Wasteland King (16 page)

O
f course Ilara couldn't tell her precisely
where
the damn thing was.
When you get close enough, you will know
. And of course Ilara couldn't come in.

The sign on the building,
Creslough Asylum, est. 1822
, gave Robin a clue, and her first step inside gave her the answer.

The place was a madhouse. Robin Ragged, bracing herself, decided the front door was preferable to getting lost in a tangle of passages.

Bright spatters of imagination and terror splashed the walls, broken bits of the Old Language condensing well after they had been uttered by a mortal by chance or babble-truth. Long illness, or or some brands of insanity, could grant a mortal glimpses of the sideways realms. There were ballads of the mad being held in great honor by the sidhe, including prophets or poets, and also ballads of mortals driven into that nightmare country by a sidhe bored or vengeful.

It was difficult to say which were more numerous.

Splinters of the sideways realms glittered briefly and were gone, and unease pressed against Robin's diaphragm. To brush against those splinters was to invite a chance breath of madness against one's own brain and heart. Yes, mortal blood was an insurance against the contagion, but a tenuous one at best. There was no way the Feathersalt would have risked herself in
here
.

The Veil twisted and ran in great streaks, the eddies cold, then warm against Robin's skin even through the velvet. She might as well not be wearing it, since its value as camouflage was gone, but with her head shorn and her neck missing its familiar gold locket she already felt…

Well, a little
naked
. The sidhe didn't believe in anything as mortal as modesty, but a girl growing up in a trailer might feel a twinge or two. The cold wasn't physical, and neither was the cloying warmth, and the thought of Unwinter with his hands on a piece of truemetal Robin had worn at her throat for many a long year was not a comforting one.

He could find her anywhere, following the tugging of the locket, even as its metal seared his Unwinter flesh.

Tiny bits of blue light flickered in the deeper eddies. Pixies, no doubt, and Robin closed her eyes, listening. The thrum of blood in her ears, the soughing of her breath—four in, four out, did she dare to sing even if faced by something dreadful? Her voice seemed fine, a little huskier than usual. The shusweed should have worn completely off by now, and maybe she hadn't broken anything in her throat, screaming as she fell into the sea.

She penetrated the maze of corridors on the first floor, her shoes clicking time on worn blue linoleum. The front halls were brightly lit; an intake desk with a middle-aged woman in blue scrubs slumped in her chair, resting her chin on her hand as she struggled to stay awake. The dots of blue light around Robin strengthened, and the pixies began to chime, a muffled sleepy song. She halted, watching curiously from one hallway as the nurse behind the bulletproof glass at the intake desk closed her heavy eyelids and drooped further.

Well, that's useful
. The intake space was carpeted with short faded nylon, which swallowed her footsteps as she edged quickly across the fluorescent-lit cavern. The elevators were ancient but not nearly as old as the walls, and her sensitive nose untangled several threads. Disinfectant, the unsmell of mortal pain, the chemical reek of medicine, a whiff of ozone. Her left hand twitched as if she would reach for Pepperbuckle's ruff, then fell back to her side as she paused to examine the elevators. They had two doors, an outer shell and an inner grill, and she shuddered at the thought of being caged.

Where should I go?
The pixies chattered, their tones soothing but no longer slumbrous. The Sundering was long ago, and this place had definitely been built afterward, maybe catching like a nail on the echo of a long-buried artifact. Maybe this place had been a countryside retreat before it turned into a suburban semiprison.

Down, then. An antique sign pointed her toward stairs, and she knelt to whisper at the heavy industrial lock. A few syllables of the Old Language, their consonants echoing strangely and rippling in her mouth, and she pulled the handle. The door opened smoothly; pixies darted around her in a swarming cloud. They didn't rush at her eyes or bare their tiny wicked teeth. Instead, they ringed her and made little gestures, tiny hands spread and patting at the very edge of her chantment-glow. When she stepped through a thick eddy of the Veil, they grew stronger, and their excited gabbling almost made sense.

They've never done this before.
Robin tried not to shiver, pulling the velvet closer as she tapped down the stairs.

