Truthseeker

Thirty-Four

They crept by the trooper’s vehicle like fugitives, neither of them bold enough to catch his eye. Lara wasn’t strong enough to avoid it, either, and caught a glimpse of his grim expression as Kelly eased their car past his. She glanced sideways, too, then breathed, “We’re going to have to try explaining this at some point, you know.”

“One mess at a time,” Lara whispered back. “At least half a dozen people saw it this time. Maybe that’ll help with Washington.”

“I hope so. God, I’m glad he’s okay. He’s a really good guy, Lara.”

“I believe you.” A little smile curled Lara’s mouth. “Why are we whispering?”

Kelly gave a quick, startled laugh and an equally quick, guilty look over her shoulder to where the trooper and the battle scene were fading in the distance. “I don’t know. Because the boogeyman back there might get us if he hears us?”

“I think the boogeyman is up there somewhere.” Lara nodded toward the soft-lit mountains, her smile fading. “I’m sorry for getting you into this, Kelly. Maybe I should go on alone.”

“There is no way I’m missing the grand finale after all this shit,” Kelly said firmly. “I think even if it gets us killed I’d rather at least know how it turns out.”

Alarm danced up Lara’s spine to the tune of soprano flutes, pure sweet sounds. “Did you know you actually mean that?”

“I kind of thought I did. I’m pretty good about not stretching the truth around you, Truthseeker.” She chortled. “Wish I’d thought of that. Um, so, hey. That guy was David’s brother? He’s cute. Sturdier than Dafydd.”

Lara arched an eyebrow, both pleased and dismayed to see Kelly’s flirtatious nature resurfacing. It was a way to keep her mind off Dickon, Lara knew; any other time she might have reminded her friend that she was engaged.

Not today, though. Whether Dickon could forgive Kelly remained to be seen, and Lara wouldn’t entirely blame him if he couldn’t. Neither, she suspected, would Kelly, and the game of looking to an elfin prince might take some of the edge away from that hard truth. “I think he chose to become stronger. The Seelie are all tall and slim. The Unseelie seemed broader, and he told me they’d changed to suit their surroundings. Maybe in another million years they’ll be dwarfs,” she said flippantly, and curious tones chimed around the idea, exploring it.

“I think I’ll get my digs in while they’re still tall, dark, and handsome, then. Beards never did much for me. I thought we thought he was the bad guy,” Kelly said more quietly.

Lara dropped her chin to her chest. “We did, but you heard him. He was telling the truth.”

“So basically you have no idea who’s out there waiting for us. Okay,” Kelly said to Lara’s nod. “I’m pulling over when we get to the top of that hill, so we’ll be right in the sunlight. And then you can do that voodoo that you do so well.”

“I can’t believe you just said that.”

Kelly straightened, eyes wide. “I can’t believe you just said that! Wow, you’re like a real girl! Somebody call Geppetto!”

“You are not helping.” Lara harrumphed at Kelly’s smile, then looked ahead to the peak of the hill they climbed. Sunlight blinded her as they crested it, a lash of brilliance that reminded her of the true paths she’d created.

None of them were like the one she needed to build now. Two had simply led her home, figuratively and literally, and the third had been seeking indeed, searching out the staff’s location. She thought the fourth had been something else entirely, less a path than a thread that pulled the world into alignment so it answered her need. That need had, perhaps, helped open a door between worlds, had perhaps helped mark the road Ioan ap Annwn wanted to take, but even that was unlike searching out a single man. An enemy, Lara thought, and made that idea clear in her mind. She was preparing to hunt an enemy, an individual with malicious intent. He’d struck at her and her friends repeatedly, and people had paid for that with their lives.

Dafydd might well have paid for it with his life.

Lara’s hands clenched into fists. “No one else.” Truth vibrated through the warning, its strength making Kelly catch her breath as she pulled the car over. Lara got out without thinking about it, feeling a little elfin as she did so: it seemed like being outdoors would help, even if her magic shouldn’t be constrained by steel. She took the staff from the backseat as Kelly got out, and murmured, “I wish I meditated, or something. I feel like if I only had the right kind of mental discipline this would be easy.”

“Think about what it’s like when you’re sewing,” Kelly suggested. “I’ve seen you do it a few times. You get into the zone and nothing bothers you.”

“Just stitch it all together, huh?” Lara smiled, but the idea caught, creating a tapestry in her mind. The door Dafydd had opened to the Barrow-lands began it, golden rectangle against a Seelie night, and black-winged monsters picked out in shining silk against a matte sky. There was something else there, a nebulous being whose presence was only known by his absence, but someone had set the spell to sic the nightwings on them.

