“Caleb.”
“—started out thinking they’d just take a hit or two, no big deal, just a little to help them heal faster, or study better, or impress a girl—”
“Caleb! I’m not a junkie!”
“No. But you are Pythia.”
“Meaning?”
“Meaning nobody talks about it, okay? But I’ve seen how fast it burns them up. How fast we go through Pythias. Just normal use shortens their lives considerably, and what you’ve been using isn’t normal.”
I laughed, a short, ugly burst that escaped before I could bite it back. “So you’re worried about my longevity?”
“Shouldn’t I be?” He ran a hand over his head. “Look, I want John back, too. I think I’ve proven that. But you’re the only Pythia we’ve got and we’re at war. You need to stay safe. He’d say the same if he was here. You know he would.”
I just stared at him for a moment. It was times like these that I felt the gulf between us, the widening gulf between me and everybody around me. Maybe because I’d been at the center of this thing for too long, maybe because I hadn’t had enough rest—or any—lately, maybe because I was crazy. Or they were, which was what it was really starting to feel like.
“Tell me something, Caleb. Were you in the group dispatched to Dante’s this morning?”
“Of course. I think every war mage in Vegas was.”
“How long did it take you to get there?”
“From the time we got the call? Twenty-two minutes. It’s something of a record: that many people over that distance—”
“I’m glad to hear it. We lasted nineteen,” I said, and shifted.
Chapter Fifteen
“Get off the road.” Rosier gripped my arm.
“Don’t touch me!” I snarled.
“Then get off the damn road!”
“All right, all right, just don’t—no, don’t touch—don’t touch!” I ran off the sheep trail pretending to be a road, sloshed through a ditch half-filled with water, and scrambled up the other side. There were old-growth trees hedging the path on both sides, the kind you don’t see anymore because they went for fuel or something centuries ago. And bushes and undergrowth everywhere else, because this was Wales and Wales had some kind of law that required every inch to be covered in green. But for once, I was grateful for it.
I dodged behind a tree, completely and utterly skeeved out, and clung to the bark, panting.
“It’s just a hand,” Rosier said, in his teeny tiny squeaky voice.
“Don’t talk, either,” I said, trying not to hyperventilate.
“We have to—”
“I said, don’t talk!”
He shut up. The army we’d spotted barely in time marched closer, still eerily silent. And I did my best to get my breathing under control before I passed out.
It didn’t work.
“God!” I shrugged out of the backpack and ran off a little way, biting back a scream. I managed it—just—because the soldiers headed this way were fey, and those ears had to be good for something.
I finally got a grip and turned around to see Rosier sitting on top of the pack, legs crossed, smoking a cigarette. Which would have been fine, if they’d had cigarettes in medieval Wales. And if he hadn’t been naked. And if he’d looked remotely human.
But he was in his disgusting white slug phase, which was apparently how demons recreated bodies, but which looked nothing like a human child.
Nothing.
I’d been carrying the icky thing around in the medieval equivalent of a backpack—a sack with ropes that fit over my shoulders. It had left him closer to me than I’d like, but at least I hadn’t had to look at him. Now I did, and it was just as bad as before, and maybe a little worse. Because the suite had been dark, but now the moon was out. And the light filtering through the trees was glistening off the mucous membrane that covered him from bald head to webbed toes, and off the tracery of tiny purple veins spidering all over the stark white “skin.” And pulsing.
I shuddered again and looked away.
The-thing-that-would-be-Rosier smoked.
The latest batch of troops started passing, but didn’t see us because of the weeds. Good old Wales, I thought, as I edged as close as I dared to a bunch of bushes, which wasn’t all that close. But even so, I could see flashes of moonlight through the foliage, gleaming off weapons and helmets, and feel the earth shake under my feet. Which, considering how light-footed the fey were, meant there were a lot of them.
A whole lot.
These were dressed in cloaks that seemed to blend in with the night, trying to fool my vision into believing that there was no one there. It didn’t work, because there were too many of them, but it didn’t help, either. I’d recently learned that the fey were handily color-coded, which made it easy to keep them straight—when you could see them.
The Alorestri wore a lot of green, because they lived in forests and marshes and I guess it was good camouflage. They were known on earth as the Green Fey, since that was what Alorestri meant in their language, and why bother coming up with anything better when the fey didn’t? It wasn’t their real name, which we paltry humans weren’t good enough to have, but it worked for trade, which was what they were mainly interested in. They came to earth the most, but I’d gotten the impression that it was usually in small trading parties, not in however many were currently hogging the road.
Yet I didn’t think these were the black-armored, human-hating Svarestri, either, but not because they almost never came to earth. But because we’d already encountered them on a parallel road, which was why we’d switched to this one and thought we were safe. Only it didn’t look like it.
I tried to pick out a flash of blue or gold, the livery of the last great fey house, the Blarestri, or Blue Fey, but couldn’t see one. Of course, with the moonlight bleaching almost everything shades of gray, who could tell? Anyway, I didn’t know why I cared. The Blarestri might have a better rep in my day, when they and the senate seemed to have some kind of understanding, but this was sixth-century Wales. The last time I’d encountered them here, they almost roasted me alive.
