Trapped

The five of us ate in silence. I can't tell you if the stew was good, bad, or bland — the food made no impression because my mind was elsewhere, trying to reconstruct Sebastian's movements over the past day.

Sebastian and Jode caught a ride on the fishing boat Hoosegow. Hoosegow left Dover at 11:05 P.M. It would take at least ten hours to reach Crystal Bay or one of the other harbors on the Niagara frontier… possibly longer, since Hoosegow wasn't built for speed. Therefore our quarry landed no earlier than nine or ten in the morning — after which, they had to find overland passage from the lakeshore to Niagara Falls. That trip was another three hours.

So Sebastian and Jode reached 'Niffles' no earlier than noon… and I was inclined to add a few hours onto the calculation, considering their boat was slow and they might have trouble arranging coach transport. No driver would be eager to make a special run into Niagara Falls for two teenagers who were obviously eloping. The kids would need to pay a lot of cash to overcome such reticence. Jode might indeed have a lot of cash, either stolen from the real Rosalind or procured some other way — a shapeshifter wouldn't have much trouble filling its pockets at other people's expense. Even so, money didn't guarantee instant service; teenagers with overflowing purses might get hauled in by some town constable who wanted to know how they acquired so much loot.

Many delays possible. Unless Sebastian used his powers.

If the boy wanted, he could ask a trillion nanites to lift him into the sky and fly him wherever he wanted to go. He and Jode-Rosalind could have lofted themselves straight off the school grounds and across the continent. But as far as we knew, they'd traveled by conventional methods, horseback and Hoosegow. That suggested Sebastian preferred not to use psionics unless he had to… which made sense, considering how much Myoko must have badgered him to keep a low profile. She would have told gruesome stories of psychics who were discovered and enslaved because they took even a tiny liberty with their powers; and Myoko had a knack for putting the scare into teenagers. Sebastian would stringently avoid showing anyone what he could do.

So assume no use of psionics. In that case, the boy's best bet would be telling the truth (as he saw it): 'My sweetheart and I are eloping to Niagara Falls and we've scraped together a little money by selling our belongings. Please, Mr. Coach Driver, can't you give us a ride? We'll pay you everything we can afford.'

Given a line like that, a lot of drivers would hide a smile and say something on the order of 'I've got chores to do first, but I've been meaning to head into Niffles for supplies I can't get here in town…'

Suppose Sebastian and Jode could reach Niagara Falls by mid-afternoon. That wasn't unreasonable. Then what?

Sebastian would want to get married… and he could do that easily. When I'd visited Niagara on that class field trip, I'd seen a dozen chapels within ten minutes' walk of the Falls — Buddhist, Jewish, Magdalene, New Grace, Marymarch, Taozen, The Hundred, and several more. If those didn't suit Sebastian's taste, there were secular wedding halls too; I remembered one with a sign SINGLES IN, COUPLES OUT, HITCHED IN HALF AN HOUR OR YOUR MONEY BACK!

The boy would have no trouble tying the knot. Nor would he have difficulty finding a honeymoon suite immediately thereafter. Late winter/early spring must be a slow season for hotels — there'd be vacancies all over town, and whatever Sebastian's price range, he'd find plenty of rooms he could afford.

Then what?

Then Jode would let the boy consummate the marriage. I didn't want to dwell on that thought… but what else could Jode do? The demon had to play its role as Rosalind, at least in the short term. Eager fiancee; beaming bride; glowingly fulfilled newlywed. Jode had to go along.

After which…

Jode would say, 'Oh darling, let's go see the sights.'

'Oh darling, I've got a surprise for you.'

'Oh darling, someone said there's something interesting to visit over here.'

Jode would invent an excuse to get Sebastian… where? To have him do what?

Whatever it was, it wouldn't be long now. If Sebastian and Jode had arrived in town mid-afternoon, they'd take an hour or two or three to wallow in connubial bliss.

That would get them to nightfall. And whatever skullduggery Jode intended, the Lucifer would probably prefer to do it after dark.

I looked out the tavern's west window and saw the sky washed with red fading into purple. The sun had fully set. Alien Jode would soon make its move.

There was another window to the north, this one looking out on the city. As I watched, a streetlight came on. Then another. Then another and another. Some were mercury blue, others sodium orange.

OldTech electric lights. Powered by the hydro-electric station that tapped energy from thousands of tons of falling water. A station tended by the Holy Lightning, but secretly supported by the Sparks.

