And there it was, again; a Gate signature flickered dimly at the periphery of his magical sight, taxing his already strained attention. Llanmorgan of Avalon tried to ignore the sign and focus on the King's magecraft lesson, the halving of a Mage light with a bronze sword. The tedious task was now complicated by the Gate sign and King Aedham's scrutinizing his every move from a few paces away. A chilling wind had descended on the practice arena occupying the palace's flat cobblestone roof, worsening matters.
A Gate, a teacher hovering over me like a vulture, and a cold north wind. What ideal conditions for working magic!
The bright, apple-sized sphere hovered a few paces before him, fueled by a whisper of node power. His task was to maintain the light while contemplating its neat bisection; contradictory desires which both demanded his full consideration. He had heard this was typical of what the King asked of his students, as they would protect the elfhame one day with their skills. Despite an earlier enthusiasm for the apprenticeship he wondered if he was up to the task.
And again, there's that distracting Gate sign! Does the King sense it too?
"Your focus is wavering," the King observed dryly. "What have you on your mind besides your assignment? Nubile maidens at a bale fire?"
Biting back a sharp reply, he turned to face the King, but found he could not. Instead his eyes fell on the King's odd footwear, an indulgence His Majesty had brought with him from the world of the humans. Whatever beast had been slain for the brightly colored pelts certainly didn't live in Underhill. Magic held the boot's seams together, and the soles made a mousy squeak. Aedham referred to them as either "ny kees" or "sneekers," and insisted they never be polished. The King fancied strange human creations, and of these the shoes were the least peculiar. At least there was a discernible use attached to them.
"No, sire," Llan replied humbly, and returned to his task. The light flickered, threatened to go out; he paused to let it reach a certain brightness, and struck. The blade missed, nudging it a hand's breadth to the right.
The King sighed in exasperation, and Llan's ears burned with embarrassment. This is not that difficult! the youth berated himself. And here I fail, before the King, of all elves . . .
Llan considered mentioning the Gate sign but thought this might be construed as an excuse. Instead, he remained silent, and raised his sword once again.
His strike, sharpened with some of his own anger, fell true and neatly bisected the sphere. The light halves sparked, then formed two smaller spheres half the size of the original.
"Splendid!" the King complimented, slapping Llan on the back. But his tone darkened somewhat as he said, "Now, line them up, one above the other. And slice them into four."
To Llan's incredulous look he said, "It can be done. Accomplish this feat, and we will be done for the day."
"Aie," Llan said, not feeling altogether confident. Using the sword as a wand, Llan moved one sphere over the other and, shrugging, focused on the two, raised the blade, and took aim.
A few paces away, the door to the palace roof creaked open, stealing Llan's concentration from him anew. The spheres began to drift apart.
"Forgive me, King," said the newcomer. "I did not know you were conducting lessons, I didn't."
Niamh, the King's Engineer, lurked uncomfortably by the door. Smaller than most elves, he looked like an intelligent beaver, with a nose the size of a potato, and large buck teeth.
"Continue," the King said to Llan before walking over to Niamh.
Llanmorgan realigned the two spheres and composed himself for another attempt, but his attention was drawn by the animated discussion the King was having with Niamh. The Engineer confirmed that yes, indeed, someone was about to Gate, and clearly the King had not noted this in his own mage sight. Feeling somewhat redeemed, the apprentice sliced the two spheres as if they were apples, and with satisfaction watched the halves turn into four small spheres.
When he glanced back at the King, he and his Engineer were gaping at his accomplishment.
"Did he just cut two mage lights into four?" the Engineer muttered, clearly amazed.
"Indeed he did," the King replied. "And they began as one."
"No!" Niamh said, walking over to examine his work.
"If someone is about to Gate here, then we should greet them," the King said, moving towards the door. Niamh turned to join him.
Llan followed, saying, "I don't understand, Sire. You said it could be done. What is so astounding about quartering the mage light?"
"I said it could be done," the King said, with a smirk. "I didn't say it could be done by me. Or, until now, anyone else in the Elfhame. At least," Aedham amended, "on the first try." He opened the door and began descending the stairwell into the palace.
Llanmorgan sheathed his sword and followed them into the palace, beaming over his accomplishment but trying hard not to show it. Smugness usually led to more assignments. Yet he couldn't resist a little showmanship. Llan sent the mage lights ahead of them, lighting their way down the dark stairwell.
"I didn't notice how dirty these stairs had become," Aedham commented. "Perhaps our young apprentice here would like to find a broom . . ."
As one, the spheres dimmed to a dull glow. Aedham visibly suppressed a laugh, while Niamh made no such attempt, chortling without reserve all the way down the stairs.
I didn't accept the apprenticeship to sweep floors! Llan seethed in mock resentment, though such a chore was not beneath him, even after rubbing shoulders with Aedham and his royal court for the past year. He was from a proud middle class family who had volunteered to help Avalon rebuild. His fortune had turned the day the King spied him making a mage light, a task the young elf had thought simple and intuitive. But the making of mage light was a skill normally mastered after years of training, though no one had bothered to tell Llan that while he was growing up. Llan's father, and of course Llan himself, eagerly agreed to an apprenticeship when offered, and within the passing of a day the young elf found himself elevated to a social status he had never thought possible.
