"Where do we enter the Titan Mountains?" I asked after I had wiped my hand on my trousers.
"As far east of here as possible," the elf said.
"Near the border with Dorthin?" I asked.
He considered that for a few seconds. "It will do."
"We'll leave tomorrow morning then," I said. "Portal to Thyme, and ride south from there." There were gates closer to the Titans along that border, but the doorways there weren't situated to make it easy for horses, and we would strain the resources of either of the small castles south of Thyme if we took enough for our expedition.
"You do realize, of course, that for you to get back to your father, you'll have to do whatever you can to make sure that we succeed and get back here," I told the elf. "If I don't make it back, you don't get home."
"There is always that risk," he said. "And there is one detail you might consider. Floating around in that alcohol fogs my mind. It isn't necessary. I will remain as I am until I get home."
"Not on the basis of my spell," Parthet said. "I didn't try a preservative, just a communications magic."
"No, certainly not on the basis of your puny magic," the elf sneered. "But you let me talk and I have talked."
"If you don't need the alcohol, we'll find another temporary home for you," I said. "That pot would have been awkward on the road anyway." I wanted to ask who else he had been talking to, but I didn't want to give him the satisfaction of the question.
"Take good care of my body while we're gone," the elf said, turning his eyes toward Parthet. "It is part of the bargain this Hero has made."
"It is," I agreed.
"I will know if it is disturbed, and if it is, my cooperation ends at that moment," the elf said. "I hope that is thoroughly understood."
I stared at Parthet, and he nodded. Behind him, so did Baron Kardeen.
"It will be properly cared for," Kardeen said.
"You can't get a better promise than that," I told the elf. "In fact, I think we should get the body back into storage right now." I didn't want to leave head and body together in the same room. The elf had seemed much too anxious to have us set his head back on his shoulders. Maybe he couldn't put himself back together without help, but then, maybe he could. He had controlled his arm and hand at a distance.
Kardeen called the two soldiers back in. They laid the body back on its stretcher and carried it from the room. Parthet looked at the head he was holding.
"If the alcohol is out, we'll have to find something else for you here then," Parthet muttered. "Don't want you just rolling away and getting lost." He stared over the head at the wall for a moment, then turned to me.
"I think I have just the thing. Gil, would you go upstairs to my room? On the shelf, next to the window. You'll see what I want."
I nodded and hurried up the steps. As soon as I opened the door of his upper chamber, I saw what he wanted-a wicker birdcage. I laughed almost all the way back down to the workroom, but I was careful to put on a straight face before I went inside.
"I assume this is what you were talking about?" I said.
"The very item," Parthet said. "The bottom unclips there."
I took the bottom of the cage off and set it on Parthet's work table. He set the elf's head on it, clipped the cage over its bottom, and dried his hands.
"It might not be the most dignified setting, and I do apologize for that," Parthet told the head. "But it keeps you out of the alcohol and leaves you free to speak whenever you need to. And it will be easier to transport you like this than in the pot."
The elf didn't say a word, but I thought that he must be fairly burned up at the idea. I think I would have been, despite Parthet's apologies. The rest of us left the room quickly.
"Aren't you afraid that he'll conjure up some mischief in there?" I asked Parthet.
"No more now than he might have before," Parthet said, shrugging as we walked toward the great hall. "I have certain strong protections, especially in my shop. While they might not completely baffle our guest, they will at least make any mischief harder to accomplish and easier to detect. My magic may be infinitely weaker than his, but I've been in business a long time, and I have done a lot of my work in that room. The influence builds."
"I think we ought to put his body behind the strongest locks around, and keep a guard over it until we're out of here," I said. "I have the notion that if he puts head and body together he won't need us to get home to his father."
"You may be right," Parthet said. "That handshake of his was impressive."
"My hand is still freezing."
"I'll take care of security for him," Kardeen said. When we reached the great hall, he called out to two of the soldiers who were lounging around and got them busy.
Lesh got up from the table, drained a tankard, and came to meet me.
"Everything's ready, 'cept for what we'll need to fetch from Cayenne in the morning, our weapons and such, and a case of those magic dinners you got stored." Magic dinners-I had a big stock of freeze-dried meals. They take a lot less room to pack than real food.
"That's good," I said. "We'll be going to Thyme by portal and ride south from there."