The tapestry wound through the hours she’d spent in the Seelie court, reshaping itself into battle. There came the dark thread again, seizing Dafydd’s will before another slash of gold cut it off when Dafydd was thrown back to Lara’s world. And then the attack in the garage, threads finally winding together to make a visible form. A hum struck up at the base of Lara’s skull, the excitement of recognizing a true thing, and the staff, as if sensing her use of magic, warmed in her hands.

Encouraged, the tapestry wove itself faster, dark streak broadening until it became a violent smear of black: the scene they’d just left. Still it leapt forward, details lost as darkness raced away through white threads that turned to bells. Silver, white, pale gold, all ringing with sweet chimes. Goose bumps lifted on Lara’s arms and she opened her eyes, barely daring to breathe.

For an instant she glimpsed a layer of radiation and heat; of all the wavelengths of light that human eyes and minds interpreted into sensible, comprehensible objects and colors. She could see past those constructions, could see a truth that lay outside of her ability to translate into anything meaningful. If she only knew the right direction to look she thought she might see through the heart of the universe, see all the way to its creator and perhaps through that, too. The music was that of the world again, made tenfold, far too much to bear.

Her mind folded under the strain, crumpling with the weight of too much vision and a terrible inability to understand. She dropped to her knees, staff falling away as she hid her face in her hands, and overwhelming song and sight collapsed under her cry.

The tapestry threads remained, though, black against white scoring a mark through her mind. Lara whimpered and felt Kelly’s hands on her shoulders, and through incessant bells heard her friend ask, “Are you all right?”

“I can’t open my eyes.” Power drowned her voice, making it sound like she spoke through water. She ached with trying to contain it, her skin stretching too tight over blood and muscle. “The world hurts my mind. I can see his mark if my eyes are closed, but I can’t open them.”

“Okay. Okay.” Falsehood, all of it: Kelly thought nothing was okay, and was verging on panic. Her fear made spikes in the music, driving into the sides of Lara’s head. “Okay,” Kelly said a third time, and panic faded into determination. “If I get you into the car, can you tell me where to drive without looking?”

“I think so. If I can keep my eyes closed. It’s hard not to look.” Mankind had never been good at not looking, from Lot’s wife to now. Looking upon an angel was said to burn out the viewer’s eyes, and yet the impulse to do so was enormous. An angel couldn’t be so bright as the burning, bewildering world she’d glimpsed. Wanting to look hurt as badly as looking did, magic and human nature clashing with each other.

Maybe that was why humans had so little magic. Maybe their need to explore and investigate had trumped their inner gifts, forcing them to try and absorb more than their minds could handle. Her hands were pressed over her eyes, holding her lids shut, and still she wanted to see. Anyone weak enough to give in to all the glory magic could show them might well have ruptured with it.

Lot’s wife, she thought again, and had an agonizing spike of sympathy for the woman that manifested in a lingering headache.

“Okay,” Kelly said breathlessly. “Okay. Stay there a second. I think David’s coat is still in the backseat. I’ll make you a blindfold? Will that help?”

“Yes.” Relief cracked the single word. “Yes, please.” Barely a minute passed before Kelly tied Dafydd’s coat over Lara’s eyes, arms wound around her head and the back dangling over her face. Almost none of his scent remained in the fabric. “I can’t really breathe.”

“It’s a modern Middle Eastern look,” Kelly said. “I think it suits you.” She flipped the coat back over Lara’s head without loosening the blindfold. “Better?”

Lara drew a shaky breath, grateful for the physical inability to open her eyes and take in a world stripped to its essence by truth. “Much. Thank you.”

“No problem.” Kelly slipped her hand into Lara’s and tugged her gently upward. “Can you navigate?”

Rough-woven white cloth spread out behind her eyelids, the black mark across it jagged and unfriendly. It made a schism in the otherwise pure tones of music, off notes drawing her as strongly as true ones ever had. It was exhausting, and she’d only held on to that much power for a minute or two. “As long as I don’t have to get myself into the car, yes.”

“That much I can help you with.” Kelly guided Lara into the Corolla, buckling her seat belt with motherly efficiency, then hurried around to the driver’s side. “The staff’s in the backseat. Lead on, Quixote.”

Lara turned her head, stymied in giving Kelly a dirty look. Just as well, she thought; with the truth burning in her gaze it might do Kelly physical harm. “That’s two literary references inside of ten minutes. What did you do while I was gone, study the classics?”

“No, I studied them in college, but come on, how often do you get a chance to reference Pinocchio or Don Quixote in real life? I’m just seizing the opportunities you’re presenting.”