I finally gave up and looked back at my traveling companion.
God, it just didn’t get any easier.
“Why are there so many soldiers?” I demanded softly.
Rosier’s small shoulders moved up and down. “I don’t know. I anticipated some problems getting into court, but nothing like this.”
“It looks like we landed in a war zone!”
It shouldn’t have surprised me; things hadn’t been much friendlier the last time we popped in. The Svarestri had stolen a prized fey weapon—the same staff I was after—and run off to earth with it. Only to be pursued by the Blarestri, the staff’s owners, who intended to retrieve it and then feed it to them.
The result when they met up had been a battle for the ages, with me and Rosier in the middle, just trying to survive. And to grab Pritkin, who was being difficult because when was he not? And then that Victorian Pythia Gertie showed up, drawn by all the magic being slung around, and sent me back to my time, and the fey . . .
Well, it looked like their little quarrel was ongoing, didn’t it? Which was not cool, since the staff they wanted just happened to be with the guy I wanted. Because Pritkin had snatched it before he left.
Rosier regarded me through a cloud of smoke. “There was always a war in this era. But things were supposed to be in a bit of a lull right now. The Pax Arthuriana, if you like—”
“Then why—”
“I just said I don’t know. You’re supposed to be the psychic.”
“Clairvoyant! I don’t read minds.”
“Just as well.” He blew a smoke ring at me.
It looked like our brief truce in London was over, which was fine by me. But something else wasn’t. “So how are we supposed to get to
court? They’re everywhere—”
“Not everywhere,” he argued. “Just on the roads. Which there aren’t many of in this era, leading to bottlenecks.”
“We didn’t meet a soul last time!”
“We weren’t that close to court last time. But this is the main road, and it gets more traffic. Although it’s less bad than it will be. We’re still miles out.”
Yeah, thanks to Gertie, I thought viciously. She could home in on magic—especially the Pythian variety—so shifting straight into town hadn’t been a good idea. We’d shifted into the middle of a burnt-out mill instead, a remnant of our last trip, hoping to confuse her about our real destination. And then booked it before she showed up. But it was hard to make time when you had to hack your way across what amounted to a jungle, or stop to dodge people every five minutes on the road, and ten to one, she was on our trail.
“If the fey are slowing us down, the same is true for her,” Rosier reminded me.
“Yeah, except she has permission to be here. She can use all the magic she wants!”
Not to mention that last time she’d been with two other Pythias: her own mentor, some doddering old woman named Lydia, and what had looked like a Byzantine princess, all ornate golden robes and elaborate lacquered curls. They’d been an odd-looking group, but powerful. More powerful than me.
I started tugging at the backpack.
“What do you want?” Rosier demanded.
“The canteen— Oh God!” I’d worked it out of the side, but abruptly dropped it.
“What?”
“You oozed on it!”
I sat back against the tree trunk, closed my eyes, and just breathed for a minute. It could be worse, I told myself. We were here. Once these guys passed by, we’d get back on the road and should be at court by morning. I’d find out what Pritkin had learned about the staff, and where it might be in my time. And then, as soon as the cursed soul showed up, we’d be out of here. Out and back and everything would be just . . . well, not perfect, all things considered, but much better.
God, so much!
After a moment, I felt my spine relax and find a space for itself against the tree’s rough bark. The ground was wet from the perpetual Wales weather, and the air was chilly enough that I could see my breath when I could see anything. But it was also weirdly soothing. The tramp, tramp, tramp of all those feet, the sigh of the wind, the peaceful darkness.
The clap of a slimy hand over my mouth.
My eyes flew open to see Rosier’s horrible proto face staring into mine, the usually green eyes milky, the noseless nostrils flaring—
“Mmphh!”
“Shut. Up,” he hissed, and a second later, I understood why.
Because a hooded fey was standing there, a dozen yards off, holding out some kind of glowing sphere. It was slightly bigger than a softball, and sloshed like liquid when he moved. Which he did when a twig cracked behind him, and he spun to meet another fey, whose spill of dark hair gleamed in the moonlight.
Which was what the light was, I realized, as the second fey crouched down to the ditch and came up with his own handful of water. It stuck together in the same way it might have in space, forming a wobbly orb that seemed to glow from within, catching and enhancing the beams filtering through the trees. Enhancing them into a good approximation of a flashlight, I realized, mentally cursing as the twin orbs threw shadows our way.
“See something?” the second fey asked. The spell I’d picked up on my previous visit to this era was still translating for me, but it looked weird, seeing his lips move out of sync with the words. Like a video gone wrong.
“Smell,” the first fey said. “An odd scent. I don’t know it.”
They paused to breathe for a moment, looking oddly like a pair of vamps scenting the air. And my eyes focused on Rosier’s still-lit cigarette, lying on the ground where he must have dropped it. Until his webbed toes crushed it into the mud.