"Into Dorthin?" Lesh asked.
"Not if we can avoid it." Yes, Dorthin was technically mine, and Dieth was ruling the country as duke in my name, but Dorthin wasn't entirely tame, and many of the warlords in the marcher territories of Dorthin were particularly independent… and hostile to me and to Varay.
The afternoon was just about shot, so Lesh and I headed back to Cayenne for supper. It would be a night for heroic pigging out, for eating far beyond the point of satiation. The four of us who were going on the road in the morning would all try to fill ourselves to the bursting point against the inevitable light rations of the next few weeks-or months. In the height of summer, it might not be as bad as it would be at other seasons. Lesh and Harkane were sure to know which wild fruits and vegetables would be ripe and edible, and we could figure on occasionally supplementing our stores through the benefices of some unsuspecting wild animal along the way, but there was simply no possible way to mount a lengthy expedition in the wilds and carry enough food to provide garrison-style meals for long. You hit the point of diminishing returns very quickly in the buffer zone. The more food you haul along, the more animals you need to carry your supplies, the slower you travel… and the more food you have to bring along. Supper, a bedtime "snack," and breakfast-we would stuff ourselves at all three meals, and try to top it off at Basil and before we rode out of Thyme. The bloated feeling we started with would pass all too soon, and we would ride with an edge of hunger until we returned to someplace with civilized kitchens.
When we stepped through to Cayenne, Joy and Timon were still hauling their booty through from Louisville. I let Joy hold the passage open and pitched in to help Timon cart everything through.
"What did you do, clean out the city?" I asked as I carried two cases of Pepsi through.
"I tried," Joy admitted cheerfully. "That was fun, a real binge."
"We filled up the wagon twice," Timon said as we passed, me going back for another load, him carrying one through.
"I got a lot of Pepsi and pizza mixes, and junk food and books, good coffee, cocoa, powdered milk, German wine, two cases of beer for you, and a lot of other goodies."
"What's the latest news?" I asked, hauling through the two cases of Michelob. It was in cans. I always buy the bottles, but cans meant that I could take some along on the road without worrying that it would get busted and wasted.
"They're tracking the radioactivity across Florida and they're burning thousands of acres of orange and grapefruit trees. They say that a lot more than a half million people were exposed to radiation at dangerous levels. The hospitals are all full, and they're rushing to get all of the bodies buried as quickly as possible. The UN Security Council is debating a resolution calling for member nations to take 'all necessary measures to eliminate the threat of organized terrorism worldwide,' whatever that means."
"It means a lot of bloody fighting," I said.
"Everyone seems to think that it will pass."
"Then you'd better be damn sure you get your family moved through as quickly as you can Saturday. Don't dally in Chicago."
"I won't. Oh, I cleaned the supermarket out of Hershey Bars and Milky Ways too."
"They'll come in handy. Chocolate's good for quick energy." I was quick to decide that we'd have to sneak some of the candy bars out for our trip.
"Powdered hot chocolate mix, a bunch of canned food, today's newspapers-USA Today, Wall Street Journal, Chicago Tribune, Louisville Times, New York Times. This week's news magazines, and I don't know what-all else. Some clothes, shampoo, personal things." She hesitated a minute. "Gil, I think I spent more than two thousand dollars."
"Is that all? The way you kept listing stuff, I figured it would be more than that. But I didn't know I could get that much out on my bank card in one day."
"You can't. You had about six hundred in your wallet and there was a little over a thousand in cash in that lock box you brought over from Chicago, and I had some cash of my own."
"Don't worry about it. Money's no problem. I told you that. You could have taken the credit cards too."
"I didn't think about it or I would have," Joy admitted with a smile.
Timon and I brought the last of the loot through, and Joy let the doorway close. We kissed and then she started digging through all the stuff to show me what she had bought.
"We can look at it all later," I told her. "It's suppertime."
"Oh, I got a bunch of those big square batteries for the lanterns too. You said batteries wear out fast."
"If you want your Pepsi cold, you'll have to coax Parthet to come over and freeze a block of ice for you," I said as we walked downstairs to eat.
"I didn't think about ice," she admitted.
"We've got a closet fixed up something like a shower stall, with a watertight door. Fill it with water and Parthet does his abracadabra bit and turns it into a solid chunk of ice. Chip off what you need either to put in a glass or to chill bottles in one of the coolers. Takes about ten days for the ice in the closet to melt and drain away."
