Sleepless Streets: Otherwise Engaged

[aithne]

"This strikes me," I muttered to the river, "as an exceptionally bad idea."

Beside me, Iola was bouncing along, in full human form and wearing a bright sun dress she'd picked out this afternoon. The sun was sliding down towards the horizon, and I could hear voices below me raised in song as a barge went under the bridge we were crossing.

For I'm a river driver and I'm far away from home...

I almost expected the too-familiar tune to grab my heart, the voices of young men poling to remind me of simpler, maybe happier times. It didn't, much, though I did reach out to take Iola's hand. I'd know when it was time to go back to the river, it seemed, and today was not the day.

As much as the idea of running away to become an anonymous river driver appealed right now...

I sighed. We were going to be late if I dawdled any longer, and as much as I really didn't want to go to dinner at Luce's house, I really didn't want to endure the withering glares I would receive if I dared show up late. We arrived just in time, and Victor Littleton opened the door with a smile. "Ah, Tomas. Or is it Martin?"

I shrugged, a bit helplessly. "Tonight, I'm probably Tomas. This is Iola."

"Good, good, come in, we're out in the garden." I followed Victor through the house, seeing how he held his shoulders, the smile I'd seen that had not reached his eyes. He wasn't sure of me--what could the ex-husband possibly want here? This wasn't exactly my idea, Victor. But I had shown up, which, strictly speaking, I hadn't had to do.

And now I was here, in this garden with high stone walls and a vine-covered trellis shading an eating area, and Luce fussing over a young man who looked rather put-upon. A young woman stood nearby, the details of her face lost in the shadows she was standing in.

Iola pressed herself against my shoulder, and it was her solidity that anchored me in the moment, as Luce looked up. "Tomas," Luce said. "Amada, Diego. This if your birth father, Tomas Highgarden."

It looked like Luce had at least mentioned who was coming to dinner to the kids, as they both nodded. Diego looked a bit excited, and Amada's face as she stepped forward and out of the shadow was thoughtful, her mouth set. Looking at Diego was a lot like looking at pictures of my dad when he was young. He had the Highgarden nose and forehead. Faced with the two of them, I was lost for words, though I knew that it was my turn to say something. "Ah. Well. This is Iola." She was still pressed up against me, her body tense. Luce was giving her a long, evaluating look. "Luce, thank you for inviting us over."

Luce smiled. I have absolutely no doubt that she was enjoying my discomfort. "Any time, Tomas. Come, sit down. Dinner's almost ready."

I accepted the indicated chair, and settled down. Iola didn't bother to pull a chair over, plopping herself down on the tiled ground, the skirt of her dress puddled around her. I gritted my teeth and decided that asking her to sit in a chair would simply be asking for awkward questions. "So, Amada," I said, trying to keep my voice steady. "I hear you're a water mage."

My daughter sat down across the table from me, her arms folded across her chest. She had hair that was the same color as her mother's at her age, knotted elaborately at the back of her head. "I am. And I hear you're a cop. How's that working out for you? Better than being a River Brother?"

Her voice held an edge to it that made me grit my teeth, and the words River Brother were said with disdain that bordered on disgust. "It has good days and bad," I said. "Like most things. And Diego, your mother told me you're working for a historian?"

Diego grinned lopsidedly. "She lets me bring her tea and run her errands, and she tells me things I want to know. One of these days, she says she'll even let me read some of her books."

I made a valiant effort to keep the conversation going, and Diego at least was game for it--I learned about the things he was studying, what kinds of card games he liked, that he occasionally went to Heaven with some of Amada's mage friends sometimes. Amada was watching me very closely, but she gave only one-word answers to my questions, and never asked any of her own.

I ended up telling Diego the story of how we had gone down deep under the city and found an ancient drow sailing ship, which he was utterly fascinated by. Diego reminded me a lot of Paolo--easygoing, interested in everything, friendly. He didn't remember me at all; he was a toddler when his mother and I split.

Amada, did, that much was obvious. Her little sister, Trini, who took so much after her grandmother Morela, came out to join us and climbed up on Amada's lap, fixing me with a stare that was neither unfriendly nor friendly, just observant. Dinner was served, and Iola kept in contact with me the whole time, even such a small touch as her foot against mine.