But this court was a strange mixture of youthfulness, gaiety and irreverence, qualities that would have been out of place in Outremer. Most elvenfolk were fiercely traditional, and observed the old ways with a passion. Though elfhame Avalon was ancient, indeed had been named after the original elven land of a time so distant hardly anyone remembered it now, its new leadership was young and had lived for a considerable time as humans in the humans' world. Mingling with the lesser beings was not unheard of, though it was usually done on an individual basis, not by an entire elven court. Llan knew that a ruthless Unseleighe tribe had conquered Avalon, and Avalon had fled to the humans' world for temporary refuge. Yet who would have thought that so much human culture would rub off on them? At times Llan thought they were human after all, masquerading as elves. This would explain not just their fondness of human technology, but their mastering of it, using it in ways neither human nor elf had ever imagined.
"Any idea who it is?" the King asked.
"It must be Lady Samantha," Niamh replied as they reached the foot of the steps. "She has the only sigil combination. Unless she gave it to a human, which she would never do."
Llan had heard of the King's mysterious sister who lived among the humans by choice, but had never had the opportunity to meet her. She worked in secret as a constable of sorts. Llan found it amusing that an elf would make for herself a position of power there, even for the benefit of both races. And she did so completely undetected. Whatever life that would be, it would not be dull . . . which was precisely why some elves chose it.
Now she was coming here. From the urgency in the king's voice Llan surmised this was unusual, and perhaps a sign of trouble.
"I would like you to meet her, Llan," Aedham said as they reached the base of the stairs, which stood at the head of the Great Hall. "She's been pestering me about taking on an apprentice, and now she can see that I have." Banners festooned the granite walls—portraits of Aedham's mother and father, Queen Faldi and King Traigthren, respectively. At the end of the Hall was an enormous black oak throne, though Llan had never seen the King sit in it. From the kitchen adjoining the Hall wafted the smells of delicious meal in the making, and from the doorway servants peered in to see what the King was up to, evidently aware that something of interest was about to take place.
"Ah. Here it is," Niamh commented as a ring of yellow light, dim and translucent at first, took shape in the center of the spacious Hall, hovering a hand's breadth above the flagstone floor. Llan found it a bit disturbing that it was manifesting with no obvious help from a mage, even though the magics responsible had been laid out in advance, and were now being activated by the appropriate sigils.
Suddenly a silhouette appeared in the ring, and out stepped a rather attractive elven Lady in strange human attire, with shortened hair that at first gave her the semblance of a male. Then the rest of her appeared; this was no male. Her dress was oddly tailored, of a fabric not unlike silk, and was far too short for an elven high court, but which suited Llan's tastes perfectly. The shoes were delicate, with little stilts on the heels that gave her a considerable advantage in height. She stepped from the Gate, graceful as a deer, and instantly looked as if she belonged here, despite the human trappings. The Gate vanished, and Lady Samantha reached to embrace her brother.
"You've arrived just in time for supper," Aedham said as he hugged his sister. "Have you brought me my CDs?"
Samantha looked only momentarily pained. "I'm afraid I forgot those, kiddo," she said, then noticing Llan, amended, "Sire." Even the apprentice noticed the smirk. "I've come with some interesting news from the Overworld."
"Whatever the news is," Aedham said expansively, "you can share it with us all. This is Llanmorgan of Outremer, and he is my new student."
Her eyebrows raised appreciatively at the mention of Outremer. Of course. She is from Outremer, as well. As instructed by the court, Llan bowed slightly at the waist and took her hand gently, not kissing it, as that would indicate he was somewhere on the same social order as she . . . which he definitely was not. It would be all too easy to let this new familiarity get the best of him; being privy to this conversation was overwhelming enough.
"Let's adjourn to the drawing room," the King said. "The modern one," he added with a wink.
Llan felt the hairs on his neck stand at attention, and his ear tips felt slightly "dizzy." The King kept two drawing rooms, a traditional one and the modern one, full of human devices that defied all logic and explanation. Llan had seldom gone into that one, out of respect and perhaps a bit of fear that he might disturb something, or turn something on and not know how to deal with it or turn it off. It was said that no magic was used in the creation of these devices. Llan wasn't so certain.
"Turn on CNN," Samantha said as the King led them into the comfortable if slightly puzzling environment. As they situated themselves in two oversized couches which somewhat resembled traditional furniture, Niamh activated the "big scream" at a large cluster of crystals. Each faceted stone, every one as big around as his arm, were mounted on a stand beside the device; he knew this was connected to the crystal port in the King's study. From there, Niamh had once explained cryptically, they "pirated a variety of services from the human realm."
The scream came to life, and Llan winced. The "big scream" hadn't actually screamed yet, but he feared one of these times it would. Instead the colorful images appeared on an amazingly flat surface, unlike the faceted crystal surfaces of most elven communications devices. Llan sat opposite the two, with the "big scream" on the opposite wall, between them, giving him a good view of everything.
