Summoned to Tourney (34 page)

“Good planning, though,” Kayla murmured.

Susan nodded, closing her eyes. Kayla knelt painfully next to her, placing one hand on her shoulder. After a moment, she looked up at Eric.

“We can’t move her again. I don’t know how bad the neurological damage is, but moving her again could kill her.”

“Can’t you—” He gestured helplessly. “Can’t you just heal the damage?”

Kayla shook her head. “All I do is convince the cells to heal themselves faster. Nerve cells won’t regenerate that way.”

“You—you’d better get out of here,” Susan whispered. “The quake’s coming—you don’t have much time—leave me here, just go—”

“Susan, we can’t!” Kayla protested.

“Please—don’t die because of me—”

“Come on, Kayla.” Eric took her by the arm, moving toward the door. “She’s right. We can’t do anything for her, not now.” He opened the door, and stopped short.

A familiar-looking man in a military uniform, with a familiar-looking .45 automatic handgun in his hand, stared back at him.

Eric shut the door.

Thinking quickly, he grabbed the broken machine on the floor, turning with it just as the man kicked the door open. Eric didn’t hesitate. Ten pounds of high-tech metal crashed into the man’s face. The gun dropped to the floor; Kayla retrieved it before the man could recover. She held it aimed at his chest as he straightened slowly, wiping the blood from his nose.

“Okay, slimeball,” Kayla said, clicking the safety off the pistol. “Start talking.”

He only stared at her blankly.

Eric hoped the man couldn’t see what he so clearly could—Kayla’s bravado was skin-deep. She could barely hold onto the gun, and he wasn’t certain whether she could fire it, either.
If he makes a break for it, she’d better shoot him,
Eric thought,
‘cause I’m sure as hell not going to be able to wrestle this guy down to the ground. And I don’t think she’ll be able to shoot him.
He felt the bruise swelling on the side of his face, and distantly wondered whether he had a concussion. Then he decided it didn’t matter, not with the world about to crash down around them sometime in the next half hour.

No… the next twenty-five minutes, now.

The man was still standing, not speaking.

Eric saw it first, before Kayla did. “He has Nightflyer eyes,” he said aloud, wondering what they could do with the man now.

“Please—don’t kill him—” Susan’s voice was weaker. “He was a friend of mine, once.”

Eric thought about it, how he would summon a Nightflyer out of some one’s body, instead of from—from wherever it was that Nightflyers came from.

“Whatever you’re going to do, Eric,” Kayla said, not wavering the aim of the pistol, “get moving with it. The clock is ticking, remember?”

“Right.” He saw where someone had kicked his flute underneath one of the computers, and picked ft up quicldy. He began playing the first notes of the solo from “Danse Macabre,” focusing on what lurked behind the man’s pale blue eyes.

Something materialized between them—a thin shadow, smaller and less opaque than any of the other Nightflyers he had seen.
A baby Nightflyer,
he realized with a start. Without missing a beat, he slid into the A part from “Banysh Mysfortune,” and the Nightflyer faded from view.

The man blinked, then stared at Eric. His pale blue eyes suddenly filled with tears. He walked past Kayla, completely ignoring the pistol in her hands, and knelt next to Susan. “Susan, I’m sorry, oh God, I’m so sorry…“

Kayla glanced at Eric, the pistol still clenched in her hand, obviously uncertain what to do. Eric gave her an “Okay” handsign. “He’s okay now. I’m sure of it.”

Susan’s voice was very thin, strained. “Steve, you have to get out of here. This whole place could collapse in a few minutes…“

“Then I’m taking you with me.” His voice was firm. For a moment, Eric saw what kind of man Steve used to be, before his own nightmare of the Nightflyers had begun.

“No, you can’t move her, she’s—” Kayla began.

“I’ve decided I don’t want to die down here,” Susan whispered, closing her eyes. “Take me out into the sunlight, Steve.”

“We’ll have to go out by one of the emergency exits,” Steve said. “There’s a major firefight going on in the upper levels—some crazy people dressed in medieval armor shooting it out with security.”

“That sounds like the rest of our team,” Kayla said. “Where did you say they were right now?”