Joy kept talking all through supper, but she still managed to wolf down her share of everything. "Shopping makes me hungry," she said, as if living in Varay wasn't excuse enough for eating as much at one meal as she used to eat in half a week. She hadn't noticed the way everyone's bellies puffed out and then deflated in the hour or two after a meal-like recurrent, transient beer guts. When she first saw herself that way, she was likely to panic. Joy put a lot of stock in her trim figure. So did I, for that matter, but I knew just how ephemeral the bloated stomachs were in the buffer zone.
I couldn't see how Joy had managed to buy everything she did and get it transferred to Varay in one afternoon. Timon said that they had filled the van twice, and they must have really packed every cubic inch both times. Of course, most stores would have help to get the purchases out to the van, but Timon and Joy would have had to unload the van at Mother's house, carry everything to the doorway leading to Cayenne from there, and then do it all again. Timon had already hauled through quite a lot before Lesh and I got back from Basil. There were ten full cases of Pepsi beside the two cases of beer and everything else Joy bought.
No wonder she was so hungry.
But the way Joy carried on at the table solved one problem. I had to talk with Lesh, Harkane, and Timon about our quest, and I didn't want to do that with Joy around, and questions would have been asked during supper if Joy hadn't monopolized the conversation. I also had to leave instructions for the people who were staying behind to make sure that things went as smoothly as possible for Joy. She had even thought to buy small gifts for all of the people who worked at the castle-nothing extravagant, but enough to let everyone know that she had thought about him or her. It's not the kind of thing I ever remembered to do. She must have pumped Timon for a lot of information, because she knew just who we had and how many children they had over in the village, and just about everything else about them.
I was impressed, and then some. Joy was going to make a very popular chatelaine at Castle Cayenne.
There was even a special treat for dessert, ten gallons of ice cream that Joy had brought back in a couple of new camping coolers. It was enough to give everyone in the castle a good taste with enough left over for the people with children in the village to take some home with them.
It was a jolly party, almost enough to make me forget what the morning held in store.
But then Mother joined us, just as the party was breaking up.
"Why didn't you tell me that there's a dragon flying in our world?" she asked.
"I haven't seen you since then." I turned to Joy. "Did you hear any more about it this afternoon?" She shook her head.
"Why is it so important?" I asked Mother. "I mean, beside the obvious evidence of how screwed up everything is getting."
"There are Varayans in that world."
"I know about Doc McCreary."
"He's not the only one. There are"-she made a quick, impatient gesture with both hands-"nearly two dozen Varayans, and their families, some from here, some from there. This dragon will have them in a panic."
"More than the Coral Lady?"
"Yes, especially just after that."
"You think some of them will want to come back here?"
"It's likely. I'll have to go home and call each of them, find out. I'm their only contact."
"Be careful."
"I'm aware of the danger," Mother said, coolly. Our relationship remained rather touchy. I make no apology for that. But we tried to keep it from completely destroying the family ties. It took work on both sides.
"Grandfather is still in danger," Mother said, changing subjects abruptly. "Frankly, I don't see how he has lasted this long."
"I told him that I'm not ready to take over his job," I said, softly enough that almost anyone but Mother might have missed it. She could hear a whisper through a chorus of air hammers.
"You can't carry him forever like that," she said. That started something ticking inside me. Mother actually believed that I had the power to affect Pregel, to hold off death. That she believed it was frightening. That she might be right was even more terrifying.
Mother was in a hurry to get to Louisville so she could do her Paul Revere bit on the telephone. Joy went upstairs to put some order to all the things she had bought. That gave me a chance to talk with all of the castle people and with my three traveling companions. I needed more than an hour to make sure that everyone knew what I wanted them to know in advance. The four of us who were going on the road would pop through to Basil at dawn and have our breakfast there. I gave Lesh, Harkane, and Timon a full briefing on what we had to do, where we had to go, what was at stake, and who our guide would be. Carrying along the talking head of a dead elf was the only thing that visibly bothered anyone. It bothered me too, but the elf was our only ticket.
When I got upstairs, Joy was still working at her sorting, putting the different items in separate stacks, but she had changed clothes. She was just wearing a bathrobe, loosely belted now.