"So tell me, sister, what has brought you home for this visit?"
She seemed uncomfortable or uncertain of where to start. "I wish I could come for no other reason than to see you again," she said, at length, "instead of with what is likely bad news."
Aedham turned grim. "What would that be?"
That is where Llan's comprehension of matters ended. Samantha began a long description of a type of sport the humans indulged in, but it was not played with a ball or mallet but those most mysterious of all human inventions, lasers. Niamh had demonstrated one in his workshop, and the apprentice was astonished to learn that it employed no node power to generate a hot, tight beam, intense enough to burn wood and even iron. The game sounded dangerous, until she explained to Llan directly, evidently sensing his misunderstanding, that the lasers were not high-powered, and were used as a means of direction. Another magical beam of "you vee" did the actual scoring . . . or something. It was a game that humans paid coin to play, and there were no spectators. The game took place in an arena of mazes, where it was honorable to hide, but not honorable to strike or touch other players. Once he got past this confusing point he began to understand. It was a game of stealth and skill, not brute force, like the kind Llan was familiar with.
It sounded like great fun, even after she mentioned the Unseleighe Court.
"I would not come to you with this unless I was certain," she explained, and Aedham listened intently, visibly disturbed at the mention of the court that had conquered his kingdom and murdered his family. "And the children. They are disappearing with increasing regularity, but besides the kids' parents, the humans don't seem to be bothered much. It's why I took this particular job on, you see. I thought it was a matter of human indifference, which I wanted to do something about."
"What evidence of the Unseleighe court have you found?" Aedham asked.
"Well, a few things. At one of these arenas was a darkness, an undeniable force that felt much like Japhet's work. Something that draws on fear and hate."
"That just about describes all Unseleighe workings," the King replied.
"True, but this instance, it had a particular flavor to it. Like one we had encountered before. The house, for instance, where Daryl Bendis nearly died. It was very much like that."
"You are certain," the King asked, but it did not really come across as a question. Yes, she is certain, Llan thought.
Niamh stood and approached the scream, as if to get a better view. A stone circle had appeared on the device, which the Engineer took an extreme interest in. Llan knew that the humans used many of these stone circles in an attempt to reach Underhill, but most ended up being simply concentrated pockets of human-raised magical energy.
Aedham continued, "Granted, if Unseleighe forces are prowling the Earth once again, and even though we eliminated Japhet Dhu and his father, I don't doubt this could happen." Aedham shifted in his chair, and Llan sensed a vulnerability in the King he'd never seen before. Then again, he'd never heard him discuss the Unseleighe in such straightforward terms. "But my duty, as always, is to the elfhame."
"And as you have said before," Samantha pointed out, "the Unseleighe, at least this particular clan, would never have penetrated the human realm if they hadn't been searching for you."
Aedham sighed, an indication that his sister might be winning the argument after all. "I agree, we have some responsibility to protect the humans from this disease, but let me point out that we are not responsible for the evil in their world. Most is of their own doing."
"Most, but not all," Sammi replied, undeterred. "Humans do not have the capability to transport an archeological site from one continent to another overnight, through mundane means." She glanced at the big scream. "Much less through the largest Gate I have ever seen or, in this case, felt."
"What?" Aedham followed her gaze the images on the scream. "Niamh, turn that up, would you?"
With a small surge of magic, Niamh urged the scream to be louder. The human's voice boomed from small black boxes on the walls and floor.
". . . was discovered early this morning by commuters after an evening of violent thunderstorms. Local officials have no explanation for the sudden appearance of several dozen stone megaliths, each weighing up to thirty tons . . ."
"Bloody hell!" the King exclaimed. "That's Stonehenge!"
"Indeed, it is," she said, smugly. "And what's more, it has appeared, of all places, in the parking lot of the next Lazerwarz arena." She explained her voyage in a rocking airship, the contact with a human she would be working with, and her settling in at an inn. She described the blast of energy that ripped through the world and deposited something nearby. She went to investigate, and found this stone circle where it simply should not have been.
"And you sensed Unseleighe forces here," Aedham said reluctantly.
"Thick enough to scoop up in cauldrons, bucko," Sammi said. "But I wonder if the Unseleighe can even manage this degree of power."
"They have surprised us before," Aedham said.
"But not quite like this. It's obviously Stonehenge. But look how they're carefully avoiding using the name."
"Perhaps they don't know yet," Aedham said. "I mean, this just happened. It's not even the same time of day in Britain.
Niamh, change the channels to BBC, would you?"
The Engineer reached over to the cluster of crystals. "Changing channels" appeared to be more involved than just nudging the device with magic. The scream flickered, then settled on another image.
The scene British television presented was similar to the local one, only instead of the circle of trilithons there stood a circle of black asphalt, in stark contrast with the green countryside. A small crowd had developed, and a human voice spoke, ". . . not certain if this is related to the crop circle phenomenon or not, but this certainly calls into question the possibility of forces beyond our comprehension . . ."
"It looks like they swapped both features spontaneously," the King observed, still sounding mystified. "I wonder if . . . have they made the connection yet?"
