Songreaver (22 page)

"
Dae'saanera
, Garrett!" Lampwicke
cried, "A party!" She tugged back and forth at the bars of her
cage, and pointed, urging him forward.

Garrett gave her a weak smile and nerved
himself onward.

When they reached the end of the tunnel,
Lampwicke and Garrett shared a gasp.

Ghostly dancers wheeled around the floor of
the vast chamber surrounding Annalien's house, filling the empty
gloom with sparkling, golden apparitions. Elven men in
tall-collared coats and ladies in gowns like silken flowers twirled
and bounced across the floor to the music of an unseen orchestra.
The ghosts smiled and laughed and danced, their steps leaving no
trace in the thick dust on the floor.

Garrett looked down at Lampwicke and shook
his head in confusion, but she would not take her eyes off the
dancers. The little fairy ran from one side of her cage to the
other, trying to get a better glimpse of the ghostly festival.

Caleb made a grumbling noise.

"Maybe this is a bad time," Garrett said.

"Go!" Lampwicke shouted, pointing toward the
dancers.

Garrett took courage from the golden light
that spilled from the windows of Annalien's house and stepped out
onto the dusty floor, sidestepping to avoid a pair of elvish
dancers as they spun past.

"Hi," Garrett said, "Have you seen
Annalien?"

The dancers swept away, their lambent eyes
lost in each other's gaze.

Garrett hugged Lampwicke's cage and made his
way across the floor, dodging ghostly couples as they reeled
by.

Caleb groaned angrily as an elven lady in a
bustle gown passed through his body. Garrett opened his mouth to
try to reassure him, but then another ghost danced directly into
Garrett.

He gagged as the ghost's body passed through
him. It felt like walking through warm cobwebs. He sputtered and
wiped at his face with one hand, but the feeling had passed, and
the dancer spun away, oblivious and seemingly unaffected by her
journey through the young necromancer.

"Gah!" Garrett shuddered, and he quickened
his pace, dodging between the dancer's bodies as he reached the
tight inner ring of the dance floor.

"Annalien!" he shouted as he dove inside her
little house. The scent of flowering things washed over him in the
golden light within.

Lampwicke made a little cry of delight at the
sight of Annalien's garden.

"Annalien?" Garrett called out, scanning the
room as he pulled Caleb safely inside. The zombie was pawing at his
shoulder where a ghostly gentleman had recently intersected with
him.

Garrett saw Annalien then, kneeling beside
the pool in the center of the room with her back to the doorway,
her pale, translucent form nearly invisible against the sunlit gem
that gave this place life. Her narrow shoulders swayed slightly in
time to the music that seemed to come from all around them with no
visible source, and she hummed softly along with the tune.

Garrett lowered his voice as he approached,
"Annalien?"

Suddenly the music stopped as Annalien the
ghost started from her dream. A great, solemn silence fell over the
garden, broken only by the gentle bubbling of the fountain and
Annalien's voice as she spoke.

"Garrett?" she whispered, turning to look
back over her shoulder at him.

"I'm sorry, Annalien," he said, "I didn't
mean to intrude... I just wanted to introduce you to my
friends."

Annalien lifted the stump of her wrist to her
face, as though to brush away a strand of her wispy hair. She
smiled and got to her feet, straightening her robe. She gave Caleb
a nervous nod, but her eyes brightened as they fell on Lampwicke.
"
Alan'nae verenaame,
" she said, "I never thought I would see
another fairy again."

Lampwicke giggled.

Annalien's face darkened. "Let her out of
that cage at once, Garrett!" she scolded.

Garrett's face fell. "I don't know how," he
said.

Annalien looked confused, then her eyes
hardened with realization. "Oh, they go too far!" she hissed. She
pointed her wrist at a nearby stone pedestal and instructed Garrett
to set Lampwicke's cage down and step away.

Annalien stepped in front of the pedestal and
lifted her arms to either side of Lampwicke's cage. She began to
whisper fervently in Elvish.

Lampwicke gave Garrett a worried look, and he
gave her his most reassuring shrug.

