The Egyptian Building

Chapter 13

Now they waited for Alice.

Elizabeth curled up beside Bob on the living room couch. Her head ached dully. The rush of adrenaline which had kept her going since she'd woken up in the spare room over Drastic Steps had long since worn off and left her bone tired. They were all nodding off, although she made a valiant effort to keep her eyes open and watch out front in case Titania turned up. After making them wash off the glass and change clothes, Bob had dosed both her and Thomas with whiskey and food, and doctored her cuts with band-aids. He'd thrown up his hands at the knocks on their heads, muttered to Elizabeth that he couldn't even get a medical history from Thomas, who would probably come up with some nonsense about humors and bleeding, so he wouldn't even try. What they both really needed was to get their heads examined, ha ha, but that wasn't going to happen, or not anytime soon if they were all going to charge off to rescue Miss Price and any sacrificial offerings who turned up.

When Elizabeth insisted that they had to take matters into their own hands, Bob said nothing but began to wash the dishes very emphatically. Elizabeth quickly changed the subject to the mummy. "Any signs of, um, life from the carriage house?"

"Yodeling. Occasional loud bangs. I went out and looked in the window, but I couldn't see anything." When he spoke, they heard a long, ululating cry from the carriage house. Bob winced. "It's been doing that all day. Luckily none of the neighbors has noticed."

Now Thomas stretched out asleep on the floor, one arm flung out, hand palm up, fingers slightly curled. The other arm was wrapped around his sword and belt which he swore he was never leaving behind ever again, no matter what they said, and didn't they at least have any guns and if so, why didn't they carry them? This had led to an interesting revelation from Bob about the guns under his bed. When she'd been shocked (Thomas had been unsurprised), Bob pointed out that he was (1) from the mountains and (2) had been nicknamed Bubba at one time, so some collection of firearms was practically required.

Elizabeth let her head sink onto Bob's shoulder and closed her eyes, just for a second. When she opened them, ghost Thomas knelt before her.

"Am I dreaming again?"

"Yes, but you're barely sleeping, so we don't have much time." He took her hand in his, turned it over and gently kissed the palm. "Let the mummy run away, it's not your problem. None of us has the capacity to lay it to rest—"

"But—"

"Titania is distracted and angry. If you must involve yourself in her affairs, remember that. Her attacks will likely go wild. The ward you know—" He traced a glowing pentagram in the air. "—will afford you some little protection. The others of her kind will be more dangerous to you. Their arrows, though little more than darts, are tipped with venom. Do not join their hunting party and do not believe their promises."

"I won't. But, Thomas, how can we help you?"

"You can't, but it's all right." He smiled encouragingly and replaced her hand in her lap. He was looking, she thought, a lot better than the corporeal Thomas. Downright perky, in fact. She wondered if the exhausted condition of his physical self was due entirely to time lag, kidnapping, and disorientation, not that those wouldn't account for plenty. Ghost Thomas had to be getting energy from somewhere.

Her eyes fell on Thomas's sleeping form. She asked, "How long do you think he'll be able to sustain you and himself?"

Thomas shrugged and merely repeated his assurances. She reached out to grab his wrist, but he vanished at her touch and her hand closed around empty air. The clock on the mantel skipped a tick and the palm of her left hand burned. A soft, butter yellow glow emanated from the spot where he'd kissed her.

Thomas shivered in his sleep and Elizabeth got up to throw an afghan over him. The marble nymphs supporting the mantel smirked as if they knew something she didn't and, given the nature of the house and everything in it, they probably did. She rubbed her hand against the side seam of her jeans and the burning abated until her hand felt merely warm. At the sound of a key in the lock, she ran to the front door and yanked it open. Alice and Joe hurried in.

Alice hugged her sister. "I'm so glad you're okay. Here's your purse. Let's go get Miss Price! I've got to change and put on my boots."

"Oh God, we'll be here all night," Joe groaned.

"I can change in three minutes," said Alice. "Most of the time I choose not to. And I must have the boots in case I need to kick things."

"Like what?"

"Alastair Price, of course. Does he need a kicking or what? I saw what he did to Miss Price's stuff. She'll want to kick him herself and I can lend her a boot. We wear the same shoe size." Alice charged up the stairs.