"It doesn't look that way. But they will." Sammi sounded resigned. Llan knew little about the work elves did with humans, but even he could see this was more than Lady Samantha had bargained for. "It makes no sense that they would intentionally attract attention to this place, if they are kidnapping children through these arenas."
"The Unseleighe motives have never been reasonable. Perhaps they are simply trying to hide in plain sight."
"Perhaps." Sammi paused, then added, "You were saying about evidence of Unseleighe activity?"
In a niche carved out of Underhill's land of the Unformed, in the palace he had created for himself and his new kingdom, in the audience chamber where he sat on a massive bronze throne, Mort fumed.
Stonehenge?
Mort viewed the fragmented image in the crystal with disbelief, convinced now that the gods themselves were capable of unlimited stupidity.
Stone . . . henge?
It had to be a joke. Morrigan would find such a prank amusing, particularly if she saw him now, he was certain. She had transported across the globe one of the most famous human archeological sites and dropped it at his very doorstep, where he least wanted to attract attention. Just wonderful. His amazement centered not on the fact she could pull such a stunt off, but that she would do it, right here, a week before his arena was about to open.
It was no joke. With a wave, he dismissed the image, and the crystal blinked into darkness.
He wanted to kill her, and would do so if she could be killed, or at least berate her for the sheer stupidity of the situation. Yet, he could not.
Why? Because he had asked her to do it.
Not in so many words, of course, but his challenge was vague enough that any fool might have made anything of it they wanted. Evidently, Morrigan was any fool, and had done the one thing that would cause the most irritation, with the least possibility for retribution.
"She will be calling on me any moment now," he muttered to the empty audience chamber, aware of the gentle susurrations his words made on the stone surfaces around him. He'd built the chamber with acoustics in mind so as to make his physical voice loud, booming and frightening, to impress upon his human captives his omnipotence. It didn't matter that he could extinguish their life with a thought, they wouldn't know that yet, and if he demonstrated his ability he would be out a potentially useful human slave. His few attempts at torture were fruitless; he couldn't find the happy medium between not enough pain and too much, and ended up with a handful of psychotic, blathering youths with mush for brains. So he made do with the voice, a trick he'd learned while working for Zeldan, back when they were trying to find the cowardly Avalon High Court.
But that was so much history now. The search for King Aedham had been a learning period, a series of exploratory forays into the world of the Unseleighe and Seleighe courts, their intrigues and hatreds and foibles, not to mention some valuable experience with the humans and their confusing, contradictory land. The experience was paying off. Mort had an army now, and he was the commander in chief, with several thousands of years of experience to guide him.
With his long, spindly arms, he reached for the servant's tray on the column next to him, where he had left his mug of used motor oil. He had acquired a taste for the thick, black sludge while working in the human world above, savoring the spice of minute particles of cold iron suspended in it. The elves would have found it deadly, but Mort found it tasty and a bit intoxicating. Mildly appalled, his human slaves had watched him drink the stuff, their expressions muted through his spell of control.
They must think I'm a God, Mort had thought. Well. I am, or will be very soon. So long a road to travel, and I am the only one on it, the only one left to reap the rewards.
My people will inherit the Earth, above and below, once again. We will rule it and milk it and rape it until it screams for forgiveness, and once it does, we will do the same for the inhabitants, just to remind them who is in charge.
This is going to be fun.
His education was over. Mort's time in the Unseleighe Court merely fed an insidious, festering desire to conquer all. Zeldan Dhu, and then later his son, Japhet Dhu, had thought him an obedient minion, and to a certain degree he was, but while in their employ he had been . . . learning. Perhaps he should give Zeldan more credit than that, as he was the elf who had found him in Dreaming, an inert and dormant, utterly mindless Mort, and had then breathed new life into him. If Zeldan had granted him life only to be his servant, then so be it; his long Dreaming was over.
The more Zeldan had reminded him of his place as his minion, the more Mort fixated on rising above it. In private, of course. His inability to express his desires only intensified them.
For Mort was a Foevorian, one of an ancient race, the first race and therefore the first rulers, of Underhill, of the human's world, and of everything in between. The distinctions between the two realms did not really exist then; the polarity of spirit and matter developed later. Mort's earliest memories were of the sea, and of the civilization that dwelled there. The humans had vague historical references to a realm called Atlantis, but it was far too complex to be considered a single domain.
Other races might have called this heaven or utopia, and would have been satisfied with it, never to evolve to some higher level. Not Mort—then called Morca—or his people, who were leaders with no followers. They rose from the sea to find a race of subjects. Yet they were quickly disappointed.
They found instead a massive sheet of ice, reaching across half the globe, with nothing to speak of living there. They returned to the sea, awaiting a better time.
When the better time came they found a mighty island that would later be known as Eire, linked to the greater continent by a mass of ice retreating over a narrow bridge of land. The land was populated with four-legged creatures and, in small numbers, two-legged ones, who hunted with stones and fed on the four-legged creatures. It was a simple matter to rule the two-leggeds; the Foevors became their gods.
