Keeping It Real (9 page)

human version of history.

'If I hadn't
been looking, I'd never have seen it,' Malachi said uncomfortably
.
'I'm not sure - it could be

an echo fragment of the explosion, you know? Like a geological fault? Trouble with Bomb fragments is

that they often look like they're something they're not, especially ejecta from so close to the original site,

which is, unfortu-nately, pretty much everything from Bay City to Old Salt
Lake. I need more help to find

out. Probably have to dig down.'

'But
if it's been there that
long then it's very unlikely to be anything to do with rock stars and their

publicity is it?' Lila said, rather surprised at
her own spitefulness as she spoke the words.

'Getting up your cuff is he?' Malachi asked with a smile, glad to be changing subject
.

'Nothing I can't manage.' Lila checked the time and got
back on her bike. 'Give you a ride back? I'm

going to see Sarasilien.'

'Darling!' Malachi objected and pointed to his smart clothes. 'I'm strictly a car boy. Say hi to the old

charlatan from me. And put
a helmet
on.'

Lila waved and tried not
to notice how Malachi had failed to completely quell her disquiet. She spun

the bike around in an entryway and, as she passed him on the way back, saw him studying the ground of

the parking lot
outside the studio with such absorption he didn't lift his head, only his hand in a farewell.

Her ride to Incon's facility was hot and dusty and full of lazy midday traffic. Lila was later than she

meant to be when she finally rode into the subterranean garage of the undistinguished office block on the

city outskirts. She took the express elevator down, bypassing the street
levels and the administrative

floors
.
Barely was the dust out of her hair before she presented herself before her - she didn't know what

he was any more; healer, friend? - before Sarasilien, the only elf agent within the NSA, and the one who

had saved her from death of her magical wounds.

His rooms were the largest
and most peculiarly appointed of all the

strangely outfitted rooms in the building
.
Technology and magical instrumentation fought for space across

several tables and desks. Sand trays and inkstands lay under the glow of virtual keyboards, marked with

the awkward runes of a dozen magical languages. Giant
sized Berrypics covered the walls with

manuscript, evidence charts, duty logs and glorious vistas of other realms. Server racks hummed quietly.

Magical test
rigs, filling the air with strange, light bending archi-tectures, funnelled I-space contingencies

out
of the room and out of the universe
.
Sarasilien's tall, blue-and-grey-clad figure stood at one of these.

To Lila, even though they bore no physical resemblance, the elf's tall, elegantly spare form and long,

silvering chestnut and gold hair immediately reminded her of her father. When he turned to greet her the

strong slanting of his features on their angular bones and the sudden small movements of his long ears -

their attenuated tips were as high as the crown of his head - should have put paid to that impression, but

they didn't
.
She couldn't even detect a trace of warmth in him as he came towards her, silver stitches in

his clothing glinting, his face as stern as a patrician statue, manner as composed as a king's.

Sarasilien's
andalune
body had always been tightly controlled - he kept it completely subdermal for

most of his time in Otopia, she understood - but, since encountering Zal, Lila was suddenly much more

aware of the possibility of its presence, and curious, since she had never witnessed Sarasilien displaying

it. His control of it was, she knew, a sign of extreme self-mastery, a thing as rare in elves as any race. Its

absence had been a key factor in the comfort she felt with him before. Now, that
comfort seemed to be

gone.

Her awkwardness with him made her self-conscious, and that made her more awkward
.
She was

suddenly ill at ease before his calm, and cast her eyes towards his boots rather than his face
.
She thought

suddenly of Zal, though Zal had never once made her think of Sarasilien. Her reasons for being here, at

all, were suddenly unclear to her. Now that she saw him she became more sure that the need she had to

talk to him was nothing to do with the case, but entirely personal, and that seemed like a weak and

insubstantial reason to be here.

'Lila,' Sarasilien said and lifted her chin with his hand, so she must look at him. 'Are you well?'

His concern manifested as a much slighter expression than it would

have merited on a human face. Even when moved deeply his face showed only hints of what
he felt. But

Lila was tugged by the care, mote than she wanted. 'I'm fine. Sorry. It's been tougher than I thought'

Sarasilien looked down into her eyes and the ghost of a smile made his lips turn at
the corners
.
His

cheek dimpled very faintly and she saw the tips of his long ears turn more closely towards his head
.
He

was really very glad to see her. 'You look well, although your presentation has more of the urchin than

the goddess about
it. Town must
be busy.'

'It
was,' she agreed and then she stepped forward impulsively and hugged him. She had missed him.

She'd had no idea how much until that second. Perhaps it
was to be expected, after they'd worked so

closely for so long to get her fit again, mentally and physically at least. Emotionally she clearly had a way

to go.

She felt his
andalune
body very briefly on the exposed skin of her hands and face, like a breath of air

that
had come off the tops of a cold and lonely mountain. After a second of his normal reticence he

embraced her back, and then he set
her from him, not
unkindly. 'What
brings you here?'

She sat
down on one of the guest chairs, looking around the familiar room with its oak-panelled walls,

library bookshelves, and the largest of all the Berries, showing the white-capped mountains that

Sarasilien called his home, very far from Otopia. 'Isn't seeing you enough?' she asked, not certain she

could tell him everything on her mind.

'Yes, but
that's not the matter.' He was standing close by a book table suitable for viewing very large

volumes. He closed the one that
lay open there and folded his hands in front of him.