Bob and Thomas stirred in the living room when Joe went in and flopped into a chair. "Wake up, y'all, it's vigilante time. Alice has got planned a little breaking and entering, property damage, and kicking. And something about human sacrifices. What's up with that?"

Bob yawned and Thomas struggled to free himself from the afghan.

"That's Titania," Elizabeth said. "She wants to trade a few people to get her sister back from the Devil."

Joe raised his eyebrows. "Titania? That's the big brunette with the … " His hands shaped an hourglass in the air.

Elizabeth rolled her eyes. "Yes. Are you volunteering to take her on?"

"Sure. I'll even be on duty in a couple hours." He stretched out his legs comfortably and leaned back in the chair. "How's she going to do it?"

"I don't know," said Elizabeth. "According to the one ballad I know, they just sort of have the sacrifice join their hunting party and ride off, but I don't see how that can happen here in town. She's going to take Trip and anyone else she can get hold of. She's extra annoyed with us right now; I bet we're kind of high on her list." She went back to the couch and tucked in beside Bob. "Thomas, you're our resident expert on English folk songs. What do you know about the fairy queen and her tithes?"

Thomas yawned. "I never paid much attention. I remember the bit with the hunting party, like you said. I don't know what that would correspond to nowadays, riding around in those cars perhaps. There are usually promises of eternal youth and a village maiden, only she's in a delicate condition, waiting at the entrance to the fair kingdom to rescue her hapless lover."

"Which would be where?" asked Bob.

"The entrance? I don't know where it would be here. Back home, it would be in some woodland clearing with a lot of mushrooms. Or by standing stones, or a crossroads."

"Our streets are on a grid. We have no shortage of crossroads," complained Bob.

"There's an old Indian burial ground on the Hill," said Joe. "St. John's Church is built over it."

"At least we don't have any standing stones," said Elizabeth.

"Yes, you do. Right out there in the park." Thomas waved towards the front windows.

"No, we don't," said Elizabeth.

"There's a double stone circle directly in front of the house. An inner solid circle with a dais in the center and an outer circular wall with three breaks. It doesn't look like Stonehenge, mind you, but I thought it was … modern."

"That's not a stone circle," said Elizabeth. "That's a fountain. Usually there's a cast-iron fountain in the center, but the city removed it for repairs a couple days ago … "

Thomas nodded. "Iron. That would keep the gateway closed. Iron is the only weapon that will really work on them, although a blow to the head with a cudgel ought to be acceptable. Folksongs tend to be vague and have much hey-tra-la-nonny-nonny-nonny-ho in place of useful detail. But if we're going to fight them, we must have iron."

"Who says we're going to fight them?" Bob's arm tightened around Elizabeth's shoulders. "We're not going to fight them."

"We'll have to if they come after us. Which they've done before," Elizabeth pointed out.

Alice thumped downstairs and bounded into the doorway. Startled, Joe fell out of his chair. She'd put together a paramilitary outfit, all in black with lots of pockets, and big black boots made for stomping. Her hair was gathered into a thick braid that fell over one shoulder. The jacket bulged in a suspicious manner and Joe's mouth moved in silent calls to various and sundry gods. Alice asked, "What's up?"

Elizabeth explained and they ran around the house looking for iron. Thomas said steel would work too and buckled his sword around his waist. He walked through the house humming and trying to remember more ballads, while the rest of them pretended they could distinguish between different metals. They took the pokers from all the sets of fireplace tools and cast-iron frying pans from the kitchen.

Alice found a Viking helmet, of some unknown metal and with real cow horns, and put it on her head. Ignoring the helmet (obviously meant as a distraction), Elizabeth cornered her by the attic steps and demanded to know why her jacket was clanking.

"I have stuff," said Alice. "Like a hairspray and a lighter. So I can make a flamethrower maybe. That's all. And, you know, stuff. Trust me."

"Trust you?" Elizabeth squeaked.

Joe found a suit of armor in one of the spare bedrooms, but it was too small to fit any of them. He stuck his poker through his belt and took the halberd. Down in the living room he took a few experimental swipes with it.