A painted sign proclaimed the next level down as
WARD D
, and she hesitated on the landing. There was one more level, true basement instead of half cellar, but the tugging of instinct made her bend and whisper the lock on
this
door open. Pinpricks ran down her back, and she tensed as she stepped through, finding herself at the end of a long, cold, dark hall, locked doors marching down on either side and only faint gleams from emergency lighting along the ceiling. Each door had a slit in it, some locked with small bars, others open.

The reek of pain and astringent medication was thicker here. The Veil folded like a closed fan, and she had to almost push her way through, her pulse rising. The pixies crowded, one daring to flutter down and touch her shoulder, then another. Little movements told her they were also touching her hair, but again, their tiny hands were soft, and they caressed soothingly instead of biting or jabbing with tiny needle-blades.

Another shadowy instinct drew her on, her heels making faint noises. The entire building was asleep, like an enchanted castle in a ballad. Like Fair Elsein, who sang an entire keep into slumber so she could escape with Barl the Huntsman, or Rothindyl the Pale slipping stealthily through Unwinter's own halls searching for his lover and shield-bearer, Peris.

Peris had been returned to the mortal world, and died on a moor pining, some said. One song held that Unwinter had hunted fair Peris, and that even now the shield-bearer was part of the Sluagh, cursing a faithless sidhe lover as many a mortal had done before.

The pixies circled her, almost like a cloud of fireflies around Summer. They loved to flit about the Queen in a golden screen, especially in the orchard during a long, soft evening in her half of the year, the Gates open and her whims ascendant. Robin brushed them away and they followed the sweep of her hand, one darting down to land on her knuckles for a moment. It blew her a pert little kiss and tumbled off, giggling, only to be cuffed and buffeted by some of the others, whose faces were now pictures of dismay.

“Why are you following me?” Robin asked, very softly. Perhaps in their scattered cacophony she could find another clue?

A deathly hush fell, even the faint buzzing of the lights ceasing. Robin stiffened, a horrifying din broke out, and the entire building heaved and settled once over its foundations.

Something was awake.

T
hey crossed Summer's border at dusk, winging swift and ungainly-graceful through soft air. Sharp, hooked beaks clacked, black feathers flutter-melted in the freshening breeze. Croaking their throatcut cries, they arrowed over the Fernbrakes and coasted up the long stretch of Silverdell, then flapped furiously to rise on the thermals above a ring of manses and sidhe keeps, the homes of fullblood highborns. Some structures crumbled artfully, others stood white-and-green and proud, swords in the gathering gloom. Still others flickered, pale for a few moments and regaining themselves with an effort, candleflames in a draft.

In the distance Summerhome rose, its towers pitiless-sharp now and serried in ranks like a drow's ever-growing dental frills. The cloud of beaks and wings arrowed toward it, and its shadow bled onto the green hills and the shell-white Road ribboning through Summer's domain.

The flying shadow divided around Summerhome like a river around a rock, curl-foaming on each side. The inksplash resolved into a circling coil, and the beaks opened and closed, clacking and screaming, the feathers dropping faster now. As they floated downward, they
changed
. Elongating, becoming liquid, and flashing once, each shed feather turned crimson and splatted against greenstone-and-porcelain sheathing. The bloodrain stank, a cold wet caustic smell, and would scar and pit any surface except crystalline-threaded thanstone. The harsh, hoarse yells reached a crescendo, and the curse-birds began to fall, plummeting and turning to thick crimson fluid in thin feathered sacks, bursting on impact.

Drenched and dripping, Summer's green banners flopped listlessly.

One of the black bird-things did not melt as it plummeted. It flapped once, breaking the speed of its fall, and stretched its three-fingered lower feet. Its wings glinted, each black feather dipped in gold for a brief moment, and it settled above the massive front door, tapping once, twice, thrice with its beak on the carved stone frieze. A chip of greenstone flaked away from the figure of a stag garlanded with evergrape leaves, spattering on the quartz-veined steps below. Their edges were no longer sharp, those steps, and the bloodrain upon them smoked with tiny chortling hisses.

The herald-bird laughed, a dismal, ratcheting sound. “
Challenge!
” it cried. Once, twice, thrice.

No answer came from Summerhome, but the herald laughed again, its eyes lighting with brief bloody sparks. “
The Field of Gold, at sundown. Bring your banners, bring your knights, and let us have an end.
”

It mantled, shaking away spatters of congealing crimson, and took flight again. Each wingbeat was a thunderclap, and it streaked for the edge of Summer's country with the wind behind it, caw-laughing as it went.