The tavern door swung open and Bing entered, shuffling his feet to scrape mud off his boots. 'You folks decided where you want to go?'

'No,' said Impervia.

'Not a clue,' said Pelinor.

'Not a fucking clue,' said the Caryatid under her breath.

'I know where they're going,' I said.

The others turned to me in surprise.

The target had to be the generating station. Nothing else fit.

If the Sparks supported the station, they didn't do it from blissful generosity; they must be using the power for purposes of their own. And the Falls gave them prodigious amounts of power — at one time, Niagara's electrical grid supplied energy to millions of people. Millions of OldTech people, with all their refrigerators, stoves, and computers (not to mention factories, office towers, and neon-bright casinos). Now the generators supplied only Niffles itself… and the power lines didn't even reach the city's outskirts, as evidenced by The Captured Peacock's kerosene lanterns.

So: enormous generating plant, minuscule public consumption. Where was the rest of the energy going? How was it being used?

I didn't know. But Dreamsinger did. And when she realized Sebastian had the psionic potential to threaten the generators, the Sorcery-Lord took off like a firecracker. Now she'd be guarding the power station; and if Sebastian or Jode got near the place, they'd both end up as sorcerous shish-kebab.

Or would they? Why did I think Dreamsinger would be victorious, given that Sebastian had top-notch psychic abilities and Jode had already killed one Spark? It wasn't at all certain the Sorcery-Lord would win. Then again, Dreamsinger had the advantage of twelve hours to prepare a defense, building on whatever fortifications the power station already possessed. (You could bet if the station was truly vital to the Sparks, they'd have done their best to make it impregnable.) Dreamsinger also knew she was dealing with a Lucifer; she wouldn't be taken by surprise like her unlucky brother. And even if the Sorcery-Lord got defeated, it didn't mean Sebastian was safe — Spark Royal would then cry vengeance, and no one could win a fight against the entire Spark family (plus the League of Peoples backing them).

So to save Sebastian, we had to reach the power plant ahead of him. Intercept the boy before he came into Dreamsinger's sights. We'd then have to persuade him his bride wasn't the real Rosalind… after which we'd thrash the Lucifer, take Sebastian home, and pray the whole thing would blow over.

Sure. Simple.

On the other hand, if I hadn't been in Niffles risking my life, I'd be home in my stifling don's suite, marking geometry tests and bemoaning how little I'd made of my intellectual potential.

Was tedium better than facing death? I honestly couldn't tell. Someone else in my position might suddenly realize geometry tests weren't so bad after all. Others might say, 'Compared to being a teacher, I'd rather fight alien shapeshifters any day!'

But I couldn't say which I feared more — which I hated more. Quests or tests. Death or monotony.

So it's come to this. And hasn't it been a long way down.

19: THE MUSIC THAT REMAINS

Supper was finished. Darkness had fallen. Outside The Captured Peacock, we waited for Bing to fetch the coach.

Pelinor and the Caryatid huddled together, talking in low voices. Impervia paced back and forth some distance away, surrounding herself with the air of someone who didn't want her solitude interrupted. Annah stood by my elbow, close but not touching.

Silent. Breathing the cool night air.

Stars had begun to appear, plus a few satellites tracking brightly across the blackness at speeds faster than any natural body. Most of the satellites were abandoned and defunct — OldTech derelicts waiting for their orbits to decay — but I wondered if some of those eyes-on-high belonged to Spark Royal: relay stations for ghost-smoke tubes that carried the Lords anywhere on the planet.

Trust the Sparks to have their own private satellites while the rest of Earth couldn't even re-create the Industrial Revolution.

Annah nudged my arm. 'What are you looking at?'

'Oh, just the stars.'

'Making a wish?'

'One wish isn't enough. We need at least a dozen if we hope to see the dawn.'

'Or we could just go home.'

I turned toward her, but she'd focused her eyes on the stars and the dark. 'Haven't we been through this?' I asked. 'Didn't we decide to drink life to the lees?'

'I've been thinking of other ways you and I could do that. Besides dying.'

She looked up at me, eyes white in her dark face. I could see she wanted to kiss me; and I wanted to kiss her. Strange that neither of us made a move.

'I've been thinking of such things too,' I said. 'But if we just ran off and found a honeymoon suite instead of sticking with our friends…'

She nodded. 'I could not love thee, dear, so much, lov'd I not honor more.'

'All these years,' I said, 'and I never knew you liked quoting poetry.'