After dinner was done with, before Luce had a chance to bring out dinner, I cleared my throat. "Ah. Well, I wanted to tell you both something, Amada, Diego. The reason I ended up coming to look for you in the first place. My brother, Paolo, and his only son died recently. You two are both the Highgarden heirs. My sister in law asked me to find the two of you, and see if one or both of you would come be the heir."

Both of my children blinked. Luce nodded. Victor looked surprised. "Aren't you the Highgarden heir?" Amada asked. "Since you're our father and all."

"Tomas Highgarden is officially dead," I said. "That's what happens when you go into the River Brothers. There's a death certificate and everything. A dead man can't be the heir, so it falls to you two."

"If you just explained, though...you're still alive."

Her face was so serious, and I strained for an explanation. "I'm dead. As far as I know, I've also been officially disowned. Last I heard, my father was intending on declaring that he had never had a son named Tomas, that Paolo was his only legitimate son. Not only am I dead, but according to the Highgardens, I never even existed. Which is a trick to accomplish, if you ask me."

Luce stood. "He threatened, but he never did. Tomas, you never did believe that forgiveness was possible. Victor, would you help me clear the table?" Looking a bit suspicious, Victor rose and helped take the dishes inside the house, where rattling announced that there was washing-up beginning. I was being left to the tender mercies of my children.

Amada's brow was drawn and dark. "Tell me what happened," she said, her voice low and intent. "I want to know."

"I'm sure your mother--"

But Amada shook her head, and that gesture looked so much like one of Luce's that I caught my breath in my throat. "She doesn't talk about what happened. She only says that my sister Inge died, and you got sick afterwards. I remember more than she thinks I do, though." She took a breath. "You killed her, didn't you?"

Now my breath did stop. "I--" I swallowed. This was the question I had wrestled with for a decade and a half. "You want the honest truth, Amada? I don't know what happened. We were on one of the barges, Inge had come down to see me. She was behind me, and I was hauling in rope. All I remember is her asking me what I was doing, the rope slipping. She got tangled in it, somehow, and the rope dragged her down. I dove in after her, and just about drowned myself trying to pull her up. I was too late to save her life, and the clerics couldn't bring her back. And after that..." I shook my head. "Things between your mother and I were never the same. We stopped speaking, she left, and I joined the River Brothers and became a new person."

"And you forgot about us," Amada said. Her voice was still low, but now there was something new in it, a raw anger.

"Lord of the Wave. No. Never. I've thought about you two and your mother every single day. I thought, since she had remarried, you were better off with me out of the picture. River Brothers don't make good fathers." I shrugged, a little awkwardly. "I'm sorry. There's nothing I can do to make up for it."

My daughter sat back, crossed her arms, studied me for a moment. "And once this is over with, you'll disappear again."

I took a long breath. "I don't know, to be honest. It depends on whether either of you want me in your lives. You have a father, a good one as far as I can tell, and both of you are grown or nearly so. I'm not sure that either of you need me, and it's a bit too late for me to fix mistakes I've made. The only thing I can do is avoid making too many more."

Neither of my children seemed inclined to speak, and I had run out of apology for the moment. In the chair next to mine, Iola shifted. She didn't look uncomfortable, just puzzled. "So," I said, gamely trying to keep the conversation going. "Either of you feel like being the Highgarden heir? Or both of you? There would be some things to work out if you wanted it, Amada, but I think with Piedad's help it shouldn't be too troublesome."

Diego and Amada looked at each other. "What would we have to do?" Diego asked.

I shrugged. "Live at the Highgarden house, learn how to keep the account books, get married and have children so people making deals with the Highgardens are reasonably sure the family will be around fifty years from now. Socialize with the rest of the human high families. The good part is that you'll have wealth and leisure enough, especially if you're good at the whole running the family thing, to work on projects of your own. It's a circumscribed existence, but some people enjoy it. I never did."

"Why not?" Amada asked. She was leaning forward, and I thought I saw curiosity under the anger and resentment.