Bob ducked behind the couch. "Watch it with that thing. You'll take your foot off. Or my foot off."

"What I don't get," said Joe, making a set of nice, crisp chopping motions and then shaking out his wrist, "is how if they can't do iron and steel, why is it that she can drive around in that huge truck?"

Thomas shrugged. "Magic?"

"If it's like an allergic reaction, then she might have built up resistance. She's had centuries to work at it," Bob commented, emerging from behind the couch holding a poker in one hand and in the other a small skillet which Alice had thrust upon him.

"So all this won't work then?" Elizabeth looked at the frying pan she was holding, or trying to, it weighed a ton and dragged her shoulder down.

"Hit her with it. It might not sap her power, but it will leave a nasty bruise," Thomas said. "I understand elves are easily confused. We might slow them down if we ask them riddles. And I can't recall any songs about it, but one of the nurses that came to my father's shop swore that mistletoe would keep a baby from getting stolen by the elves. Or rosemary when we didn't have mistletoe. Have you any—"

"Right over your head," said Alice. "Joe, cut some down."

Joe got to practice with his halberd. He knocked the mistletoe off its hanger without taking down the light fixture. The girls applauded and dug up enough safety pins to deck everyone with pale green sprigs of mistletoe.

"Now what? We wait for the fairy attack or go out like this to rescue Miss Price?" Bob asked, sticking the poker through his belt and hefting the skillet in one hand.

"You should get your guns too," said Thomas.

"You have guns?" asked Alice, interested.

"I'm not going to go around the neighborhood with a shotgun. It's dangerous," Bob said.

"I'm taking my gun," said Joe.

A moving spot of green outside the window caught Elizabeth's eye. She saw Titania in her long green overcoat (cashmere, had to be, and Elizabeth envied it) walking arm in arm with Trip out into the park. "They're heading for the fountain. You sure called that one, Thomas. Maybe if we can distract him, he won't go with her." She ran to the front door and went out onto the porch, shouting "Hey, Trip, I need you!"

He stopped and turned. "Hi, Elizabeth! What's going on?" He took a step in her direction and away from the fountain.

Good boy. "Ah, Alice has got her bra hook caught in the zipper of her little black dress."

Behind her Alice wailed in mortification. "I would never— I would cut my clothes off with nail clippers before I'd let him—"

Elizabeth went on, "The really tight, short one? We can't get it undone. My hands just aren't strong enough. Could you please, please come up us get her dress off?"

"Sure." Trip took a few more steps towards the house. Elizabeth allowed herself to think this would be cake.

"Trip," Titania whined and when he didn't turn around she slapped him on the back of the head.

A vacant look entered his eyes and he looked slightly startled, as if he didn't quite understand why a leer was smeared across his face. "See ya." He waved to Elizabeth and turned back towards the fountain.

"He's going with her?" Joe appeared by Elizabeth's side.

"Looks like it."

"And she's going to kill him."

"Yup."

"Okay. That's a crime in progress and I'm a cop, so— Whoa! What the—"

Titania led Trip through the gap in the outer walls around the fountain and they vanished.

"They just left your jurisdiction," said Elizabeth.

"Doesn't matter, I'm going in," said Joe.

"Right behind you, babe," said Alice. They charged down the steps and across the street.

"Wait, you're going there? The iron might not pass through—" Thomas ran out after them. They reached the fountain and their forms winked out one by one.

"Shit," said Elizabeth.

"Our turn." Pulling the door closed, Bob stood beside her and put one hand on her shoulder.

"Can we trade pans? This one's too heavy." She exchanged her two quart saucepan for his small skillet and they traded a kiss for luck. Bob started down the stairs and Elizabeth pulled him back for a second. "Wait, I think this might help." With a wish for luck and safe return, she traced a glowing pentagram in the air and then smushed it onto his forehead for lack of any better idea of what to do.

"Witch stuff?" He touched his forehead lightly.