As the two-leggeds ruled the four-leggeds, it seemed a natural progression that a one-legged creature rule the two; thus the Foevors assumed their first physical state, that of the Clapperlegs, to rule in proximity to their minions. Yet they were a graceful race, despite their lack of symmetry. The form of one leg, one arm, one eye suited their purposes, as it frightened the two-leggeds into submission. They made themselves twice the size of the two-leggeds, with twice the strength and, of course, already had twice the wisdom.
As time passed, the ice melted and the land bridge vanished, and the Foevors lost track of what was going on in the larger continent. Then more two-leggeds arrived on ships, and they were better warriors, with weapons of metal. Their large numbers made them formidable, but the Foevors still had the advantage of physical size, and had sharpened their magical abilities. They drew power from the ground and the sea, whipping up great storms to sink the invaders' ships. The balance of power usually favored the Foevors, and following the few times it didn't the Foevors reconquered their land, and slew the enemy into extinction. During one such invasion the enemy had killed their King, Conan, and in retaliation Morca had successfully led a great armada of warships; as a victorious leader he had his first taste of glory. And Morca decided he wanted more of it.
He might have become the Foevorian King. His popularity was enormous, his leadership abilities were unquestionable; what other Foevor could conquer the two-leggeds with their own devices? Amid his newfound fame he changed his name to Morta, and began seeking ways to consolidate his power, to fill the void left by King Conan.
Morta would have become ruler, if not for the elves.
The Tuatha De Danaan, the people of the goddess of Danaa, weren't so much formidable as they were annoying. They came at the worst possible time, in the middle of the night, when most of the Foevorian horde had nodded off from too much drink and revelry. The Tuatha took up residence on another part of Eire without so much as a raised voice. Right away, Morta was blamed for the "invasion," and new leaders, the loudest voices of dissent, took his place.
The Tuatha were no ordinary two-leggeds. They were magical, and it was rumored they came from the spirit world, or were descended from gods, or both. Were the Foevors too quick to proclaim their sole right to these magical origins?
It seemed so. When the Foevors declared war on the trespassers, the war turned to magic, and the Tuatha were superior in these skills. The ensuing war rent the universe into two distinct realms, one physical and one of the spirit. During the long, tortuous battles many Foevors began to seek refuge in the spirit world. In the shadow of a victorious Tuatha, Mort sought safety in this as yet unnamed spirit realm, and made himself as invisible as possible, fearing an unjust retribution from his own people. The Foevors were a defeated and divided race, and took up residence in isolated, far-reaching pockets in the new realm.
It was with no small pleasure that Mort later watched the Tuatha's defeat, by yet another tribe of two-leggeds called the Milesians. They banished the Tuatha to the nether world regions through a door under a hill, thus the name, Underhill. But with no power base Mort saw no way to take advantage of the circumstance. As above, so below, the factions lived in uneasy peace. In time, dissent split the Tuatha into smaller groups; the polarity reached a breaking point, and they divided into the Seleighe and their nemesis, the Unseleighe courts. The former remained benevolent to the humans, accepting their defeat with honor, while the latter blamed the humans for their fall from grace and took great pleasure in tormenting them regularly.
Mort studied the Seleighe and Unseleighe, pretending to be interested in Zeldan's and then later, Japhet's objective: the elimination of Avalon from Underhill. Meanwhile he gained power and knowledge, while planning for the day he and his people would again rise up and take the victory that was their right. With Mort at the helm, of course.
He drained off the last of the oil and set the mug down with a loud clang. The sound summoned one of his servants, a mousy little boy named Alan, who had been harvested from the Baltimore arena. Alan wore a tunic of dirty canvas, and moved about numbly, in a daze. The red carranite crystal embedded in his temple made sure of that; through the crystal Mort controlled Alan and the rest of the multitude of slaves he'd acquired through his Lazerwarz arenas.
As Alan poured the sludge from a pitcher, Mort's viewing crystal came to life with the fragmented image of a sour Unseleighe warrior. "Master, you have a visitor," said Yuaroh Dhu, a wizened elf with a severe, chiseled face. Mort had hired Yuaroh and his Unseleighe clan as mercenaries for his ambitious endeavor. So far there had been no battle to speak of, and Yuaroh had turned out to be a capable receptionist. And a perceptive one; he knew the Morrigan was not one to be turned away.
"Of course I do," Mort sighed, and began rubbing away the beginnings of a massive headache. "Send the bitch in." The crystal winked out, and a moment later a shrill peal of laughter further confirmed her presence.
"Mort Mort Mort, my dear Mort!" Morrigan shrieked cheerfully, entering the chambers with a flourish. This was not the Morrigan Mort remembered. What had once been a round, dumpy woman figure with a hooked nose was now a slim, svelte attractive goddess in a sassy red evening dress. Her red hair was all that remained the same, though now it was in a big style, flowing around her like blazing aura. She was dressed, and morphed, to kill. Who that would be remained to be seen.
Mort pretended not to notice, and reminded himself this elegant creature had just dropped Stonehenge on his parking lot. I don't have to be nice.