Annalien's voice grew louder as she chanted
and waved her forearms over Lampwicke's cage. Garrett's breath
caught in his throat when he saw the bars of the cage start to glow
red.

"You're going to burn her!" he gasped, but
then he saw that it wasn't the bars glowing after all. Swirling
runes of fiery red energy shimmered like a shell around the outside
of Lampwicke's cage. He realized that this must be the magic of the
vampiric spell that bound Lampwicke inside, made visible by
Annalien's magic.

Annalien bared her teeth, almost cursing with
frustration as she spat out the Elvish words of her counterspell.
The vampire runes sizzled and hissed, throwing off glittering red
sparks, but weakening not in the slightest.

Lampwicke screamed as the red runes crackled
and flared, and Annalien relented, falling silent.

Annalien's shoulders slumped in defeat, and
the red runes faded into invisibility once more.

Lampwicke stretched her tiny hand out through
the bars, hopefully, and then snatched it back as a crackling pop
enforced the perimeter of her prison. Lampwicke stuck her singed
fingers into her mouth and mumbled something impolite in Fae.

"Yes," Annalien sighed, "The dung-headed
blood-suckers have done their work on this one."

"Is there anything you can do to help her?"
Garrett asked.

Annalien gave a rueful laugh. "You've brought
me a real puzzle this time," she said, "I suppose you want me to
bring your satyr friend back to life when I'm done setting the
fairy free?"

"Huh?" Garrett said.

Annalien nodded at Caleb. "Your dead friend
there," she said, "Someone put a satyr's ghost in him. They
shouldn't have done that."

Garrett blushed. "Yeah," he said, "I guess I
did that. My uncle had the essence of a satyr thief, and we used it
to make Caleb."

Annalien shook her head. "I suppose you'd
stick a pig's tail on a unicorn if you thought it was funny," she
scoffed, "Humans!"

Garrett winced.

"In any case," she sighed, "I don't think I
can help either one of them very much."

"But isn't there something..." Garrett
began.

"I didn't say that I wouldn't try," Annalien
interrupted, "I just don't want you getting your hopes up. The best
thing you can do for... Caleb there is to pull that essence out of
him and pour it out onto green earth. Set him free, Garrett. You
don't own him."

Garrett looked at Caleb, for the first time
ashamed of what he'd done.

"As for the fairy," Annalien said, "What is
her name?"

"Lampwicke," Garrett answered.

"As for Lampwicke," she said, "I'm not sure
that there is anything that I... or anyone else can do to set her
free."

"But there has to be some way!" Garrett said,
"There has to be!"

"This is old magic, Garrett, older than me,"
Annalien said, "These are the very Laws of Nature you're trying to
oppose. I can't speak against them. Do I look like the
Songreaver
to you?" She waved her ghostly arms in
frustration.

"The what?" Garrett asked.

"The Laws of Nature?" she said, "The words
that called us into existence?"

"No, the other thing you said."

"The Songreaver?"

"Yeah," Garrett said, "What's that?"

Annalien's eyes widened. "You've never heard
of the Songreaver?"

"No. Is that something that would help us?"
Garrett asked.

Annalien laughed. "Never mind," she said,
"The important thing is that I will do what I can to help
Lampwicke, but I want you both to know that this may be something
that she is going to have to live with for the rest of her
life."

Lampwicke's eyes fell, and her glow faded a
bit.

"Don't worry, little one," Annalien said,
kneeling to peer inside Lampwicke's cage, "I'm going to find a way
to make your life better, no matter what. I promise you that."

"Thank you," Garrett said, "I really
appreciate you helping her."

Annalien smiled at him.

"If you don't mind though," Garrett said, "I
would like to know what a Songreaver is."

Annalien sighed. She turned away from
Lampwicke's cage and mulled her words before speaking again. "The
Songreaver was a man," she said, "a human who found some way to
break the power of the old magic. He used this power to overthrow
the ancient races of the Fae and drive them from this land. He is
the reason why humans rule here now, and my people are faded
away... only memories now."

A wild hope sprang up in Garrett's breast.
"Then that means there
is
a way to..."