“Upstairs, level three. But you can’t—” He glanced down at the .45 automatic in Kayla’s hand. “Then again, maybe you can,” he said.

“Get Susan out of here,” Eric said. “She needs immediate medical attention. Spine injury.”

The military man looked around the laboratory, then took a metal cart covered with research material, shoving the papers and books onto the floor, and then with Eric’s help carefully lifted Susan onto it. “Good luck,” he said to Eric and Kayla.

Susan whispered a goodbye as they left the room.

“Good luck is right,” Kayla said, turning to Eric. “What in the hell are we going to do against an army of security officers? How much time do we have left, anyhow?”

“God knows. Maybe twenty minutes.” He thought about it quickly. “If we can get to the others, there might be some kind of magic we can do to stop the quake. I don’t know. But we’ll need an army to get to them. And I know where we can get one.”

“Eric—” Kayla’s eyes widened in sudden understanding and horror. “No way. You’re not going to do that again.”

“It’s the only solution I can think of.”

“Eric, if you lose control of them again, we’re all dead!”

He met her eyes squarely. “Kayla, I already have enough deaths on my conscience. I won’t make any mistakes this time. I promise.”

Kayla still looked very uncertain, but she nodded. “All right. I won’t stop you.” She stepped back from him, clicking the safety on the pistol and shoving it into her waistband.

He brought the flute to his lips, and began to play the classic melody that he now privately thought of as the “Yo, Nightflyers, want to come hang out over here?” tune. “Danse Macabre.”

He felt it starting around him, the whispers of sound, the cold wind touching the back of his neck.

The shadows on the floor lengthened, darkening and rising to surround him. This time, he held onto them tightly, knowing what would happen if he lost control now. They whirled around him, fast-moving shapes that circled and laughed silently.

He held them with the music, weaving an image of what would happen to them if they disobeyed him—dissolution, oblivion. The Nightflyers silently wailed with anger and fear, but the deadly whirlwind of shadows slowed to drift quietly around him.

“Forward, march,” Eric muttered, catching his breath for a moment. His shadow troops floated behind him as he and Kayla started down the corridor toward the stairway.

The anti-terrorist team commander, Captain Brown, tried once again to convince the scientist to go back upstairs, where it was safe, and get out of the area of fire. Warden Blair shook his head, not explaining his real reason for wanting to be so close to the gunfight.

When they die, my children will feast on their death-agonies,
he/it thought. There was so much potential here, and all of the futurepaths wove together at this point, screaming “Breakthrough, Breakthrough!” to his alien senses. In the next few minutes, all futurepaths would join into a single one, with no more chance of failure. And his children would sweep out over the city, glorying in the life-energies that were theirs for the taking.

He blinked suddenly, sensing something different. There were others of his kind, very close. He did not understand it—he had not brought them across the veil between worlds, and he knew there were no others of his kind here, except for his first child that now possessed Colonel O’Neill. That had been the easiest solution to the problem of Colonel O’Neill, since direct control by Blair had been very tiring, and dangerous as well.

Ah, that was it,
he decided. Though it was risky to reproduce so young, his child must have used the life force of the music-maker and the other human to create others.

One of the other officers reported in to his captain, taking the same time to reload his assault rifle. “They’re still holed up behind the barricade down the hall, sir. We have them covered from both sides, but so far we haven’t managed to advance. No change in status.”

“Tear gas?” the captain asked.

“Didn’t seem to have any effect the first time, sir. We can try it again, if you want.”

The captain shook his head. “No, keep working closer down the hall way. Get close enough to spray the area, and that’ll be it. We don’t need to risk any of our people trying to take these lunatic terrorists alive.”

“Can I go closer to see the action?” Blair asked, trying not to sound too eager.

“No, sir, you cannot. You’re already too close to our operations, and you really should leave the area.” The captain looked up suddenly, down the hallway behind them. “What in the hell is that?”

Nightflyers, drifting toward them. Blair gloried in the sight, knowing that the moment was at hand.