"You don't seem happy, Mort," Morrigan prodded, daring to come within arm's reach of his throne. She was in constant motion, posing for a second here, holding her well rounded hips there, as if she were modeling on a catwalk. If it was meant to distract him, it was working. Her new appearance was arousing, but he wasn't about to let her know that.
"I am not happy, Morrigan," Mort replied, waving the crystal back on, with the fragmented picture of Stonehenge standing amid asphalt. "What, may I ask, is the meaning of this?"
"Oh, Mort," she replied flippantly, with a loud, rude expulsion of air from her lips. At least some things, don't change, Mort noted. "You know. The challenge. Don't tell me you've already forgotten."
Mort waved his hand again, and a chair appeared for Morrigan to sit on. It would not do to have her flouncing her assets about while having a serious discussion, derailing his train of thought, which she seemed intent on doing.
"I know about the challenge," he said evenly. She sat and crossed her legs, her red dress riding up on her thigh like silk drape. Not the effect I was after, he thought, but pressed on anyway. "The challenge was to move a stone circle from the old land to the new. It was not to move the most famous of archeological sites—"
"Stonehenge is but a rest stop in the realm of spirits—"
"Not in the human's world, it isn't!" Mort screamed. He did not regret raising his voice. His guest recoiled noticeably. "This was a covert operation you wanted in on, Morrigan! That means keeping it secret, keeping a low profile, away from the prying eyes of humans and their law enforcement!"
Morrigan sighed, and crossed her legs the other way. The effect . . . well, Mort had to transfer some of his newly aroused lust to other places in his appearance. The two horn buds which were more or less a permanent feature on his forehead lengthened somewhat. "And then there is that little matter of your betrayal of the Foevorians to the Tuatha. You were on our side, we had thought."
Morrigan rolled her eyes. "History, Mort. And ancient history, at that. Let me also remind you that I didn't betray you to Zeldan. When I found you in bed with the Unseleighe, I played along, just to see what might come of it. Did you really think I didn't recognize you as a displaced Foevorian?"
This took Mort by surprise, since until now he had thought his disguise had been perfect. Still, she may be bluffing.
"I would say that would make us even," Morrigan continued. "And tell me, what is more important to you: the past, or our glorious future together? I can teach you many things about the humans, I know their weaknesses better than you do."
"You know nothing of the humans, Morrigan," Mort replied hotly.
"I know more than you think," Morrigan hissed back. "While you were Dreaming lo those many centuries, I have studied the humans and interacted with them. You could not have possibly known that it was I who helped the druid Merlin move the stones there in the first place!"
Mort didn't know who Merlin was. It was one of the pitfalls of Dreaming. One couldn't keep abreast of current events.
Morrigan continued, "Remember, I am a god, you miserable fool. They worship me."
Her thighs kept shifting; her ankle, sheathed in an elegant red stiletto pump, rocked up and down restlessly. Mort's horns grew more, their sharpened, curved tips almost touching. Hate it when this happens. He surreptitiously turned his horns upwards, to allow them room to grow, a certainty if this conversation continued along this vein.
"While you, Mort," she continued, "are the remnants of a race conquered an eternity ago by the Tuatha. If it weren't for Zeldan you'd still be in a coma. And yet you had the audacity to deny me my rightful place at your side?"
There it was. She's shaming me into accepting her, in the most humiliating way possible . . . bad publicity! This was no accident.
"You are denied no more," Mort said, his anger surrendering to a resigned calm. She's won this round. Time to move on to the next. "Now, this is what I have in mind . . ."
Alfred Mackie reached over and answered the telephone on the night table beside his bed, resisting an urge to rip the cord out of the wall.
"Yes?" he answered tentatively.
"It's William, Doctor," said the youth on the other end. "You're not going to believe this, but . . . Stonehenge has disappeared."
"Do tell," Alfred replied with a distinct lack of concern.
"It's gone, I tell you," William bemoaned, and the doctor of prehistoric archeology slowly sat up in his hotel bed. A hell of a thing to be told in the middle of the night if he were alert and sober, and Alfred Mackie was neither.
"I . . . see. Who is with you?"
"Just the others. We came from the pub. . . ."
Alfred might have dismissed this as a prank. Perhaps the other students had convinced William, who was barely old enough to shave, that mystic forces or UFOs or a squad of Yiddish grandmothers had spirited away the stone circle. Easy enough to consider, as Alfred had seen the four of them in the pub, and Alfred had had the impression this was William's first drinking experience.
"Can I speak with, let's see, Stuart?" Alfred asked. Stuart was not immediately available. William was on his cell phone, and the others were out inspecting the site, which had mysteriously turned into a circular asphalt parking lot. "Perhaps I should come on down," Alfred said, though his first impulse was to go back to sleep. There had been a wedding party on his floor and sleep had come only very late. And the beginnings of a hangover did not encourage him either.
"Please do," William said. "And could you bring the camera? I think we should record this, don't you?"
"Of course." Alfred sat up and put his feet on a cold, linoleum floor. "I'll be down soon. Stay there."