"Yeah. Protection, maybe." She gave herself one for good measure and they ran together towards the fountain. The stone walls looked no different from how they did every day. A couple of yuppies stood beyond the fountain and were letting their Labrador off leash when Elizabeth and Bob ran up. The cloudy sky was dull orange from the streetlights and reflected a bilious glow into the park. In the center of the fountain, the dais looked forlorn with the bolts and the pipes for the fountain projecting from the concrete.

As they walked up to the fountain, Bob asked, "How do we get through? I've walked through here a hundred times and nothing ever—"

The park winked out.

They stood on a windswept hill beneath a clear, starry sky. A dark fringe of trees was visible beyond a double ring of standing stones. Soft snow covered the earth and trails of footprints fanned away from where they stood. The massive stones stretched twenty feet above their heads and blotted out frighteningly large portions of the night sky. A sharp wind blew up out of the south, or at least the direction which had been the south when they walked out of their own world and into this one.

Elizabeth looked up and saw that they had stepped between two pillars with a huge slab lying across the top. There were no street lights, no houses, no cars. The only light came from stars dangling in old, familiar constellations and a heavy gibbous moon which painted everything silver. She heard a sound off somewhere to her left and behind. As she turned to look, Bob pulled her into the lee of one of the stones that formed the doorway back home. He hissed, "Look out."

"What?"

"Shh." Bob slowly looked around the corner and then edged back. "The shotgun is looking like a better idea now," he whispered. "There's maybe twenty horses over there. With riders, but some without. Either they've brought extra horses or some of them are out on foot. Titania's with them."

"Do you see the others?"

"No, but they've got to be around here somewhere."

They huddled together. Elizabeth held her breath and listened intently. Anywhere that Alice was, noise was sure to follow, but she heard nothing except Bob's breathing and a low hum. She closed her eyes and tried to find her sister on the ethereal plane, but the stones created too much interference. She could see Bob's bright green aura and her own blue one, less bright. The curse of the mummy had grown and its blackness nearly blotted her out. Damn. More cheeringly, the pentagrams on their foreheads glowed blindingly bright and the butter yellow spot on her hand had intensified, sending a calming warmth along her arm and down to her fingertips.

Bob whispered, "I think I hear something over there." He motioned her to follow him and they crept between the stones, away from the doorway, keeping the stones between themselves and the riders. Elizabeth noticed other stone doorways and she hoped they would be able to find their own when they wanted to leave. At least they were leaving a trail of footprints that they could follow back, though the loose dry snow and the wind weren't being too accommodating on that point.

From beyond the next stone, they heard a soft rustle and a muffled jingle as if someone were holding a bell tightly in their hand. Elizabeth and Bob edged around their stone in the opposite direction from the sound. A sudden flare of orange fire shot out from behind the stone, followed by a high pitched scream.

A familiar voice cried, "Gotcha."

"Alice?"

A tall figure dashed past. Limbs too long and too thin, joints in the wrong places, and hair on fire, it stumbled forward, hands outstretched and banged into another stone. A high keening with the occasional thud continued as it staggered in the direction of the horses.

Alice winked into sight at Elizabeth's elbow. She was carrying a can of hair spray and a cigarette lighter. She slipped the ring of invisibility into one of her many pockets and whispered, "We're over here."

She led them into the outer ring of standing stones and over to a stone which had fallen and lay sunk into the earth. Even lying sideways, it loomed massively up behind them. "What took you so long? We've been here for ages. We got Trip away from Titania right when we came through, but then we got separated and they blocked the gate. Now they're coming after us one by one or in small groups to try and flush us out. That makes it little bit easier for us to take them on. But they got Joe with one of those little darts, right in the shoulder. It's just a scratch, but he says it really hurts and he doesn't look very good."

They rounded the fallen stone and Alice took another look at Elizabeth. "You don't look so good either, really gray. Why do you and Bob have stars on your foreheads? Is this the glow stick defense?"

"It's a ward, like what we put on the house that time. You can see it?"

"I can see it!" Alice whispered. She grabbed her sister by the arm and did an excited little dance. "So that's magic."

Joe was slumped to the ground, his back against the stone. He raised his head as they came around the corner. Thomas stood over him, his sword in his hand. He didn't look much better off than Joe.

"Where's Trip?" Elizabeth asked.