"The river," I said, my voice low. I remembered a longing without a name, a call that brought me to the window when I woke some midnights to look out over the city, towards the river I could not see but could feel was there. As painful as love, as sweet as hatred. "I was always called to the river. It took everything I loved away from me, and I still ran to it when I ran. I can't explain it."

Amada was looking at me, her eyes wide. "It's like it's always there, whispering," she said.

Well, evidently the madness ran in the family. "Yes," I told her. "You got that from me."

The look she gave me then told me that, even as young as she was, she understood irrational longing and love for something too large to even notice your existence. "Mother never told me," she said.

"It's not something most sane people understand," I said. "Takes a special kind of crazy to leave a comfortable existence as the heir to a high house to go be a barge rat, but that was how I met your mother. So. Either of you want to be the heir?"

The children looked at each other again. "Can we both go?" Diego asked.

"Piedad would be overjoyed," I said. "You'll have to work out with her and your mother how often you all will see each other and when."

"Then we can both go," Amada said, her voice final. "And..." She hesitated, abruptly unsure of herself. "Maybe you could come visit sometime."

"I'd like that," I said. "This may require explaining to Piedad who I am. I'd hoped I could avoid that, but...well." There was a sound behind me, and I turned to see Luce standing in the doorway, a bowl in her hands, Trini peeking out from behind her. "That's all decided, then," she said as she walked out into the garden. "We'll go up and see Piedad tomorrow."

As Luce sat down and began passing the bowl of chilled fruit around, Trini edged up to Iola's chair. Turning her head to look at the little girl, Iola returned the girl's gaze with an avid one of her own. Then Trini reached out and touched Iola's arm experimentally, then stroked her skin gently. Her small body relaxed, and with no word to anyone, she clambered up into Iola's lap and settled down there like she never intended to leave. Iola, for her part, didn't look particularly surprised, only folded her arms around the girl carefully.

Luce didn't miss a bit of that. "It's funny, the people Trini does and doesn't like sometimes," she said. Iola had relaxed, the look of puzzlement that had come over her during the tense discussion fading, and my own wariness was beginning to go, as well. Victor came out with some cream for the fruit, and we had dessert and then I and Iola took our leave.

"The small blonde cub was interesting," Iola said. "She could touch inside my head. It tickled a little."

We were heading towards the river and the bridge, and I looked over at Iola, suddenly concerned. "Did she do something to you?"

She shook her head. "No, she just touched and felt. I liked it."

And that, it seemed, was that. We put the tension of the evening to good use once we got home, though the images of Luce and the children remained uneasily in the back of my head. Meeting them had gone better than I'd had any right to expect, and I wondered now about the fearful impulse that had kept me out of their lives, all these years. I had missed so much of their lives, and it was nobody's fault but my own.

Once the morning came, there was a bit of buzz on our tunneling wind devices, and it was decided we were going to take the week off, let Electra get herself and her affairs back together. I worked on the cave a bit, went shopping for Poi, met Diego and Amada for lunch in the human district that Friday.

Monday the 24th of August dawned, as usual, clear and furnace-hot. This summer was lasting forever; fall seemed to still be only the vaguest wisp of a thought, even as the days shortened. We made our way to the Half Door for breakfast, meeting the rest there. Turned out this morning's special was blackberry pancakes, made with fresh blackberries. We were in the middle of ordering when Gaetana pulled up a chair and plopped herself down at an unoccupied corner of the table. "Morning," she said to us, and to the waitress she said, "Tea, blackberry pancakes, and some bacon." The waitress nodded and whisked off, and Gaetana looked us over. "Nice to see you all again," she said conversationally.

"We don't usually see you for breakfast," I said.

She shrugged. "I usually see what you're having when I talk to you, and it always looks good. So here I am. Let's eat, and I can tell you what kind of weird shit currently requires your attention."

Our food arrived and we applied ourselves to it; I kept half an eye on Iola, who if she'd been in wolf form would have had her ears flattened. Something about Gaetana's presence--probably the fact that even in civilian clothes she was exuding an aura of in charge--seemed to be setting her teeth on edge. Gaetana ate, listening to the catching-up chatter we were passing back and forth. Electra was quieter than normal, and she looked tired. She didn't mention much about what she had been up to during the week, and everyone except Basil was too polite to ask.