"The bath water's just barely warm, but if you hurry you might get enough," she said.
I nodded and went on through to the bathroom. She was right about the water temperature, but it was often worse. Since Joy had braved it, I wasn't going to cheat by going to Chicago for a shower. I didn't want to give Joy the slightest excuse for thinking that Chicago and its world might be safe, not while I was gone. At least the water wasn't warm enough to let me sleep in the tub, and I might easily have fallen asleep in hot water. I was tired, and even more exhausted by the thought of the trek I had to start in the morning.
Why? I had asked myself that question quite often, starting as soon as I saw that all the craziness was building up to what looked like a suicidal mission for me. Why was I willing to head off on this impossible quest? I could have taken Joy back to the world we grew up in. We could have found a secluded place-too out-of-the-way for terrorists, far enough from any major target to have a shot at surviving anything, even all-out nuclear war. We could forget about elflords and chickens that laid dragon eggs, and kids who literally grew up overnight. I had the training to be a top-notch survivalist if it came to that. And it would probably be safer than continuing as I was.
The first time I went tilting at windmills it was different. I started out trying to rescue my parents from some then-unknown difficulty, then I went on to avenge my father's death, and other things got done along the way, by me and to me. I didn't even know what the hell was going on until it dropped right on my head. In a way, that was really an advantage. This time I had a fairly good idea of what was in store. The omens said that we were rapidly moving toward Armageddon or Gotterdammerung or Judgment Day or whatever; the End of Everything. If you believed the advertising.
I wasn't quite positive that I did, but the arguments were too strong to bet against them at house odds.
That still didn't make my decision to attempt something even less likely against longer odds very logical or intelligent, but it did let me sleep nights. Annick once told me that I did what I did from a sense of duty. The word embarrassed me then, and I tried to shy away from it whenever I could, even in my thoughts. I guess I still do. It sounds too abstract, too impersonal. "Duty, honor, country"? Maybe, but maybe not. Maybe I am just stupid or crazy enough for this Hero business.
Or perhaps it all came from a sense of family. All the family I had left was in Varay-Joy, my mother, and her kin. Dad was an only child and so were both of his parents, and they were all dead. I had never known either set of grandparents. Mother's parents were killed back in the early 1940s. Dad's died about ten years later.
Whatever. There was a crazy, dangerous job to be done, the kind of Hero-work I had been raised and trained to do-even if it was by subterfuge and deception. My decision to try was never seriously at doubt.
I don't claim that I was being smart.
"Are you going to take all night in there?" Joy called from the bedroom. I guess that maybe I did come close to dozing off in the tub, lukewarm water and all.
"I'll be out in a minute," I said. I toweled off vigorously, and that perked me up a little.
Joy was already in bed, the covers pulled up to just below her breasts. Only a single lamp was burning, and it was low. Joy and I made love, but I can't claim that it was my best performance ever, and afterward I did something I never do. I just rolled off and went straight to sleep. I simply couldn't stay awake.
When I woke, much later, the night was at its most silent. The bedroom was dark, with only the faint glow of the clock's luminous face and the moon- and starlight filtering in through the window. Joy was awake, her head on my shoulder, one hand down under the blankets caressing me, stroking, teasing. I turned toward her and we kissed.
"I hope you were dreaming about me," Joy whispered in my ear. Her hand was still busy below.
"What are you talking about? I wasn't dreaming."
"You must have been. You got a big hard-on."
"I don't remember any dream, but if I had one, it must have been about you."
"You'd better prove it."
I managed to sneak a glance at the clock-it wasn't quite four-thirty yet-and then I did what Joy wanted. Five and a half hours of sleep is plenty for me most nights. And I would like to think that I redeemed myself after the evening before, even though I knew that it might be the last chance we would ever have.
"How long will you be gone this time?" Joy asked after we finished.
"I don't have any idea. I don't know how far into the mountains we have to go, or how slow it will be. Several weeks at least."
"You realize that if I knew how to ride a horse, I'd be going with you."
"No!" Since Joy didn't know how to ride, I could have avoided that, but I knew where silence or agreement would lead. The second part of the quest would be by boat. "I would never risk you like that, Joy," I told her. "And I could never take a chance of getting in a position where I might have to choose between saving you and completing the mission. The penalty for failure might be too drastic-for everyone."