Lila was sure she had his full attention and it daunted her. 'I don't think I can carry through this job,'

she confessed.

'Why not?'

T don't know. It's too much like facing everything too fast.'

'Because Zal is an elf?'

'Because Zal is
no
t
an elf,' Lila countered, glancing into his green eyes and seeing the sympathy she

was looking for, bound inside a world of strict expectations; emerald in ice. T was ready for him to be

like you. Not as kind. Even like the Daga agents maybe. But
like you. And he isn't. And he is. Oh, hell. .

. I'm getting this all wrong!'

'Tell me the facts.'

That
was more like it, Lila thought, wishing she'd done that
to begin

with. She found coherence now she was on familiar ground
.
'A lot
of the hate mail the band receive is

standard stuff, nasty but
not
danger-ous. The letters that
made Incon decide to act
are still coming - I

brought them.' She took them out
of the pocket of her armoured vest and the dagger with them and held

them out
to Sarasilien.

He took them, careful not to touch the knife but balance it
on the envelopes. He set
them on the book

table and with one finger pushed them apart. As he inspected them and began to open the letters Lila

continued.

T can't
read magic, despite everything we've tried. I can't do that
and I don't
think he tells me what

they really say. And the knife . . .' She explained the whole story of that incident as Sarasilien read the

letters, one after another. She could see him controlling his reactions carefully so that barely a twitch of

one ear betrayed him. Nonetheless he sighed with relief when he was able to put
them down.

She didn't
tell him all about
the knife. Not
the part about
Zal touching her or the remark he'd made. Or

the Game they were playing. She willed Sarasilien to guess it, so that
she didn't
have to admit
making

such a stupid move, so he'd take her off the assignment
and she could avoid the shame. But her will had

all the effect of her efforts at
sorcery
.

Sarasilien examined the dagger very closely indeed
.
He spoke to it and Lila saw words deep within the

metal rise to the surface at his command. Wisps of black and silver ran along the edges of the blade and

dripped into the air at
its tip only to swirl and vanish quickly. As he went to put it down, the knife twisted

somehow in his fingers and she heard him take a sharp, short breath.

Blood ran down the knife together with the white and black, the orange-hued scarlet
of elf blood

quickly deepening to crimson as it
fell and bore magic with it onto the letter paper underneath
.

Immediately all the pages burst into flame,

Sarasilien spoke a single word and the burning pages and the bloodied knife became frozen in space

and time, as though in a photograph
.
He muttered over his finger and went into the bathroom suite that

led off his rooms to tend it
.
When he came back he sat down beside Lila on the other guest chair and

looked into her eyes, He seemed very sad and she braced herself, for she'd never seen him make a

mistake before, and although the cut was small and the sleep charm already used up, she was afraid.

'You did well to get
them here. The blade was spelled to want
to cut
elf flesh. It
was a magic of higher

than the Seventh Level. I don't
doubt
that if it had found its way close to Zal it would have done more

than make him sleep. But you say an elf carried it and used it against you?'

"That's what Poppy - that's what
the faery said. But
they were in league. She may have lied.'

"There's more than elvish magic in it,' Sarasilien said, pressing his cut finger gently with his thumb, a

rueful expression on his face.

Lila sensed he was calculating what to say so that
he didn't upset her, or perhaps for political reasons
.

Silences within Incon were even more obscure than ordinary elven silences.

'I cannot tell you any more until all of this has been discussed with my masters,' he said. 'Only that
this

is not about race hate, or anything to do with the purity of the musical industry. It
wears those faces,

even through the Daga, but
they are only servants of another intent.'

T thought
the Daga served Alfheim and its goals,' Lila said with disappointment, ignoring the flash of

fear that had streaked through her like lightning when he spoke.

'So they would have us believe,' Sarasilien said. Now his face was troubled and Lila really began to

worry.

'Isn't
it
so?*

'Possibly.'

He was quickly lost in labyrinths of thought, Lila saw. Tentatively she reached out
to touch his arm, the

hurt
one. 'Talk to me?'

He looked at her hand, smiled his slight
smile that
was never truly joyous because it
held too many

years. T cannot. I will when I am able.'

'Tell me at
least
if it's personal or business then.'

'Both. Come, that's not all you had to tell me.'

'Diverter,' she accused him gently. 'Well, the other thing is that
I've tried to find out who Zal is and

there is no record
.
It isn't his real name I suppose, but how do I get further? Like an idiot I already told

him mine so I can't even trade for it.' The words sounded efficient, unlike the beating of her heart
which

was far too fast
for someone merely sitting in a pleasant
room. Behind Sarasilien's shoulder she could see

the frozen fire of the vellum and the knife in mid-air, holding to his word.

He didn't
question her research. 'So, it's not
in the names of the living,' he said after a pause. 'What

about
the dead?'

Lila blinked. 'You think necromancy? He's not
Undead. No way.'

'Not
necessarily,' he said. 'Mistakes are made. Elves are hard to kill.

Sometimes they are thought
to be dead, are buried and rise again, alive, much later when time has

healed them
.
Records aren't
always updated. Outright deaths are the only straightforward ones. Even

great wounds and sickness aren't
always fatal, and the same goes double for magical attacks. Also, the

magic of Resurrection does not always create Undead ones, though I am not
versed in the

Necromancer's art.'