[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
.“That long.Val, listen—” she started to gaze off past his shoulder and he touched her arm again to bring her back.“Listen.This is important.The nexus grove is in danger.Someone is going to destroy it un—”“Ladies and Gentlemen,” Beth Kentraine’s voice called over the babble of the crowd.“We are Spiral Dance.We’re back and ready to rock!”Kory cursed in every language he knew.The moment the first note resounded, he lost Val completely.She was off her stool and onto the dance floor; every word, and even his existence, completely forgotten.He tried again, with another elf he recognized.Eldenor a warrior of the High Court, who currently sported a purple mohawk and a black leather jumpsuit so tight he must have magicked it on.Eldenor was alone, sitting in a two-person booth near the bandstand; his eyes fastened on the Bard, drinking in every note the young man played.When Beth began singing a traditional Celtic tune, and Eric built a foundation for her voice to soar over, Eldenor’s eyes began to take on a glow of hereness.A sense that he was at least focusing on something.Kory slipped into the other side of the booth.“Eldenor?” he said, when the other took no note of his presence.“Yeah?” The eyes didn’t waver from the bandstand.“Eldenor, don’t you remember me?”“Shit no, man.”Kory closed his eyes, asked for patience, and tried again.“Eldenor, it’s Kory.Korendil.You helped train me.To be a warrior.Remember?”The eyes flickered briefly from the stage to him, returning to the stage.“Oh, yeah.Kory.You went away.”Kory reached out and seized the other by the elbows, sending power in the kind of shock he’d used to rouse the Bard this afternoon.“Eldenor, I didn’t go away.I was imprisoned.By Perenor and his daughter—” The shock brought only the barest of responses, and Kory lost his temper.“Damn you, Eldenor,” he cried, shaking the other.“This is important! The power nexus is going to be destroyed!”As if to underscore his words, the lights flickered briefly.Kory sensed that a storm had begun outside.Eldenor shook his head, and looked at Kory, a faint hint of puzzlement in his expression.“Hey man, chill out,” he said.“Nothing’s all that important—”Then Eric began playing a solo, and Kory lost him completely.He tried several more, but all with the same lack of result, and all the power he used to try and shock them back into an understanding of their peril vanished without a sign of any reaction.They were so drained of magic that it just trickled into them without making an impression.Any glimmer of hope began to fade before despair, and the depression that failure after failure left him with.How can this be, that they are so completely lost? What has happened to them in the ten years since I was imprisoned?The lights flickered again just as the band finished the Celtic song, and flickered a third time as they began a rock number.And in the moment between those flickers of light, Kory caught a familiar lift of a head, a high, proud profile—and his heart raced.Blessed Danann.He’s here.My prince—He shoved his way through the crowd, paying scant heed to those who swore at him or cast angry glances in his wake.He fought to reach the table at the rear where he’d seen that glimpse of majesty—Only he reached it to find just how ruined the majesty had become.Kory could feel something dreadfully wrong as he forced his way between packed chairs to the table at the back where the Prince was sitting alone.He knew that the wrongness went deep when he saw the way the Prince was sitting, slouched down in his chair, with his eyes blank and his hand wavering a little as he reached for his drink.But when he recognized just what it was that Prince Terenil was drinking he froze in horror.Dark brown, effervescent—Coca-Cola.There was a pitcher of the stuff on the table, and it was three-fourths empty.An elf could drink any five mortals under the table.An elf could shrug off the effects of most of the drugs that left mortals paralyzed or insane.But this—this stuff that mortals imbibed with such careless ease—this was another thing altogether.Caffeine.Soft drinks, coffee, tea.To the Old Blood it was deadly.It enhanced Dreaming; induced hallucinations.Destroyed will and removed the elf that indulged in it from any semblance of reality.And Prince Terenil, the pride of the High Court on this side of the Hill, was sitting in a mortal nightclub, his eyes glazed, his hands shaking, and most of a pitcher of cola plainly inside him.Kory was not even certain that he could hear the Bard’s music, much less Feel his magic as the others so clearly did.He had thought he had seen despair at its worst when he had first awakened, and heard the talk of the place-of-festival.How at the festival’s end the place would be leveled, the groves of oaks destroyed—including the one that anchored the magic nexus to this side of the Hill.He had thought that there was nothing that could possibly be worse—Until now.He looked at the ruin of his liege and lord, and wanted to howl his despair to the four winds.Instead, he sat himself carefully by Terenil’s side, and used most of the last of his magic to try to touch the Prince’s mind.By Danann, I don’t know if I can even find it, much less touch it!He could only imagine one reason for Terenil falling to this state.The Prince had given up any hope of Awakening his people.It must have happened soon after Kory, his friend and closest advisor, had fallen prey to that traitor Perenor, and vanished from the ken of the elves.Perhaps that vanishment itself had triggered the Prince’s fall.“My lord?” he prompted verbally, holding his despair at arm’s length.The Prince gave no sign that he had heard.Blessed Danann—is there anything left of the warrior that once held us all in awe? And if he has sunk so low—what hope is there of saving the rest?“My lord, it is Kory.I’ve returned to you, my lord.”The Prince stared at his hand, and slowly raised the glass of sparkling poison to his lips.And drank.Kory restrained himself from slapping the foul stuff out of his hand, and spoke again, as gently as he could.“My lord, I have news.I have found a Bard, a human Bard.A true Bard, and one of such power as I have never seen.He has agreed to be our Champion, my lord.He has said he will help me Awaken the Dreamers and save our magic.”Still no sign that Terenil even knew he was not alone.“My lord, I did not leave you willingly.The traitor Perenor imprisoned me in the Grove, after his daughter had lured me there and struck me down with trickery.This Bard that I have found—he loosed the spells of lock and ward, and woke me out of my spell of slumber.He freed me from Perenor’s power, and he is untutored! Just think, my lord, when I have taught him to use his Gift—”Terenil made no response, none at all.If Kory had been alone, he would have put his head down on the table and wept.I still may, he thought, swallowing hard.Only let me be by myself—and I shall weep and not be ashamed.Oh my lord, my beloved lord—“We have a chance, my lord.With the help of this Bard, we have at least a chance.”He stood, as Terenil continued to stare at his hand, the one holding the glass.Blinking slowly, but showing no other sign that he was still conscious.I cannot stay here, and still remain sane, he whispered to himself [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]