"You let her go with you." She was talking about Annick.
"Not exactly. And it wasn't the same. The choice wouldn't have been anywhere near as difficult."
"You mean because she knew how to fight and kill?"
"No, because she wasn't you and I never felt anything for her like I feel for you. Annick was driven by hate, and all she saw in me was that I hurt her enemies more than she had."
When Joy started to ask another question, I stopped her with a kiss-a long, hard kiss. And then it was time to get up.
Dressing for the road is quite a procedure, and I can always count on sweating a lot out riding in the complete get-up. I had layers of clothing, part from one world, part from the other. I started with T-shirt and jockey shorts, the heaviest denim jeans I had, wool socks, and comfortable combat boots. For casual wear, that would have been more than enough for an August day that would probably get into the high eighties. But that was only the start for a proper Hero going a-questing to do Hero-work. The next layer was a padded leather tunic that reached down past my butt (split partway up the back so I could ride a horse in it) and laced up the front. The complete costume includes the Varayan equivalent of chaps to protect my legs, leather studded with six-inch strips of metal to keep a chance sword stroke from biting too deeply, but I never wore those. The chain mail to go over the leather had to wait until I had experienced help. Getting that on and fastened was a two-man job. Anyway, I didn't want to start carrying that weight until we were ready to leave.
Joy finished dressing long before I got my leather tunic laced up. Then I went to check on my companions. They were up-dressed, ready to go, already armed and armored. Lesh would have seen to it that they were wakened in plenty of time.
My armor and weapons were in the great hall waiting. Timon had packed my chaps and helmet, knowing that I wouldn't be wearing them. The helmet is another heavy bit of metal that I avoid as long as possible. I dug out my lucky Cubs cap to wear instead.
We ate. All of the people who lived in the castle were there for the meal, even though it wasn't quite dawn yet. They knew something about what we were off to do, and sharing the farewell meal with us was one way of showing their support. We ate fast, not worrying about digestive problems, then finished getting ready to leave… so we could fit in another breakfast at Castle Basil.
"I'm having a bad case of deja vu," Joy said while Lesh and Timon helped me finish dressing. "This is like that scene in Cat Ballou where they're all helping Lee Marvin get dressed for the big showdown."
I wished that she hadn't said that. I have enough trouble keeping from feeling ridiculous when I'm all fitted out ready for a rumble, and I remembered the scene she was talking about all too clearly.
We got my chain mail on. It didn't hang quite as low as the tunic. Then my weapons: two elf swords over my shoulders, dagger at my waist on one side, quiver on the other. I would carry my compound bow until we got to the horses. I had a pistol and a box of cartridges packed, but that was just old habit, since I didn't expect to use the gun.
"You look like something out of a comic strip," Joy said when I was ready to go. She didn't quite manage to swallow her laugh. She had been holding it back for ten or fifteen minutes by then.
"Prince Valiant?" I suggested with an exaggerated grin.
"No, Hagar the Horrible." This time, Joy didn't even try to hold back the laugh. "You didn't even shave."
"I probably won't until we get back." Joy and I just looked at each other for a moment. "We're going to be late for breakfast," I said finally, mostly to break the tableau.
"We just…" Joy started and then she just shook her head.
We had quite a load of gear to take through to Basil. Joy held the passage open while Lesh, Harkane, Timon, and I shifted everything through with the help of a couple of our other people. Baron Kardeen had people waiting on the other side to carry everything to the great hall and then out to our horses.
When we made our entrance into the great hall, the room fell silent and people turned to stare-even the servants who were starting to haul in the breakfast victuals. I always got some stares-the Varayans all saw me as a big shot, the local equivalent of a rock star, I guess-and Joy is always worth a stare. I didn't let it bother me most of the time, but Joy wasn't used to that kind of intense attention.
"It always makes me think that my fly is open," I whispered, and she relaxed a little.
"Maybe it is," she whispered back.
"No, I already checked." We both laughed and went on in to eat.
The head table was more crowded than usual that morning. Parthet, Aaron, and Mother were there. Even Kardeen came out to eat with us, and that was unusual.
Joy kept staring at Aaron, but so did I, and nearly everyone else. He may have received more attention than I did. In two days, he had apparently aged ten years. He was as tall as me but not as heavy. His hair had grown considerably too, into a modest "natural." His voice had deepened and he spoke more slowly, considering his words, but he still smiled a lot and didn't seem bothered by his magic spurt of growth-though everyone else was concerned about it, including me. There couldn't be any question of taking him home to his family now. They would never believe that Aaron was really Aaron.