When Basil asked, she simply shrugged and said she'd been dealing with the mess that everyone in her immediate family dying had left behind. She didn't say much more than that, and by that time we were finished eating anyway. Gaetana cleared her throat.

"We have a bit of a graffiti problem," she said. "A picture of Amasa appeared on the walls of the elven palace overnight." Amasa was supposedly the mayor of Kaladreega, the son of the elven ruler, and someone they trotted out for ceremonial occasions and otherwise kept under lock and key. It had been suggested by a number of people that he had been chosen for his ability to look impressive while kissing babies and shaking hands. "Someone came along and gave him a moustache and breasts, and they appeared on him. Fascinating, really. And since it's the elves..."

"It's a priority," Argos said. "Well, it sounds like it's right up my alley. Walls of the elven palace, you said?"

"Outer wall, to be exact. Twenty feet to the left of the main gate. You really can't miss it." She shoved her chair back and stood. "Thank you for the breakfast. I'm going to go back before I'm missed."

We paid for her breakfast and ours, and headed towards the elven district. There were high, wispy clouds overhead, but it didn't look like we were in for weather any time soon. Too bad, really. It had gotten to the point where it would be good to have some rain to wash the streets clean again.

Iola had changed into her wolf form and was ranging out away from us, though once we entered into the carefully manicured lushness of the elven district, I requested that she stay close. She fell in beside me, her ears flicking back and forth as she took in every sound and smell surrounding us.

We were challenged a number of time by guards as we proceeded in through the rings of the elven district. We showed our badges, and though the guards sniffed, they always let us through. With every ring we passed through, the buildings got nicer and the landscape more artificial. It seemed like every shrub was a topiary, every tree espaliered against a wall. Even the grass looked like it was scared to be anything other than lush and verdant.

The painting was on the wall of the first ring. Within this ring was the elven palace, and I was pretty sure we weren't going to be allowed inside. What we had expected to see, I wasn't sure, but it wasn't exactly what we got. The cops were holding back the crowd that had gathered, and we asked them to disperse the crowd and not let anyone near for a bit. There were disappointed mutters, but the crowd did move off.

There was more than one painting on the wall, and they weren't really proper paintings at all. They were drawings made in chalk, amazingly lifelike, and there were two of them. The one that a problem had been reported about was of the mayor. It looked almost like he was stepping out of the wall, it was that good. There were flowers, mostly roses, laid at the foot of the wall, apparently in appreciation of the unknown artist's work.

The real problem was not the moustache and rather amazingly large breasts that had been drawn onto the picture. It was that the mayor's skin tone had been depicted as a dark bronze, and his hair gold fading into white. I'd seen pictures of the guy before, and he was usually pale-skinned and dark-haired. Someone was trying to suggest his drow heritage.

The other drawing, once we took a better look at it, was just as problematic. Maybe more so. At first glance, it looked like it was maybe Kaladreega in an earlier time. But when we looked closer, it was apparent that it was no such thing. It was depicting the tree city that we'd seen a bit over a week ago, the one that had been petrified.

And there were elves in it. One of them, we could see, was our friend Delwin. And if the changes to the picture of the mayor had become real...

I had a bad feeling about this. Once the elves who weren't really elves here found out that there was suddenly a population of true elves living to the north, that would probably be the last of that village. Again.

I glanced at the sky. And if it chose to rain---would washing away the chalk erase the village?

A few more experiments, and Argos sticking his head into both paintings, proved that my fears were true. The elven village was indeed restored along with all the people, and Delwin, when Argos asked, said that he had been where he was hiding one moment and back in the restored village the next. Experiments proved that if a part of the drawing was erased, a corresponding place would disappear in the village.

"The guy's name is Tam, or his initials are Tam, or something," Electra said, bending low to inspect the corner of the big mural. Argos had set to trying to fix the drawing. Iola had found a patch of shade and was sprawled out comfortably in it. She was chewing on something. Looked like a shoe of some sort. I decided not to ask.

What I did ask was, "Can you smell who might have been the artist here?"

Iola got to her feet, dropping the shoe in the process. She shook her coat back into place and then took a good sniff around, doing circles with her head low. She shifted into midform--never a pretty process to watch, though I was almost used to it now--and said, "Human. Male. Young. Started a while ago, ended before sunrise."