"No!" Annalien cut him off, "What the
Songreaver did was an abomination, a sin against Nature. When he
spoke, the words came from his lips like gray frost, killing
everything that was green and beautiful in the world. His voice was
the voice of Undoing, Unmaking. It was
wrong
, Garrett, and
we are lucky that he was only a mortal man, and the power left this
world with him when he died."

"But, if he..." Garrett said.

"No!" Annalien shouted, and Garrett fell
silent.

Annalien gave him a sad smile. "I know you
would do anything to help your friends, Garrett," she said, "That
makes you special. You are the only human I've ever liked... not
that many of them have ever found me here... but that is all the
more reason why you should turn away from the horrors of your
people's past. You can't solve every problem by smashing it apart
with your fist... sometimes... sometimes you have to accept that
there are things you can never change." She lifted her arms before
her, imploring him with her missing hands.

Garrett lowered his head and kept his
silence. He was too busy committing the name of
Songreaver
to memory.

The rest of his visit passed quickly. He soon
made some excuse to be on his way, but Lampwicke begged him to be
allowed to stay a while longer. He agreed to leave her in
Annalien's company for the time being, at least until the next
magic class with the ghouls.

He bade them both goodbye, and he and Caleb
took their leave, grateful that no more dancing ghosts littered the
floor between Annalien's house and the tunnel.

He lit his witchfire torch and passed into
the shadows, his brain fevered with the possibility that, somehow,
the old magic that held Lampwicke prisoner could be broken. Again
and again, he silently whispered the name,
Songreaver
.

"Leaving already?" a girl's voice spoke from
the shadows ahead.

Garrett jumped, stopping suddenly. He lifted
his torch to bathe the girl in the greenish witchfire glow.

A girl in a brown cloak and simple clothing
leaned against the wall of the tunnel ahead. She smiled at him, and
he felt he must know her from somewhere, though he had no idea what
a human girl would be doing alone here, so far beneath the streets
of the city.

The girl in brown pushed away from the wall
and started to speak, when she seemed to take notice of the way he
was dressed. "Why are you wearing a Templar's tunic?" she
asked.

Garrett shrugged. "I'm studying to be a
Templar," he said, "Do I know you?"

She laughed. "Do you?"

"I think I do," he said, "but I'm afraid I
can't remember your name. I'm sorry."

"You'll have to guess it then," she said, and
then quickly added, "but it's not Darcy, Brynn, Suzie, Kelli, Macy,
or
Priss
."

"Why would I guess those names?" Garrett
asked.

"I don't know," she said, "Why
would
you?"

"Are you mad at me about something?" Garrett
asked.

The girl in brown sighed. "No," she said,
"Just guess and get it over with."

Garrett shook his head. "Get
what
over
with?"

"This stupid game," she said. She balled one
of her hands into a fist and punched her other palm.

"Are we playing a game?" he asked.

She lifted her hands in exasperation and
turned to walk away. "Just forget it!" she said, "You're good at
that... everybody is!"

"Wait!" Garrett cried, "Don't go!"

She stopped walking and half turned her face
toward him. "What?" she asked.

"I know I know you," he said, "I just don't
know from where."

"Yeah, you say that all the time," she
said.

"And you keep saying things like that, like
you talk to me all the time," Garrett said, "but I don't remember
ever having talked you before."

The girl in brown turned all the way around
to face him, her eyes suspicious.

"So... I'm guessing that, either you're
crazy," Garrett said, "or we really do know each other, and there
is some reason that I can't remember it afterwards."

"I'm not crazy," she hissed.

"No, I'm sorry," he said, "I don't think you
are. That means there is some sort of magic or something happening
here that keeps me from being able to remember you."

The girl raised her eyebrows.

"I'm right, aren't I?" Garrett said.

The girl opened her mouth, but seemed unable
to speak. Her face twisted in frustration, and she waved her hands
at her sides.

"And you can't talk about it either," Garrett
said.

She gave him a tight smile.

"Can other people see you?" he asked.

She moved her lips a little without any sound
and then gave up, sulking.

"All right," Garrett said, "let's try
something. Caleb, go put your hand on that girl's shoulder."