Alfred hung the phone up and took a deep breath. The wall thumped, twice, three times, from his neighbor, the newlyweds. Bloody hell.
After a quick shower he threw on an old cardigan, picking up a digital videocam on his way down. Stokes College spared little for accommodations in the field, but they had managed to purchase good equipment for the VR project, he had to give them that. His old Mercedes gave him hell when he tried to start it up, but finally it turned over. When he turned north, on Castle Road, on his way out of Salisbury he saw a hint of dawn on the horizon.
There were many reasons why he shouldn't believe William, and disregard the whole incident as a joke. That's what most professors, supervising fieldwork for his archeology students, would do. The night belonged to youth, and Alfred was nearing sixty.
But there were many more, potent reasons why he should believe him. Alfred had always known when someone was telling the truth . . . at least the boy believed the stones had vanished. Also, while laying awake and staring at the ceiling, Alfred had felt the universe ripping. He had observed this disturbance only a few times before, and though he had not actually seen them, the sidhe undeniably had been involved.
Last month the college had acquired several donated file servers, and Alfred had suggested a virtual reality walkthrough of Stonehenge. In an effort to compete with the other archeology schools the administration had approved a tidy sum for additional hardware and studentships. No one had yet done a thorough, scientific VR of Stonehenge, and Stokes wanted to be the first. Finding archeology students with computer expertise was surprisingly easy.
Alfred turned left onto the A303, passing a sign for Stonehenge. The English countryside appeared to be asleep, and the traffic was light. He passed the junction of A360 and A303. By now dawn had cast a pallid glow on the landscape, enough to see that something important was missing from the horizon.
"Dear gods," Alfred muttered to himself. "Someone has mislaid the Henge."
A lone car was parked at the entrance, and three figures were milling about the site, one waving at him. A black circle had replaced the sarsens and bluestones, and what appeared to be the wreck of an automobile, or part of one, lay at the circle's edge. A single light pole stood off-center on the circle, unlit. But there had never been lights installed here; there was no electricity. He pulled up beside the Golf GTI, noted that one of his students, Stuart, had passed out in the back seat.
William came running up to the Mercedes.
"Did you bring the camera?"
Alfred nodded, and numbly handed the boy the videocam.
"Come on, let me show you," William said, bubbling with energy. Alfred let him lead, riding the trails of his excitement like a hitchhiker, drifting past the fence surrounding the site. Another student joined them, reeking of ale, but was otherwise coherent.
"We are in the right place, aren't we?" Peter, the project's junior technician, asked in all sincerity.
Alfred stared at him for a long moment, taking in his look of utter bewilderment, and in a flash found it all quite funny. Alfred started to laugh.
Peter scowled. "It's not?"
Alfred grew serious. "It is. What possessed you boys to come out here in the middle of the night, anyway?"
"The ale," William provided.
"We w-wanted to see how the sun aligned with the heelstone," Peter quickly amended.
"It was the ale," William insisted, and giggled. Peter gave him a harsh look.
"Of course," Alfred said. "Well then. Let's have a look."
Alfred took one look at the site and saw that not all of Stonehenge was missing. The barrows surrounding the stone circle and the enormous heelstone appeared to be untouched. Only the enormous sarsens and the bluestones, the inner circle, were gone.
"What's Lars doing?" Alfred said, noticing the other student kneeling next to the remains of the automobile in the distance.
"He's found part of a car," William said.
They came to the edge of the asphalt circle, which was, or had been, a parking lot of some kind. Right away Alfred noticed the spaces were a bit larger than those provided in most English parking lots, and were configured strangely. He examined the asphalt's edge and noted a smooth surface running deep into the turf. Joining the asphalt was the native chalky soil.
"Incredible," Alfred finally said. "There must be— Check the area for tire tracks. Something must have moved the bloody things!"
"We've already looked," Peter said. "There are none. And nothing short of an armada of Sikorskys would have lifted them out of here, and even then I don't think they could. Then there's this pavement. It's old and worn. If it were transported here intact, there would be cracks, but there are none! It's like it's been here for the last thirty years."
Alfred sent Peter and William off to start taping the site, reminding them to take in the barrows, ditches and heelstone for reference, then caught up with Lars at the wreck.
"What have we here?" Alfred said as he approached the car.
"Be careful. There's petrol all over the place."
The wreck appeared to be a small Subaru, sliced in half as if from a giant guillotine, its cut edge aligned with the end of the asphalt.
"The license plate says Oklahoma," Peter said. "That's in the United States."
"Indeed it is," Alfred said. Looking into the back seat, he found a few books on law, all American, a Playboy magazine, a spiral notebook. And an address book.
"This belongs to a man by the name of Rick Ordover," Alfred said, examining the front page. "Maybe we should give him a call. Would you kindly retrieve the cell phone from William?"
Peter fetched the cell phone, and Alfred deftly punched in the number, completing the call with assistance from an operator.
A strange sounding ring, then a muffled voice.
"Hello?"
"Good day," Alfred said. "Could I please speak with Rick Ordover?"
"Speaking."
