Chapter Seventeen

It took a moment for her eyes to adjust to the dark night outdoors. A little rectangle of light spilled from the kitchen window. Using the outlines of the light on the grass as a guide, Piper made her way quickly to the gazebo. It stood a strong, tall, solid gray shadow against the dark backdrop of the blue spruce trees. Once beyond the gazebo, she negotiated by moonlight, past the borderline of trees, and into the forests of Fairy beyond.

The gaping black rifts had increased, dappling the path, and merging into strange Rorschach spots, making running along the path impossible. Piper picked her way carefully and as swiftly as she could through the quiet, dappled shadows of the moonlight forest. There was no sound other than her footsteps, and her heartbeat drummed loudly in her ears.

To get to Aelvarim she would have to pass Larkingtower's spire and the worst of the rifts' gaps around Malraux's cave. She planned to give Larkingtower's spire a wide berth. She didn't want to run into him tonight. Malraux's cave might be more difficult, depending on how thick the gaps were. She wasn't sure if Malraux's grove and cave might not be gone, vanished into an enormous rift.

If that were so, it was possible that Aelvarim might not have made it home on the path past Malraux's cave. In that case Piper wasn't sure where she'd find him. He'd never spoken of another path to his house. She feared he would stay with Larkingtower, and wondered what to do if it looked like he couldn't have made it home. She decided to worry about that later.

The path ahead was riddled with gaps. Piper walked off into the darkness under the trees and discovered that while there were more shadows and less moonlight, there were fewer gaps out beyond the path. It didn't make sense, but she took to running through the trees away from the path, trying to keep an eye on where the path wandered as she went. By treating the path as a directional guide and making her way through the forest, she was able to make better time.

What would she do after she found Aelvarim? How could they defeat Larkingtower? The first part of the manuscript had been vague enough that she could see either herself or her great-grandmother in the woman's role, in fact any woman could have fit into the role. Unfortunately, any of the three male denizens of Fairy of her acquaintance could fit the male role in its vague state. Did the fact that the final portions of the manuscript dictated certain roles for certain people mean that Piper couldn't fill the role of sister? She wanted to worry about that later, but couldn't.

Grandma Dickerson never had a sister. Surely she wouldn't have written it that way if it had to be a sister. Surely any female relative would do. Piper hoped.

In that case did the fact that the wizard in the manuscript had been defeated mean that Piper needn't worry, Larkingtower's defeat was certain? She doubted that. If she could substitute as sister, Larkingtower could figure a way out of his demise.

Piper didn't know any spells or counterspells in any case. Maybe it was hopeless. Maybe she should just leave it to Aelvarim to solve.

Yes! He'd said he was a storysmith. He's asked her to help him find the murderer and finish the story. She didn't have to do this all by herself. She'd found the explosion in the garage, found the manuscript, found all the clues in fact. Once she'd turned the manuscript ending over to him, they would have found the murderer, and he could tell her what they had to do to finish the story.

If only she could find Aelvarim.

The locate spell would work. It might even work better here in Fairy than it did in the Human world. Maybe this wouldn't be as difficult as she thought. Piper hoped.

She paused a good way back from the opening to the meadow around Larkingtower's spire. The meadow beyond the forest seemed to glow a strange, ultragreen in the bright light of the nearly full moon. She could see each little hillock, outlined against its neighbor. From this far back on the path she was at the wrong angle to see the door of the spire, but she could see the stones, caressed by moonlight, looking solid and hard. The spire and the strange light lent an eerie malignity to the bright pastoral meadow. A thin stream of smoke curled across the face of the moon from the chimney on Larkingtower's spire. He was home.

Piper concentrated intently, trying to locate Aelvarim. She hoped so much and so hard that he wasn't with Larkingtower, that her first attempt failed. She silenced her hopes and fears, faced Larkingtower's spire, and concentrated on finding Aelvarim in this world.

Not in the direction of the tower, that feeling came to Piper strongly. She slowly turned, all the way around, then kept turning past facing the spire to a stop where she felt the strongest that she was facing toward him. She might have been able to put a compass point to that direction during the day if there weren't clouds blocking the sun and she had some time to figure it out. In the night she had no idea which way she faced, no idea what sort of terrain lay between her and her goal, and no idea where that direction might lead her.

Other than it would clearly lead her the long way around Larkingtower's meadow, to get back to the path she knew by the brook. She opted to go the short way around to the path she knew.

Trying to move silently, Piper tiptoed around twigs and leaves unsuccessfully. The pines had dropped their thin needles in a thick coat over the floor of the forest. Every step she took crackled. Piper hoped she crackled silently, and hoped Larkingtower was sound asleep in his bed.

She reached the dried-up streambed. A river of black now coated the area where the brook once trickled. Only this river didn't flow. It lay still, an inky black malevolence flooding the defeated banks of the vanquished stream.

As Piper looked up and down the banks for a good crossing place, she felt vines quickly twine themselves around her ankles. She experienced a moment's irritation, remembering the last time the fairies had pulled this trick on her. Then she grinned, at least the fairies were back.

"Figwort," Piper called, slightly above a whisper. "Where are you? I don't have time for this. I need to find ...."

"Aelvarim?" Larkingtower asked, walking out of the shadow of a tree. His long bony finger pointed at her.

The stone mead jug and yellow legal pad were pulled from her hands. Something tugged at her, and she fell forward, onto her face on a bed of pine needles. Vines grew up her to twist around her arms, fastening her wrists together.