"He went around the other side to take out some elves we heard over there." Alice knelt down beside Joe.

"You let him go away? How do you know he won't go right back to Titania?" Elizabeth sank into the snow beside her sister. The snow melted beneath her knees, soaking her jeans. Her legs began to go numb.

"It's okay. When we rescued him, I put that saucepan over his head, kind of hard, and it woke him up. She can't get to him like before," said Alice. "I'm more worried about Joe. They were shooting these dinky little arrows, and he barely even got hit. His leather jacket mostly stopped it."

"It's just a nick," said Joe. He tried to raise himself on his right arm. He held a nine millimeter handgun in that hand. His left arm was limp.

Even in the moonlight, Elizabeth could see that his color was poor. "They put poison on the tips."

Alice pulled Joe's jacket open and shoved up the sleeve of his tee-shirt. Dark blood welled up ominously from the tiny wound and the surrounding skin was dead white.

"Put iron on it," said Thomas.

"Iron?" Elizabeth raised her skillet and Joe cringed.

Alice sketched a pentagram in the air. It hung there—pink, glowing, and sparkly. "I can do magic here. Rock!" She squished the pentagram against Joe's shoulder.

"Hey," he began to protest and then said, "That's a little better." He experimentally wiggled the fingers of his left hand.

Elizabeth set the skillet down and searched her pockets. "Do you have anything small and iron? All I've got is this pocket knife."

Alice patted her jacket and then pulled a small pair of folding scissors from a pocket. She pressed it against Joe's shoulder. "Is there a way to make it stick?"

"Not a problem." Bob dropped to his knees beside them and pulled out his own knife. He sawed the sleeve off Joe's shirt and fashioned a pad and strip arrangement to hold the scissors in place.

Elizabeth stood up to get her body away from the snow. She brushed off her knees and shook off her legs like a cat.

Thomas pulled her close and whispered, "Did you hear that?"

"Hear what?" Elizabeth listened carefully. "I can't hear anything."

"About the iron," Thomas said. "I didn't say that. But it sounded like me."

Elizabeth looked at him closely. His eyes were wide and shadowed. His face was white and he started at every crunch in the snow. He also looked … blurry. Once as a child, Elizabeth had slipped on black ice at the school bus stop and whacked her head on the road. She'd had double vision for days afterwards. The world had flickered like a not quite stereoscopic nightmare while her brain struggled to put the images from her eyes together. Thomas's image flickered between the ghost she knew, white shirt, brown waistcoat, long hair tied back (reaching one hand out to touch her face, and saying, "Yes, I've almost got through—"), and the corporeal man in the tattered green sweater, short hair falling over his forehead, sword in one hand. You have been hit on the head today. She looked down at the others and the stones to compare. Everything was crystal clear. Heart leaping, looking into two sets of blue eyes, she breathed, "It was you."

One image of him nodded and the other began to shake. In a whisper so quiet she could barely hear him, he said, "I've been hearing this voice. I'm going mad."

"No, you're not," she whispered back. "It's only you, the spirit you. You have to listen to him."

"No." A double answer. He started to sidle away, not meeting her gaze.

She placed her glowing hand on the center of his chest and pushed him back against the stone. She could feel his heart thumping wildly. She leaned forward until their foreheads nearly touched and said, "Yes. We need you both."

"But—" he said in two voices.

"Don't argue with me, either of you. This is not the time or the place for brain surgery."

Thomas opened his mouth to speak. At a sudden jingle and a crunching of the snow, he turned his head and stepped past her with a fluid motion, shoving her back against the stone. He brought up his sword and thrust it through the elf who rounded the stone. The elf fell, a startled cry upon its lips, Thomas pulled the sword free and swung it up towards the dark form which appeared above them, scrabbling over the stone. It jumped down and tried to reverse direction in midair when it saw what was waiting.

"Not me," it gasped.

Thomas pulled the sword back abruptly. A drop of elf blood slid off the tip and hung there for a moment, a perfect sphere in a wrong shade of red, before spreading across the breast of Trip's white shirt as he dropped to the ground beside them. He carried Alice's poker in one hand and wore a cast-iron saucepan on his head. He'd lost his overcoat somewhere and one sleeve had been torn from his suit coat. Fortunately for him, he'd happened to be wearing rubber soled shoes and he only slipped a foot or so down the hill from where he landed.