Except…

Except there were two humans walking with his kindred, and one of them was the music-maker. Alive, and playing music that he could feel, even at this distance. He was
controlling
the Nightflyers, bending them to his will, and Blair could feel the tenuous strains of that music touching the edges of his mind, trying to force him to submit.

He made a snap decision, and ran in the other direction, leaving the humans to deal with the problem for him, From the end of the hallway, he could hear the music-maker’s voice:

“Hi. You have three seconds to get the hell out of our way, or else.”

And the sound of a human’s scream of pain, though Blair could sense no death-agony. Only unconscious, not dead, Then he was among the other human soldiers, trapped between them and the elven warriors behind the barricade, and realized that he had nowhere else to run.

“So far, so good,” Eric murmured, leaving two of his demon army to guard the disarmed captain and his unconscious soldier. Kayla knelt next to the sprawled soldier’s body, one hand on his wrist, then looked up. “He’s okay, Eric.”

“All right, let’s go.” He gave the captain a serious look. “Don’t try to run, okay? If you stay put, my demons will disappear and let you go, after I’ve rescued my friends. Understand?”

“I’m not stupid,” the captain said flatly.

Eric and Kayla half-ran down the hallway, the Nightflyers following behind them.
This is going easier than I thought,
Eric decided.
If we can disarm the rest of the soldiers like that, maybe we will survive all of this… at least until the Big One shakes loose from the faultline. Minutes. All we have is minutes.

CHAPTER 17:
Anima Urbis: Mount Tam

Lord Dharinel, Magus Major and one-time Warleader of the elven court of Mist-Hold, did not believe in giving up.

However, at the moment, he did not see many alternatives.

They were trapped in this rabbit warren of concrete and Cold Iron, caught between two opposing forces who were armed with the best human weaponry the elven lord had ever seen. After the initial startled clash, where the elven swords had done quite well at close range against the human guns—one rifle, sliced cleanly in half, was still on the floor near his feet—the humans had withdrawn to use their ranged weapons more efficiently. Dharinel had cast magical wards against the gunfire for as long as he had the strength, while young Korendil organized the others into building a barricade out of office equipment that was heavy enough to withstand bullets.

Now they were trapped within it, as the humans hesitated to approach within range of the swords, and the elves could not venture out beyond it, out of fear of the superior firepower. Their own ranged weapons, the bows, were all but useless in these cramped hallways. They required exposing too much of the bearer—and shots clattered uselessly off the walls and ceiling as often as not.

Dharinel fumed, impatient to end this stalemate. He strode to where Korendil crouched near the open edge of the barricade, ignoring the dizziness that made his steps unsteady—an aftereffect of too much magical channeling. “What shall we do now, young knight?” he asked tersely.

Korendil looked up, his eyes bright. “An excellent question, my lord. Perhaps if one of us charged them, to draw them out into the open…“

“I would not wager good odds for that first warrior’s survival,” Dharinel said thoughtfully. “No, we are not ready for a move that desperate yet. Korendil, go attend your human friends. I will watch for any further attacks of poisoned smoke, and deflect them from us.”

“My lord.” Korendil bowed slightly, and went to where the two human women were seated near the wall, very close to each other.

That
was something Dharinel still could not understand—he enjoyed living in the human world, for many reasons, but he could not understand how Korendil had woven his life so thoroughly with humans. Humans were so… fragile. Such as the human woman with pale skin and dark red hair, who even now shuddered and cried from the effects of some incomprehensible human illness. Claustrophobia, that was the word that the dark-skinned woman had said, but the word meant nothing to him.

Still, it was Korendil’s life, and however he wished to spend his time was his business. Though Dharinel privately wondered how much time any of them had left now, with the bullets singing overhead every few seconds.

He turned back to watch their enemies, around a corner of the barricade, and his eyes widened.

The human guards were walking around the corner, hands raised in the air. He recognized that as a common gesture of surrender from all the movies young Arvin had shown him. Behind them was a roiling mass of darkness, moving toward them.

What…
It was herding them. None of them wanted to touch it. It wasn’t more poisoned smoke, for it moved with purpose.

Then he saw the individual shapes within the darkness, and he realized in surprised horror that it was an army of shadow-demons.