"Mr. Ordover, my name is Dr. Alfred Mackie, with the College of Stokes in Wiltshire. That's Great Britain. Say, are you by any chance missing half of a Subaru Justy?"
There was a long pause before Rick finally replied, "Yes, I am. Where did . . . what did . . . Are you near Salisbury?"
"As a matter of fact, I am."
Another long pause. "You're looking for Stonehenge, aren't you?"
"Indeed we are. Do you know where it might be?"
"I know exactly where it is. At the corner of 41st and Yale. In Tulsa, Oklahoma."
"In a parking lot?"
"In a parking lot."
"Good heavens," Alfred exclaimed. "You don't know why it might happen to be there?"
"I haven't a clue. It happened during a lightning storm."
Alfred stared at the cell phone, at the asphalt circle, the severed car. What had happened during a lighting storm?
"I may be coming to the United States. Could I call on you?"
"Yeah, sure," said the American, slightly perplexed. "Say, are there law books in the back seat?"
"There are. Would you like me to bring them?"
"Yeah. They're not cheap. I'm a law student."
"I understand."
Once the surreal conversation was over, Alfred debated over who to call next. The boys were still milling about, now somewhat aimlessly, as if the strangeness of the situation was starting to numb them. If he called the authorities, or anyone else for that matter, they would surely not believe him. He took a brief excursion over the circular barrows, the oldest parts of the site, and found them as undisturbed as before, as were the fifty-six Aubrey holes along the inner perimeter, and the two small inner mounds. The heelstone and the "slaughter stone" were as they were before. He proceeded to a medium-sized burial mound to the southeast, explored the shallow ditch around it, finding nothing amiss. Everything about the site was absolutely normal—except for the missing trilithons.
He stood for a time at the burial mound, a smooth dome covered with a thin layer of grass. This was not a dark place, reeking of death and petrified bones, but a fount of information, the sum far greater than the individual souls composing it. His ancestors, some druids, some chiefs, some common folk, were laid to rest here for the purpose it was serving now: as a link to the otherworld. Here was the network of magical sites, the holy wells, the sacred trees, the multitude of other stone circles, all connected by hidden, prehistoric roads that had not quite been erased from the Earth. Some called them ley lines, but to Alfred and the Order, they were a communications network to the great spirits.
He reached along this network and in a flash saw what had happened to Stonehenge.
This is not the work of the sidhe, but the work of the gods.
The mound told him more: the moving of Stonehenge was not an anomaly, even in this modern world, but part of a larger plan started long ago. Before the Celts, before the Romans, even before the first mammoth-hunting humans wandered this portion of Europe. Alfred felt his insignificance stronger now than ever.
An eagle circled the sky, an unusual sight for the Salisbury plain. It kited momentarily, then swooped down for a gentle landing on the mound's peak. The bird regarded him in an unnerving way, as if Alfred were to soon become his meal; but Alfred knew this was no eagle, or any physical creature, of this realm.
I am Lugh, said the eagle, and a golden aura blazed to life around it, emphasizing the fact. There are too few of your kind left, druid. I thank you for attending.
In the presence of the god of light, Alfred thought he should feel more awed than he did. Lugh had appeared to the Order in many forms, including the eagle, but this is the first time Alfred had encountered him alone.
The Foevors are intent on setting fire to the realms, Lugh said, shifting from one talon to the next, a decidedly eagle-like motion. The Foevor Morca is their leader.
Alfred replied, I thought the Tuatha De Danaan defeated them aeons ago. Do they even exist? He found himself easing into the mental dialog with little effort.
They exist. They are intent on conquering the underworld, and this realm. It has always been their desire. To rule, without question, without responsibility. Their arrogance was the weakness the Tuatha exploited before. Now, when most of the gods are sleeping, their arrogance has become one of their strengths.
Alfred hazarded a glance behind him. William was taping the site again, and the other two were going back to the car, perhaps to check on Stuart. They didn't appear to notice the eagle perched on the burial mound.
Their numbers are growing. And they have the advantage. The sleeping gods would never see them for what they are.
Alfred considered a more immediate issue. Why did they take the stones?
Lugh pondered this a moment. It was part of a challenge. An alliance has been forged. By taking the stones they have disrupted the energies here, making many things difficult. They have the advantage now, but I seek to change that.
Alfred asked, It goes beyond the stones?
Far beyond the stones. My son is in danger. You know my son, druid. You are part of his past, you are part of him. You helped make him what he is, you are what he is. He needs your help. I need your assistance, Cathad.
At the mention of his druid name, Alfred sensed a shift in the realms. A door opened, and he looked into a long forgotten room.
My son, The Hound, is an incarnated human. Go to the stones, and you will find him. Aid him. Fulfill your duties as a druid. Help him remember who he is.
Lugh uttered this last request with disturbing intensity.
Go to the continent in the west, and aid my son, Cu Chulainn.
Lugh leaped gracefully into the air, circled once, and flew to the north. In moments he was a tiny spot in the sky, then nothing at all. Alfred watched the bird vanish into the morning sky, and with its passing came a surge of strength not felt since youth.
It's good to be back in the game again.