“Your nose is better than mine,” the other fey said, swinging his orb around. And causing Rosier and me to try to climb inside the tree trunk. Luckily, the never-trimmed foliage hung low, casting a dark shadow. And we didn’t move, didn’t breathe; I think my heart might even have stopped.
Until the first fey smiled, a brief glint of white in the darkness.
“Always was,” he said, and the two melted away like part of the night.
I contemplated throwing up, not least because Rosier hadn’t released me.
“Wait,” he whispered, so low that it might have been the sigh of the wind.
But it wasn’t. Like it wasn’t another shadow that moved just beyond the tree limbs, visible only because the misting rain was suddenly missing. In a man-shaped void.
I wasn’t going to throw up, I decided calmly. I was going to pass out. From lack of air and from a general sense from my nervous system that it had had enough. It couldn’t do this shit anymore.
But then the bastard moved off, too, as silently as he’d come, and I fell softly into the muck.
And just stayed there, trying to breathe quietly, while the rest of the troop trouped on by.
It was getting to me, I decided. All of this. It just was.
Not just shifting a ridiculous-sounding fifteen centuries, but everything. I thought maybe Caleb had been right: I needed a vacation. Somewhere sunny. Somewhere with a beach. And warm sand instead of perpetual mud, and a soft chaise instead of more freaking tree roots, and a hot guy—
“Which one?” somebody asked.
“What?”
“I didn’t say anything,” Rosier informed me.
I vaguely realized that I was on my back, and that he was wiping my face with what looked like a moist towelette.
Maybe because it was a moist towelette.
“Where did you get that?” I asked blearily.
“Out of the pack. Lie still,” he added when I started struggling to sit up.
“Why? They’re gone.” Even the sound of footsteps had vanished while I was busy graying out.
“Humor me.”
I humored him. I didn’t feel so good.
“We need to get going,” I pointed out, after a moment.
“In a while. Let them get well away first.”
That . . . sounded like a plan, actually. I lay in the mud, staring up at the swirl of stars visible through the dark, wet canopy above. And waited while my hideous companion cleaned me up. Or made me as clean as anyone ever got in Wales, which wasn’t very. Even the fey’s hair had been dripping. . . .
“Is there a reason Pritkin’s element is water?” I asked, after the wind tossed some in my face.
“Is it physically impossible for you to lie quiet?” Rosier asked.
“Humor me.”
He opened his mouth to say something but then closed it again abruptly. “Well, obviously.”
“And that would be?”
“I already told you, he’s part fey—”
“What part?”
“An eighth, if you must know.”
“An eighth?”
“Yes. His mother was a quarter, his grandmother half, and his great-grandmother—”
“Does he know?” Pritkin had always acted like his fey blood was minimal.
“I’ve no idea.”
“You didn’t talk about her? His mother, I mean?”
“No. She was dead. What was the point?”
“That she was his mother?”
Rosier scowled at me, like I was the one acting weird. “She was also part fey, and he was infatuated enough with the creatures as it was. Just like her, always talking about them—”
“His mother was always talking about them?” I tried to get up on one elbow, but Rosier pushed me back down with an irritated tchaa sound. “Then she didn’t live there. In Faerie.”
“Well, of course she
didn’t live there! How would I have met her in that case?”
“Then where did she live? Who was she?”
He scowled some more, but to my surprise he answered. “You already know that.”
“I don’t. Pritkin doesn’t talk about it.”
“But surely you’ve read the stories.”
“The stories?”
“Le Morte d’Arthur, Historia Regum Britanniae, Chrétien de Troyes, and all that. Got half of it wrong, with writers more interested in a good tale than the truth. Camelot.” He snorted. “When that name didn’t even exist until the thirteen hundreds—”
“Rosier.”
“—which is when they wrote all that twaddle about the Round Table. Ha! It was a table of land where the Romans had a theater. Arthur used it for ‘discussions’ with his nobles, which usually degenerated into great shouting matches, so I suppose the acoustics came in handy, after all—”
“Rosier.”
“—and don’t even get me started on the grail, what a load of horse—”
“Rosier!” He looked at me. “What part did they get right?”
He blinked. “A surprising amount, actually, considering the tales were passed down orally for hundreds of—” He saw my expression and stopped. “Arthur, for one. More or less.”
“His name wasn’t really Arthur,” I said, thinking about something Pritkin had said.
“Of course it was. Well, one of them. People had all sorts of names back then. Roman names, Celtic names, titles, nicknames . . . but most people called him Arthur. And why not? Great bear of a man he turned out to be.”
“Golden bear,” I said, remembering the name’s translation.
Rosier nodded. “And they weren’t talking about a cuddly teddy. I saw that ridiculous Camelot on Broadway, and the mincing wuss they made out of Arthur—absurd! The only damn thing they got right was the hair color! The real man was a leader: decisive, ruthless, sharp as a tack—not an idiot led around by the nose by his adulterous wife! Why remember him at all if that’s the hash you’re going to make of—”
“And Pritkin? Did the legends get him right, too?” Because they didn’t seem to fit the man I knew.