"It's full of magic," Electra added. "Everything from illusion to conjuration."

I gave the drawings a long look, watching Argos trying to fix the one of the mayor. "If we can find the artist, we might be able to find out why. Because the next drawings might not be nearly so nice. Depends on what the guy's agenda is."

Argos was putting the final touches on the newly non-breasted mayor. "Can Iola track him?" he asked, standing back from the wall and studying his work.

"I can," Iola growled. Without waiting, she took off, her body almost folded in half and her nose close to the ground. I gave a hasty instruction to the cops here to not let anyone touch the drawings and followed.

He had gone south, and stopped at a fountain at the edge of the elven district. It was one I'd seen before, in the middle of square, and as I looked at the fountain in the middle, I frowned. "Didn't that mermaid have a tail?" I asked, pointing.

"Um, guys?" Electra said. "There's a woman sleeping at the bottom of the fountain..." We all came over and peered down. The woman was naked except for what seemed to be an impractical brassiere made out of shells, and was loosely curled on the tile bottom of the fountain. Gills in her neck opened and closed in a slow rhythm. I looked at the woman, looked at the statue, and back again. "Let's leave sleeping mermaids lie for the moment," I said. "Iola, lead on, if you would?"

She gave me a lupine grin, put her nose to the ground, and started following the trail with a strangely loping gait. We came to a place on the side of a blacksmith's shop where an entire armory full of weapons had been drawn. We experimented and found out that we could put our hands into the drawing and pull out real weapons.

A little farther on, we found the artist himself. He was working on a large drawing, moving in a rather dazed fashion, and the building he was drawing looked familiar. It was the elven palace. And those were flames he was adding, as the final touch.

Iola tackled him, growling happily. "Don't shake him too much, dear," I told her. The guy had dropped the piece of orange chalk he'd had in his hand, and Electra picked it up, looking thoughtful.

"This is more magic than I've seen in a space this small for a long time," she said.

"Where did you come by the chalk?" I asked the guy, who was trying to stay as still as possible. "And what's your name?"

"Tam," he said. "I swear, I just woke up this morning, and there was all this art stuff on my stoop. Chalks, sculpture stuff, pottery stuff, you name it. I've always thought I could be an artist if I had the time..."

"Where's your house?" Argos asked. Tam told him, and then Argos went off, asking Iola to come with him. Basil was rummaging through the bag of art supplies, and came up with some clay and tools. He began to shape the clay into a pot, which came together very quickly. The designs almost seemed to carve themselves.

So it wasn't the guy but the tools that had an agenda. We went back to the mermaid fountain, Tam in tow. He was still confused as to what he'd done wrong, but he was willing enough to come along.

The mermaid was awake when we got there. When we waved, she came up, the gills on her neck venting water and then closing, almost invisible against her neck. "What now?" she asked. "One minute you're out in the ocean, the next you're here, and you have legs that don't look like they're going away, and the exit's bricked shut."

"Er, what's your name" I asked.

"Celosia," she said. "Where the hell am I?"

"Place called Kaladreega," I said.

"Oh, there," she said, fluttering the fingers on one hand in a disgusted fashion.

I looked at Tam. "Was this your idea?"

He shook his head. "I've always thought the mermaid was pretty, but I've never had the urge to give her legs. But I saw her, and just...sort of needed to. It's hard to explain."

Celosia hmmphed and dove back under the water and proceeded to start prying bricks away from what looked to be a water outlet. Electra held up the piece of chalk she'd been studying. "Has to be a mage and a cleric working together, I think. Is Poi awake? Can he take a look?"

"Wondered when you people were going to get around to asking me," Poi said, sticking his head out of the pouch. His whiskers were vibrating. "Give me that." Electra handed him the chalk and he dove back down into the interdimensional pouch. I wondered how big it was in there these days. Basil held up the pot he had just finished, which had hardened without any help from a kiln and filled itself with kender wine. He happily announced he was going to make one filled with healing potions, next.

About that time, Argos and Iola found us. Iola loped over to me and sat down, leaning against my leg. Argos said, "The watch said they remember seeing a guy with a patched cloak around midnight. They said he looked like he was homeless, but he was too clean. He headed away towards the university."