And eat… Aaron packed away as much food as any two of the garrison soldiers, and their appetites were legendary.
Breakfast went on for two hours, a little longer than usual, and afterward I said private farewells to Kardeen, Parthet, and Mother, and asked each of them to keep an eye on Joy. I went upstairs to see the king. He was asleep, but he was breathing easily and there was more color in his face. Encouraging. When I went back to the great hall, I talked with Aaron for a few minutes, incredibly curious about how he was taking everything that had happened to him. I was still curious after our talk. It really didn't seem to faze him in the least.
Then I went off alone with Joy while Lesh and the others finished loading our horses in the courtyard.
"I don't suppose it would do any good to tell you to be careful," Joy said.
"I'll be as careful as possible," I said. We both knew how empty that promise might be.
"I'm too new a wife to be a widow." And then she came into my arms and started crying.
We couldn't share much of an embrace with all the metal I was wearing, but I kissed her eyes, tasting the salt of her tears. Then we kissed for real, but she was still crying.
"There's more to me than you might think, Joy," I said. "When you get a chance, ask Uncle Parthet to tell you about the magic that the Hero of Varay has. And remember how quickly I healed from that stabbing and the operation. It almost drove the doctor crazy."
We held hands as we walked out to the courtyard. Quite a lot of the garrison and staff came out to watch us leave. Seven horses were ready, four to ride, three to carry our supplies… and the head of the dead elf. His birdcage was perched atop the packs on one of our packhorses, tied in place. The eyes turned to meet mine, and there was anger in his look.
"I will not forget this humiliation," the elf said, and Joy screamed.
"What is that?" she demanded, clinging to me. Well, I had mentioned the elf to her, it had been impossible to avoid all talk of him, but seeing-and hearing-the reality was still a shock for her.
"That's what's left of the elf who stabbed me," I said, leading Joy off to the side, out of sight of him.
"That head talked."
"Parthet provided part of the magic. Apparently the elf improved it a little. He's our guide, the only one who can make it possible for us to find the relics we're looking for."
"How can you trust him?"
"I can't, but he has every reason to help us. He wants his head and body to go home to his father for a proper send-off, and the only way that can happen is if we succeed and get home safely. The rest of him is locked up in the castle, and if we don't make it back, terrible things will happen to it-at least things that the elf considers terrible."
Joy was shaking as if she had fever and chills. I guided her over to my mother, and Mother knew what was wrong. I kissed Joy, told her again that everything would be all right, and hurried to my horse-Electrum, son of Gold.
I had help mounting, and as soon as I was up, my companions mounted, also with help. We could have made it unassisted, but we were too loaded down with armor and breakfast to make it alone without looking terribly undignified. The others started walking their horses slowly toward the gate. The magic doorway to Castle Thyme was down in Basil Town. I turned Electrum around and walked him over to Mother and Joy.
"I will be back," I said, projecting all the confidence I could muster. I would be back, at least once or twice-I hoped.
Then I turned my horse again and followed the others off to the main gate. The way was open, doors pulled back, portcullis raised, the short drawbridge to the top of the path down.
There was a commotion on the ramparts above the gate and in the gateway itself before we reached it. People were pointing down the side of Basil Rock.
"Someone's coming, running hard," one of the guards shouted. I caught up to my companions and reined in to wait. Lesh, Harkane, and Timon were each leading one of the pack animals. Lesh had the one that carried our elf's head.
After a moment I rode out onto the drawbridge that crosses a small gap at the edge of the rock. On the top switchback below, a youngster was running hard up the lane. I looked on down to the town and saw a group of people, several of them pointing up. Whatever the runner was about, the townspeople knew.
I rode Electrum down to meet the runner. He couldn't have been more than twelve or thirteen years old. He stopped when he saw me and fought to catch his breath.
"What's wrong, lad?" I asked.
"You're the Hero?" he gasped. I nodded. "It's terrible, lord, terrible." As his breathing settled down, his voice got stronger, his speech more coherent.
"It's forest trolls, Lord. A mighty band of them. They attacked Nushur and put it to the torch."