Inside the Home, empty passages twisted hither and yon. Some brughnies crept about the kitchens, tending low smoky fires. A few dryads attended the heart of Seelie, but the fullbloods had retired to their own homes, and the heart of Summer's kingdom beat sluggish-erratic.

Broghan the Black stirred slightly. His naked back, striped with long thin scrapes, flickered with muscle and mellifluous scales, each of them lined with silver iridescence. He lay tangled in the deep-green satin well of Summer's most inward bower, perhaps asleep, perhaps feigning slumber. His dark hair spread across a spring-leaf pillow, and the lift of his ribs as he breathed was scarcely visible.

A great oval mirror rose water-clear, held in a frame of oak roots coaxed from the walls and bearing tiny scalloped leaves and jewel-polished acorns now shriveled and withered. It held a shimmering reflection of the entire room. A white sword in the center, the glass eye's pupil, was Summer's loose dusky robe, open down her front. Her knee peeped out, a calf, a tiny foot.

Two pallid birds were her hands, rubbing at each other as she tilted her golden head, the echoes of the challenge falling into the wells of her black eyes. Her hair fell in a mass, ratting into elflocks at the bottom. The hard boil on her wrist had spread down to her palm, and tiny pinpricks on her opposite fingertips showed the spreading as well. Livid branches traced nerve-channels up her left arm to the hollow of her elbow, no longer pearly and perfect. Without the draining glamour, her reflection showed fine lines at eye-corner and lip-edge. Sometimes she had played at a dame's austere beauty, but always with the laughing promise of a youthful nymph beneath.

Even the most cherished blood of all, that of small helpless mortals, had not halted the decline. Shapes and glamours trembled at the edge of her control, and she could not
feel
a full third of her domain. Marrowdowne was sliding deeper into the Dreaming Sea, salt rising through its green channels and the creatures entombed in its murky depths stirring restlessly. Harrow's Dean, Flyhill, and the Sparn were all prickling-numb, nerves gone to sleep. The dagger of Cor's Heart was insensate. The free sidhe had already begun to creep from the borders of the Low Counties into
her
demesne, hoping for a little bit of insurance against the plague's ravages.

Unwinter had issued a challenge.

She lifted the tiny brocaded bag from the innermost pocket of her robe and drew out a single crystalline tube. It was well made, almost fine enough to seem dwarf-wrought; she held it up, peering at the coruscating liquid inside. Robin Ragged had thought to use this to bargain with Summer for a worthless mortal child, but Gallow had set her at naught. If only Gallow had ceased there, and not turned against his queen—but that was of little account. Soon Summer would be whole again, and lovely, and there were three more ampoules of cure for the plague a mortal scientist had unleashed for love of Summer herself.

The heart of all Seelie frowned at the small ampoule, and a tiny crunching sound was a dart of her displeasure clean-shearing the top away. Her nails, crimson-curved talons now, clicked faintly against the glass. The liquid fizzed, and she lifted the ampoule to her pale lips. One or two of her fine teeth had discolored slightly—not enough to notice, surely, unless you remembered how snowy they had been before.

She tossed the liquid far back into her throat and stood for a moment, her entire body stiffening. Her robe crackled like sap in a hot fire, and the sound brought Broghan Trollsbane out of his real or feigned slumber. He sat bolt upright, dark eyes wide, and saw the Queen of Seelie double over, retching.

A rope of black filth dangled from her mouth, and her black eyes bugged. She heaved, again and again, and when she was finished, her screams rent the sky above Summerhome, darkening now as they had not done in many a year. Lightning stabbed, diamond-bright, and those who had slunk to their mansions or copses lifted their heads, shuddering.

When the call came to ride against Unwinter, few of them would dare her displeasure now.

That was of little comfort to Summer, who now knew she had been cheated. The vials Jeremiah Gallow had brought her did not hold the cure.

No, Ragged Robin had paid the dwarves dearly to fill the glass with holy water filched from the cathedral of Saint Martin the Redeemer.

The same church the Ragged's mortal mother lay buried near, sleeping quietly under green turf.