Electra perked up at that. "Hey, that sounds like one of my teachers. He was really proud of that cloak, and we all called him Patches because of it. And...oh. Funny." She looked at me. "He hung out a lot with a priest named Logan. Old guy, looked kind of crusty..."

"Pater Logan Riverrun," I said. "Head of the River Brothers, and I think crusty is the right word. Good guy, but our worship leaves its mark on people. He's probably one of the best clerics in the city. And...what the hell is that?"

Celosia had managed to get through the wall; I saw nothing but the flash of her feet as she vanished into the water system. Leaking into the fountain from the hole she had made was a green liquid. "That can't be good. This fountain is connected to the rest of the elven water supply, and eventually their well..."

I had an abrupt suspicion that I knew what the liquid was. Electra looked like she'd come to the same conclusion. "Can we shut it off?"

"I can," I said. "At least wall it up again and make it temporarily watertight." I stripped down to just my pants and did just that, surfacing afterwards none the worse for breathing in water tainted with the green stuff. I got a sample of the tainted water for Poi, and then it was off to find Professor Patches, whatever his real name was.

Electra knew exactly where she was going, and it turned out Professor Patches was named Keefe Outungh. He wasn't anything other than what I expected, but the moment Electra saw him, she went into Perky Mode. It worked surprisingly well on her, to tell the truth. Basil, however, was remarkably annoyed by it.

I made a note to myself for later. Good to know that something annoys the kender, if he needs annoying later on sometime.

It took a lot of circuitous questioning, but we finally managed to get at least part of the story out of Keefe. He had been out a few nights ago with Logan and Mirabel, who was the head of the Illusions department. He didn't have a whole lot of memory of how he'd gotten home that night, but when we asked him how he felt about the palace burning, he said, "It makes me want to open portals to the lower planes...why on earth would I want to do that?"

We looked at each other. "I think you're under a geas of some sort," I said. "Do you have a good diviner here somewhere?"

"Jamie," he said. "Let's go, I want to find out who's messing with my mind."

We found the diviner, and then got the rest of the story. They had been out together, and all three of them had been touched by something invisible. They had come back to the university and created the artist's tools that night, and Keefe had delivered them the next night.

Jamie took the geas off of Keefe, and sent for Mirabel to do the same to her. He also sent a message to his friend Logan, to tell him to have himself check for geases. "I guess I know why the mermaid was opening that hole. She was opening a path into the elven water supply for the only group of people in the city who can breathe water without spells. River Brothers."

"Who, though?" Basil asked. We'd retreated to my place, and I'd put up all the anti-scrying spells I knew about and a couple I made up on the spot jus for good measure. "Those geases were a piece of work. Clerics just don't get geased like that."

I blinked, thinking. "Unless it's a stronger cleric," I said. "Who's stronger than Logan, though? The list has got to be short." Poi had climbed out of his pouch and was sitting on my knee, looking nearsightedly at each of us in turn. He had analyzed the green stuff and discovered it was what I'd feared--a potion to turn the elves back into drow. Iola was sprawled on the cool stone floor in wolf form next to me.

"I can think of one person," Argos said. "Whoever leads the druids these days."

I thought about it. "They might be taking this one step further," I said. "Last I knew, though, they didn't know the elves are really drow. Unless...well, shit. Poi? Do you still have that pendant Biff gave us, the one that lets us call for help?"

The rat's ears flattened against his head. It was a long moment before he responded. "You know, I'm the smartest person in the world, but I'm not so good with the wisdom sometimes," he said, sounding a bit disgusted. "Remember all that surveillance stuff I set up? I based it all on the magic in that pendant."

I looked at him. He looked back. "They can access the network as easily as you can," I said.

"The secret's out," he said. "Well, the big kahuna druid's my best guess for who's responsible, now."

"Me, too," I muttered. "Can you get that pendant out? I think we need to talk to Biff." He did so, and there was vehement swearing coming from pretty much everyone else in the room except Iola, who had looked around when the muttering had started and then proceeded to go to sleep.