"Watch it with the drama, you'll get yourself killed," said Alice.

"They're forming larger groups," Trip said. "They're bringing the horses over in front of the gateway and sending off parties of five or so to flank us. We have to fall back to a more defensible position and try and make our way around towards the gate. If we drop back behind that little hill over there and get into the woods, we can have cover most of the way." He pointed the poker towards a small, snowy rise, beyond which rose the tops of black, bare-branched trees.

"Where's all this strategy coming from?" Alice looked up from where she was checking Joe's scissor bandage and applying another pentagram.

"I do paintball. This isn't much different."

"Figures," muttered Bob.

"Except no guns," Trip continued.

"Hear that, Bob? More guns would be good," said Joe.

"Yeah, yeah." Bob went over to the dead elf and examined the crossbow it had dropped. "This is almost as good."

"You know how to use a crossbow?" Elizabeth gaped.

"Remember that discussion about weapons we had? My uncle used to take me bow hunting." Bob gingerly removed the quiver from the limp corpse. He took a stone knife from its belt and handed it to Elizabeth who stuck it in her back pocket. He turned the corpse back over. Its head fell back against the snow and its eyes stared sightlessly into the sky. Elizabeth couldn't tell if it was male or female: the chest was flat, but the throat was smooth and the hands were long and delicate. It wore boots, leggings, and a tunic made out of scraps of animal fur and decorated with tiny curling shells and bells. Beads glimmered in the moonlight, and a Hello Kitty patch had pride of place in the center of a wreath of squirrel heads on its chest.

Rising, Bob slung the strap of the quiver over one shoulder.

Thomas stood at the edge of the group with his head cocked to one side. "They're coming. You have to go now. You'll need a diversion if you're to make it over that hill. I—"

"I'll go. I divert well." Alice bounced to her feet. "Y'all get moving. I'll be right behind you." She slipped the ring of invisibility over her thumb and vanished. They heard her crunching on the snow. Her footsteps faded around the stone and a minute later they heard her cry, "Here, elfie elfie!" Elfin screams followed.

"Damn, what a woman," Joe said with admiration. "Why did I ever break up with her?"

Elizabeth helped him to his feet. "The crime."

"Oh, that. Well, it was only white collar crime … It's not like she's violent."

An elf shrieked in the distance.

They moved away from the stone. Elizabeth felt exposed, though she was surrounded by more weaponry than she'd ever seen at one time outside of a museum. Maybe that's the problem. Thomas led the group. Elizabeth and Joe followed. He was unsteady on the snow and she supported him on one side, carrying the skillet in her free hand. Bob and Trip followed. Bob shot an experimental quarrel at, and excited much consternation from, a cluster of shadows which drew back behind a stone. Trip had to settle for looking threatening with the poker.

On the far side of the hill, the ground dropped precipitously into a deep wooded valley. Thomas lost his footing in the snow and tumbled several feet before he rolled into a flat area partway down the slope. Elizabeth and Joe followed more carefully and joined him without mishap. Thomas brushed the snow off his clothes while they waited for Trip and Bob to catch up.

At a point where the hillside was nearly vertical, Elizabeth put out a hand to steady herself as she tried to dig a clot of snow out of her sock. "This is stone." She finished with her sock and brushed at the snow. Joe helped her and they found, not a boulder sticking out of the hill, but a narrow stretch of stone wall set flush with the hillside. They crept along and found a doorway, two tall slabs with a third lying across the top, closed by a single large slab of granite.

"Can we open that?" asked Joe.

"Do we want to?" asked Bob. He loaded another quarrel into the crossbow.

"It would be more defensible than a bare hillside, but then so would the woods," said Trip. He took a step further down the hill, but scrambled back up when the bushes along the tree line rustled ominously.