"Malraux's not-so-secret vice," Larkingtower sneered as he negligently tossed the mead jug into the black stream. A feral smile winked across his face as he watched it disappear. He turned his attention to the pad of paper. "And Alfreida Dickerson's foolish ramblings. She had no talent for stories at all, you know." He sighed. "This one never was of any use for her purposes."

"Give that back!" Piper screamed. She struggled against the vines, only to discover they grew and thickened the more she struggled. They grew up her legs and arms, wrapping themselves around her body tighter and tighter, until she felt them become snug around her chest. She lay still, and they stopped growing further. "It's not yours."

"You weren't of any use either." Larkingtower flipped a few pages and sniffed scornfully. "This ending will never do."

"Give that back!" Piper hated the whiny screech to her scream. "You can't do this."

"But I can. Silly girl. They say never send a boy to do a man's job. And I had always thought that referred to Aelvarim. But this is even more pathetic, sending a girl to do a man's job." Larkingtower flipped the pad over to look at the back. "Where is the rest?" he asked mildly.

"Safe from you," Piper snarled back, trying to hide her fear not only from him but from herself.

"False bravado. I'll find them. You probably just left them sitting out on the kitchen table. Very careless of you." Larkingtower shook his head. "You were so pitifully obvious. I once considered directing you to Aelvarim as he took his bath in the river around his moat, but thought that would be unfair to him. And I always wondered what would happen if I told you" – he leaned down to whisper – "he does his laundry in a tea cup, since the clothes he wears are elf spelled to fit, and thus actually doll-sized." He stood and nodded, more to himself than Piper. "Yes, indeed, your eyes did bulge out of your head. I thought so. Pitiful."

Flipping a few more pages, pausing here and there, Larkingtower appeared to actually read portions of the manuscript, ignoring Piper. She thought furiously, unable to do anything else. He suddenly laughed at something and smoothed the pages back down over the cardboard.

"Alfreida might have been a doddering old fool, but she had better sense than you. However, I like your stubborn sense of determination. It will come in handy for my purposes once I've bound you to my service." He grinned at her. "Bending your will to my spells will be so exhilarating. I hadn't realized until I bound Alfreida, the joy to be found in the unbreakable control of a contrary spirit. Watch. Maybe you'll learn something."

Larkingtower tossed the pad of paper into the air. The pages splayed and flapped as the pad flipped and twirled. Larkingtower shouted a single syllable, and the paper burst into flames.

"No!" Piper screamed, making the word last through several agonizing seconds.

The burning pad of paper fell to the ground, becoming a pile of ashes as it hit.

A trail of dusty smoke rose from the ashes, curling and weaving, thickening and spreading. It took on a shape, vague at first, then focusing into that of a woman, old and stooped. The bottom of the smoke trail broke off from the manuscript, and the smoke woman floated up, away from the pile of ashes, to hover over Piper.

Piper felt strength flowing out of her and into the ghost.

"No," Larkingtower said in a commanding voice. "Stop. Now. Heed me."

"Yes!" Piper shouted, putting all her will behind pushing her strength into the floating form. Anything that Larkingtower didn't want, Piper wanted, badly.

The smoke took on a more solid form as she watched, but remained translucent. It settled into the image of Grandma Dickerson.

"Piper. Are you all right, dear?" she asked in a ghostly quavering voice.

"I forbid this," Larkingtower commanded.

"Tisk, tisk." Grandma shook her head at him. "Who cares?"

"You are still bound to me." Larkingtower motioned as at the ghost, as if to pull it toward him.

"No," Piper shouted. Her fingers wiggled, and she pulled back, concentrating as hard as she could.

The shade of Grandma Dickerson floated, teetering between them, as if pulled in a tug-of-war. "You destroyed part of the manuscript that I wrote and that Piper owned. You know the consequences of that sort of thing. I'm now only partially bound. I told you you'd never get away with this."

Grandma sounded calm and certain. It only served to make Larkingtower madder. Smoke curled from the edges of his robe and from the length of his beard. His twisted, bony fingers curled and uncurled, demonstrating his anger and frustration, and his knuckles cracked loudly.

Piper whispered, "I don't think he's working with a full spell book, Grandma. I don't think you should be taunting him. This is not the time."

"Hush now," Grandma said, shaking one ghostly finger at Piper. "I lived a good deal longer than you, and I've been dead longer than you. I know what I'm doing. As long as we work together everything will be fine."

A shout from Larkingtower in a strange language thundered through the forest around them and echoed from the meadow behind them. Grandma's shade was pushed back, past Piper, partially dissipating, then coalescing back together. The trees shook, and a wind stirred the dust and needle bed of leaves Piper lay on. She closed her eyes and turned her head to keep the sharp, pointed pine needles and stinging sand out of her face.

"Enough." Larkingtower raised his arms high above his head. The loose sleeves of his robes fell back to his shoulders, revealing stringy gnarled arms, mottled from the smoke rising around him in the moonlight. A wind stirred the hem of his robes and the trailing strands of his beard, but it didn't reach his hair or sleeves. "You want to be together? I'll bind you both. Now."

Shadows and smoke gathered between his hands, like clouds massing for a mighty storm. His voice rolled and stirred the mixture, with words that Piper not only heard, but felt. Electricity sparked from his fingertips into the cloud between his hands, highlighting it in a momentary flash of lightning. His hands moved farther and farther apart to span the growing mass. His feet spread, and his back bowed under the weight he held.

Piper screamed, an inarticulate longing for help. If only she'd found Aelvarim first.

#

Eccentric Circles copyright © 2001 by Rebecca Lickiss

Cover art copyright © 2009 by Alan L. Lickiss