Silas agreed to meet us in the druid district, in a place he knew that was relatively secure. He arrived shortly after we did, and after a bit of questioning, he admitted that he did watch us. "The official position is not to do anything about the drow thing, though," he said. "But if someone were doing something...you're right, Peg's a good suspect. That's how her mind works. I have to admit, it keeps our hands clean, and the elves wouldn't probably think to look our way. But it's also probably going to end up with most of the city burning to the ground and a lot of innocent people dead."

"We have to stop it. How do you stop someone with that much power?" Electra said.

Poi was sitting on my shoulder. "Oh, I have an idea. You guys might not like it, though."

The rest eyed Poi with some suspicion. "What?" Electra finally asked.

"We back Silas, here, in a bid to be grand high druid poobah thingie. He kills the current one and then gets to kill the plan. He's plenty good enough. I don't know if you guys have noticed, but he's pretty high up in the druids. Funny thing about the druids, though. They require their leader to be married. Seems to me that I remember something about you needing a husband..."

Electra's mouth fell open. Silas looked thoughtful in a hell yes sort of way, and I wondered just how much of Poi's network he'd tapped into. There had been those bugs in Electra's bedroom, after all.

Funny. It had never occurred to me that Silas liked Electra even enough to give her the time of day, much less agree to marry her. But he'd kept coming around for a reason, and at this point I figured it wasn't because he liked the rest of us. Electra's face was going a bit crimson. "I, um...I don't know."

Silas eyed Electra. "You know," he said in a carefully offhanded voice, "We've liberated libraries from a number of necromancers over the years. Only the grand high druid can grant access." Electra was silent, and I could almost see her mind working furiously.

Basil produced his pot of elven wine, holding it out to Electra. "I propose a toast--to partnerships, current and future. And oh, hey!" Electra took the pot from Basil, still looking stunned, and the ender began frantically rummaging in his pockets. He came up with a rung with a single large ruby set in it--an engagement token. "Here, Silas, you might need this," he said, tossing the ring at the druid.

Electra shot Basil a look that would have stopped his heart stone cold if glares could kill. Then she looked at Silas, and sighed. "All right," she said. "The rat's right, I need a husband. Don't think this is going to get you laid a lot, though."

At that point, Silas did the only thing he could do. He went down on one knee and proposed to Electra.

She accepted, and I thought she looked somewhat charmed despite herself. We got down to business after that, coming up with a series of chained dispels that would bring down Peg's defenses, and a modified chain lightning that would do some serious damage to her if it didn't kill her outright. A few other bits and pieces were collected, including a gold dragon egg that came out of Basil's pocket and was given to Silas.

It seemed to be taken for granted that we were going to be witnesses, so we followed Silas through a treewalk to an open field deep in the druid district. There was a gathering here, and Silas strode into the middle of it and challenged Peg.

She was a woman who looked about my age, except for her eyes. Those eyes were ancient as mountains. "Fine," she said. "Half an hour."

She vanished, and Silas came over to us. "Well, here goes," he said, keeping his voice low. "Wish me luck."

"Good luck," Electra told him, and I thought she meant it. The half hour passed tensely, and then a large circle of druids formed around the perimeter of the meadow.

"You aren't druids," one of them said to us.

"Friends of Silas," I said. "Talk to him if you have a problem."

The druid, a tall and skeletally thin woman in not nearly enough clothing, looked at us and then Silas and stomped away. The two druids squared off, standing about twenty feet from each other. Peg looked completely unconcerned.

That changed after the duel was declared open. She launched her first salvo; Silas let go of the spell Poi had given him. I had never known a dispel magic to make a noise before, but this one did--a low thrumming roar punctuated by pops as Peg's protective spells gave way. Her eyes widened, and she raised her hands to let off another series of spells.

The words of the spell never left her mouth. Silas handled the lightning like it was his new best friend, releasing it from his hands with a word from a wand hidden in his sleeve. It rove through her, filling the meadow with a sound like the world ending, and doubled back on itself, going through her again and again.

It took little time for her body to be reduced to cinders. Silas stood over her body and looked around at the assembled throng. "Anyone else?" he asked in a voice that seemed very quiet after the cacophony of the lightning.

Nobody stepped forward.