Thomas put a shoulder to the granite slab and motioned for Elizabeth to help him. She wondered why he didn't ask Trip, but with an 'ah' of understanding she placed her glowing left palm on the stone and pushed. Slowly the stone slid off to the side and revealed a gaping black tunnel. A draft of cool, fresh air blew out. The draft was actually warmer than the air outside and Elizabeth automatically stepped inside the tunnel to get out of the cold. In the faint light from outside, she could see that the tunnel was lined with stone and someone had thoughtfully left a heap of pine knots inside the door. The guys all piled in after her. Joe and Bob stayed at the door, weapons drawn.

"Anyone have a match?" she asked, picking up a pine knot.

"No."

"Alice has that lighter … "

"Don't any of you carry flint? Oh, never mind, you have those light switches … "

"Aiee!" From outside came a shriek and the sound of someone sliding in the snow. Joe and Bob raised their weapons. Alice appeared in front of them. "You found a tunnel? Cool. Let me in." She burst in between them. "The elves are all over the woods now. It won't be safe to go that way after all. They can track us too easy in the snow. I tried to distract them by setting them on fire and asking them riddles, but there were too many for me. Although the one about the Buddhist monk and the hot dog vendor really confused them. There's like five of them wandering around mumbling about being one with everything. Do you know where the tunnel goes?"

"We just got here," Elizabeth said. She held out the pie knot. "Light this and we'll find out."

Alice pulled out her lighter. The pine knot flickered, then burned brightly. "You have to get the door closed. This place does have a door, right?"

"What if we can't get it open again?" Trip asked.

"There's another entrance," said Bob. "You can tell by the draft. The elves probably know where it is, but maybe we can beat them to it."

He and Thomas slid the stone slab nearly closed, leaving a little gap to draw the draft. They scooped up a few more handfuls of pine knots and moved up the tunnel. The floor of the tunnel sloped upwards, Elizabeth noted with relief. She tried to estimate how far under the hill they were going. The tunnel took them back in the direction from which they had come, towards the center of the standing stones. Ahead they saw a soft green light and their pace slowed. Elizabeth listened carefully for any sound of elvish activity, but the tunnel was dead silent except for the sound of their own footsteps and the crackle of the torches. She glanced over at Thomas, who had been exhibiting a preternatural sense of hearing. He appeared undisturbed and she breathed a little easier.

The light grew slightly brighter and the tunnel opened into a large round chamber. The ceiling was covered with a mat of a glowing green substance which spread down the walls in fanlike patterns. A long stone table stood in the center of the chamber, surrounded by lower stone benches which rayed out from the table like a sunburst or the drop of elf blood on Trip's shirt. Long dark lumpy shapes rested upon the table and the benches.

"I see dead people," said Joe.

Elizabeth raised her torch and walked slowly around the room. The dead people appeared to be in a very good state of preservation. They were all men, dressed in chain mail, boots on their feet. Their hands were crossed on their chests over the hilts of long swords of some gleaming metal. Some were bearded, others clean shaven. All of them looked more asleep than dead.

"Waiting for one last battle," Thomas said quietly. He was standing by the corpse in the center, who wore a crown and had a richly embroidered tabard over his mail. Long lines of foreign script were carved into the table around. Thomas traced a finger along it.

"You can read that?" asked Bob.

"No," said Thomas.

"Yes," said Thomas in a voice that only he and Elizabeth could hear, although Alice stuck a finger into her ear and shook it around. "We do not want to wake them."

"We need to get out of here," said Bob. He wandered around the edge of the chamber, beyond the wavering circles of light from the pine knots. Seven tunnels led into the chamber, including the one they had come through. "One of these must lead to the surface."

"They all lead to the surface," said Thomas.

"We can look for the draft to find one that's open at the other end," said Elizabeth. She and Bob made a slow circuit of the chamber, stopping at each tunnel where she held out her torch and they examined the behavior of the flame and smoke. Joe propped himself up at the tunnel through which they had arrived, and they passed that one by.

Trip lingered by the sleeping corpse of the king and looked down on the sword with an acquisitive air. It looked much more intimidating than the poker he carried and he reached out a hand towards the hilt.

"Better not," said Elizabeth. "That's exactly the kind of sword that will kill anyone who draws it, unless they're the Chosen One."

"It's only a sword," said Trip. His fingertips brushed the hilt.

