-suited gear, all of which she made look infinitely more lovely than any piece of

couture. Delicate silver leaves that twinkled threaded here and there through the fabrics and across the

leather, so it looked as though she had been dressed by the forest, spiders her tailors. Her features were

of a different cast to Dar's, the ones that Lila had grown used to looking at. Once all elves would have

looked identical, but Lila recognised the High look now she saw it
again - Zal's look. But
before she

could think on it
she was staring up around them, at the room in which they stood - the Lady's Hall.

They were in a bubble beneath the lake. The walls and floor, the roof itself were made of water, water

held aside by magic and charmed into the soft arches and parabolas of elfin architecture. The light that
lit

the place was sunlight, though Lila thought it
must
be channelled from the

surface because her readings told her that
there was about
a fifth of a kilometre of lake water over their

heads
.
Great thick stems of lily and giant water hyacinth rose beside them out
of the dark green gloom.

And below - the floor that
Lila had taken for jade was simply water that refused to let them through its

surface. She was amazed, trying to consider what possible conditions existed on that
surface to permit

her to stand on it and wondering how aetherial manipulation could create such a thing. For a moment she

was struck totally dumb.

But
Dar was far from being so impressed. He shook himself off, grimacing with the effort of concealing

his wounds, and bowed deeply to Arie. 'My Lady of Aparastil, I am your servant. Tath's glamour is but

a trick. He was slain in Sathanor and his ghost
inhabits the human against his will. It was a necessary evil

I had to permit in the name of achieving delivery of your prize, Agent Lila Black.'

Lila felt her jaw actually fall open. She was speechless with shock, aware only of Tath's amusement

inside her skin. 'You treacherous fuck,' she said to Dar, in Tath's voice.

Do no
t
be so upse
t
,
Tath said to her. T
he Lady would
s
e
e t
h
rou
gh m
e
even
t
ually and
t
hough
t
here
are few Elfin necro-mancers in all
t
here are none w
ho
use flashbombs. A
grudging admiration

seemed to spread across the inside of her chest
as he said this and Lila got
the impression that Tath had

rather liked the gun. T
h
is
is
t
he only way for one of you
t
o remain a
t
liber
t
y here, and Dar is
no good fr
i
en
d
of
Ari
e's,
which she w
e
ll knows. She w
i
ll be
far
from happy, Wha
t
ever he
r
demeanour.
T
rus
t
me. And wha
t
ever happens
do not
release me from
t
he glamour. If she sees you her reac
t
ion will be

less
t
han kind. S
he k
nows only
t
ha
t
you are human, no
t
t
ha
t
you are a machine.

'Trust you!' Lila said aloud, only realising that she'd spoken when all eyes turned to her.

Tath reminded her about the daisy. She recalled her insight - even under the dulled effect of the

Nirvana shunt - that he was an ally of Dar's. That he must be opposed to Arie. She had no idea whether

or not she ought to trust either of them. No, she had a perfectly good idea that she definitely
shouldn'
t
,

but there was no choice for the time being. She quickly covered up her slip . . .

'Trust
youV
she said, slightly differently, stabbing her good finger out at Dar. 'I don't know whatever

made me believe that
I could trust
you!'

Dar drew himself up to his full height
and did a very good im-pression of haughty superiority. Lila

couldn't help flinching back - he looked exactly as he had in the instant before he had almost killed her. If

she hadn't had Tath's insistence she would have counted herself completely betrayed. She was awed by

his ability to dissemble, if that's what
it was. She wasn't sure.

'Tath!' exclaimed Astar softly from behind Lila's shoulder. Lila could hear tears in the voice.

'It is most unseemly to wear your victim as a disguise,' Arte said, although she could have been reading

poetry for all the alteration in temper she showed. 'Do us all the honour of releasing our friend from the

hold of his name and we will look less unkindly upon your plea for fair trial after you also release his spirit

to our care.'

Lila ran through scenarios in her mind, implicating Dar, not im-plicating Dar - she didn't have time to

play them through. Her arm and portions of her back hurt fiercely and she released as large a dose of

cocodamol into her bloodstream as she dared.

As you love Zal, do no
t
give Arie any
t
hing now
, Tath said.

Sure you 're no
t
jus
t
pleading for your own life?
Lila shot
back as the silence grew in expectancy

within the lake hall. Aloud she said, 'My hostage remains as he is. If you want him back then you can

arrange safe passage for me to Otopia.'

'So bold,' Arie' said, moving closer. She placed her hand on the pommel of a sword that hung beside

her hip then drew the blade from its scabbard and held the tip out, placing it precisely in the notch

between Lila's collarbones at the base of her throat. 'Yet I can kill you now. I have no use for you. In