The car eased forward, startling without vision to accompany motion. Lara squeaked and fumbled for the handle above the door, curling her fingers around it. “I guess I’m glad to be of service. Not seeing where I’m going is really freaky, Kel.”

“Maybe, but it makes perfect sense.”

“It does?”

“Sure. You’ve heard the phrase ‘blind truth,’ haven’t you? Now,” Kelly said over Lara’s groan, “which way do we go?”

“Lara lara bo barra don’t fall asleep in the car-arra, me my mo marra, Laaaaa-ra. Wake up, Lara.”

“I’m awake!” A half truth: despite the textured white brilliance behind her eyelids, only Kelly’s singing kept Lara on the edge of consciousness. She was confident they’d reached mountain roads, at least. For a while the car had rattled over gravel, barely enough to keep her awake. But gravel had turned to near-silent, if bumpy, grass as they’d traveled onward, and the quietness had let her drift again. “I’m sorry. The blindfold is making me sleepy. And my head itches.”

“Well, you’re in luck. We have reached the end of the road, and I mean that literally. There’s a mountain in front of us. If we need to go up it, we’re doing it on foot. Mountain climbing blind and in high heels. That should wake you up.”

“Or kill me.” Lara tugged the blindfold carefully, then tightened it again. “I don’t think I can take it off without going crazy. I’m still seeing white and hearing whole orchestras. I feel like an overstuffed sausage.”

Worry came into Kelly’s voice, distorting its usual music. “Maybe you should let go of the power.”

Lara shook her head. “I’ll lose him if I do.”

“Blind, high-heel mountain climbing it is, then. When this is over we’ll start a school for athletic businesswomen. At least you can use the staff as a, er. Well. Staff. You know what I mean. A walking stick.” Kelly helped Lara out of the car and got her the staff before adding, “This is a terrible idea, you know?”

“I know.” The ivory staff was cool in Lara’s hands, like it had been after she shut off its power from shaking the earth. That was good: she was certain its power was part of what had stripped the world down to its barest essentials, and she still had the headache from that.

“Okay. I just wanted to make sure it was clear. The first bit’s not so bad. We’ll go slow.”

“We’re going to have to!” Even using the staff as a walking stick, the earth under Lara’s feet seemed eager to reach up and grab her. She set a reluctant pace made somewhat smoother by Kelly’s quick warnings of “Root, hole, branch!”—though the last proved to mean “duck” rather than “step up,” and Lara clobbered her forehead against sturdy lengths of wood twice before Kelly started saying “Duck!” instead.

“Log,” though, meant something to climb over. Kelly went first, grunting. “There’s a kind of pit on this side, so you’ll have to slide farther down than you think you will. Give me your hands.” She guided them down to its softening surface, and Lara leaned there for a moment, testing it with her weight and trying to listen beyond the music in her mind. The discordant tones veered to their left, pulling the threads she’d envisioned that way as well.

“I can’t see and it makes me feel like I shouldn’t talk,” she said after a moment. “Or maybe I’m just paying too much attention to my feet to try. We’re going to have to stop more often so I can see which way to go. We have to go left a little.”

Kelly drew in an unhappy breath. “Are you sure?”

Lara lifted her blind gaze, an eyebrow arched under the weight of Dafydd’s coat. Kelly muttered, “Yeah, yeah, okay, of course you’re sure. It’s just that it gets rougher pretty fast over there, Lar. The angle goes up and it gets rockier instead of woodsy. Maybe we should look for a way around. Go up a ways from where we are and see if it smoothes out.”

“You go.” Lara climbed over the log and sat on it. “It’ll take three times as long if I go up, and if it turns out there’s no way around we’ll have to come back down. At least if you go up we’ll know, and if it’s clear you can come get me.”

“You want me to leave you sitting blindfolded in the middle of a mountain forest?”

Lara managed a wan smile. “We’re probably far enough off the beaten path that the only person who’s likely to find me is the guy we’re after. That’s sort of a good thing.” Rueful truth ran through everything she said, thinning out some of the weighty song still dominating her thoughts. “We’re closer than we were. Maybe we’re close enough that I can let some of this power go and still track him. I’ll try while you’re looking for a path through, okay? It gives us both something to do.”

“All right,” Kelly said unhappily. “But yell if you need anything at all, will you? Even if you just don’t like being alone down here.”

“I will,” Lara promised. “Go on. I’ll be fine.” She forced her shoulders to relax as she listened to Kelly scramble up the hill, then turned her attention to the raw music pounding through her mind.

She had barely loosened her hold on it when Kelly’s scream ripped the air.