He came to us afterwards. "It's a long walk back to the elven district, if that's where you're going," he told us. "I can take you."

"End of October," Electra said. Silas raised an eyebrow. "For the wedding," she clarified. "I was thinking the last day of October. In the evening, maybe."

"The last harvest festival," he said. "Probably appropriate. Sounds good to me, I'll be there."

"You'd better," Electra said, but her smile didn't quite make it all the way to her eyes. Silas took us over to the elven district, where we'd left Tam with some non-magical chalk to see what he'd draw. It turned out to be the broken bridge, made whole again. Poi, while Biff had been getting ready to become the leader of the druids, had been working on how to disconnect the magical drawings from their subjects. He had come up with a way Tam could do so, so we took him to the various places he'd left drawings and had him do that, then turned him loose.

It had been a long day already, and it was barely noon. We decided to go check on the last thing we had on our list of things Gaetana had given us when we'd first joined the force, barely six weeks ago but it felt much, much longer.

It seemed there was a block in the human district where someone was stealing panes of window glass...

****

"Squirrels," Electra said to the glowing glass box in front of her. "Why squirrels?"

"There's a lot of them, they're very simple, and they have good paws," the box said. "And they'll do anything for you if you tell them you're trying to take over the world."

I looked at the demon, a denizen of the elemental plane of glass, it claimed. "Are you?" Electra asked it. She was the only one it was listening to, though we could all hear it speak. She was holding onto it, her hands on pads on either side of the glass block the demon was contained in.

"Well, no. People pay us a lot to find out the secrets that would allow you to, though." The glass demon sounded thoughtful. "The knowledge goes home in the glass, and then people on other planes connect their oracles to us and ask us all sorts of silly questions. I haven't been here for long, but you have a very interesting little plane here."

"How much would I need to pay you for you to tell me how to take over this world?" Electra asked.

"That's not hard. The rest of those panes," the demon said.

I muttered, "You can't be serious." How we had gotten here is a tale that's a bit more than slightly absurd; it involved a mist, a gang of squirrels, and me staying my hand from my Shatter spell against my better judgment. Did I really want Electra to know how to take over the world?

I do have to admit more than a little curiosity, so I just watched as Electra fetched the rest of the panes of glass and pressed them against the glass block. The panes were absorbed, and Electra put her hands on the glass again. "You're most of the way there," the demon said cheerfully. "The drow and druid war will be finished, one way or the other, by the last harvest. If the druids win, Silas will survive. With your help, he can expand his influence over not only this city but the others on this continent. It would take several lifetimes, but there you go. One world. Oh, and if you find the flying city of the ancients, that will make things a lot easier. It's moored halfway between Kaladreega and Norbrock."

"That's it?" Electra asked, disbelieving. "Hang out with Silas?"

"You asked," the glass block said.

Electra threw her hands up and stomped off. I gave the glass block a taste of a Shatter spell, and the rest of us followed Electra out. Electra was still grumbling as we split up for the night, going to our respective homes.

One mystery, solved, and new information to worry over.

The drow and druid war will be finished, one way or the other, by the last harvest...



Quotes:

"Dr. Pepper is totally a nancy-boy."
--Laura

"You know me?"
"Yes, you rescued me weeks ago."
"Oh. Good!"
--Argos, Delwin


"So maybe we should stop sticking our fingers into a great...big....dyke? Er."
--Basil

"Oh, god. I'm leaving if she's going to be a girl."
--Basil

"One more perky out of you, and I'm going to stick this stylus up your nose."
--Laura

"Basil, several of the female druids want your number. They want to know about the whole net thing."
"Say no more! They can have it."
"Net thing...? I don't even want to know."
"Yes, you do!"
"Yes, but I'll ask later."
--Silas, Basil, Martin

"You're so suspicious, Emily."
*death glare*
--Basil, Electra

"Don't pretend that this is going to get you laid a lot."
--Electra, to Silas

"Oh my god, there are Habitrail gangs."
--Basil

"Have you ever seen squirrels? They're evil."
--Martin

"This isn't a good idea--"
"This is already a bad idea, I'm going to continue."
--Martin, Electra

"You can buy videos of Electra and the angel on Emrou Street."
--Storm