"Yeah, go on and take it. You feel lucky, golden boy?" said Alice. "I remember in one book where the enchanted sword turned into lightning and struck down the guy who drew it. Of course, if it does blast you on the spot, we'll feel really good about this whole risking-our-lives-to-rescue-you thing."

Elizabeth and Bob stopped before the final tunnel. At each of the previous tunnels, the torch had spat flames and smoke straight up towards the ceiling, but here Elizabeth could feel the breeze even before she held up the torch. The draft was strong enough to blow the rising smoke into her face. She coughed.

This tunnel took them even further uphill. It was lined with stone like other tunnel, but here the floor was littered with occasional falls, stones from the ceiling and spills of earth and clay, the same marl which lay under Church Hill. The further along they went, the more unstable the tunnel grew until they were walking on a surface that was more earth than stone. After Trip's saucepan helmet banged against a protruding rock and sent him reeling backwards, the men all walked gingerly, slightly stooped over and with a hand at their foreheads.

The tunnel dead-ended into the bottom of a well. The top was open to the sky and a small drift of snow had formed at the bottom. Elizabeth stepped into the well and looked up. Above her she could see bare tree branches and stars in the nighttime sky. By the light of her torch, she examined the wall of the well, which was of stones the size of her two fists pressed together. Regular oblong gaps in the stones ran up one side. She stuck an experimental hand into one of the gaps and felt not earth, but a more deeply set stone.

"Footholds. We can climb out easy," she said.

Thomas went up first, moving carefully and testing the hand and footholds on the way. At the top of the shaft, he peered out for a while, then climbed slowly down. "Most of the elves aren't anywhere near us; they're back at the far end of the tunnel where we came in, I think. But I can see our gateway from here and it's still guarded by a group of perhaps ten and all their horses."

They took turns climbing to the top of the well for a peek, then they gathered together to figure out their next move. Elizabeth put out the torch in the scrubby bit of snow. The space was narrow and they all stood very close together. Alice was tucked under Joe's good arm and seemed to be providing more support than he maybe needed, although Elizabeth reconsidered that after a closer look at the grayish cast to Joe's face. Wintry air rolled down the shaft of the well, but they stood so closely together that Elizabeth didn't feel the cold. Their faces were pale dots in the gloom. Bob looked grim and Thomas had an expression of unnerving distance.

"We can't stay here," said Thomas. "It's only a matter of time before they figure out which tunnel we took. We'll have to try for the stones. But it will be suicide; they can see us coming from a long way off."

"What would you do if this was paintball, Trip?" asked Bob with a tinge of malice.

"Get covered with paint." Trip's face was shadowed by the saucepan on his head.

"Another diversion? The elves are kind of stupid, but I don't know if that will work again. Besides, I'm running out of hairspray." Alice gave the can a tentative shake.

"You can still be invisible," said Elizabeth. "Or one of us could take the ring. Can you panic the horses maybe? Or steal them?"

"No way, those are some scary-ass horses," said Joe.

Alice shuddered. "They look like My Pretty Ponies, except with fangs. I'm never going into that section of the toy store again. Not that I did before. But you know what I mean."

"What would scare them anyway, a salad?" Joe said.

"Salad?"

"Hey, they're fucking carnivorous horses. They might have issues with lettuce."

"I'll do it." Alice's jaw was set. "I can try and draw them away from the gate and you all can make a run for it. Since they can't see me, I can get through anytime."

"We won't leave without you," said Elizabeth.

"No, you won't. I'll be right behind you. This is one place I don't want to get stuck," she said.

They climbed carefully from the well. Alice slipped the ring on her finger and vanished. Empty footprints formed in the snow as she moved resolutely towards the gate. The rest of them eased their way forward through the snowy trees and took cover behind a shrub of a broadleaved evergreen, which might have been holly except for a subtle wrongness about the leaves.

One elf suddenly clutched at the back of his head and whirled around to hit the elf standing beside him. Thomas motioned them forward. At the outer ring, they hid behind a stone to monitor Alice's progress. Before long, all the elves were either engaged in the brawl or standing around looking bemused, much to Titania's aggravation. She had remained with the group at the gate and now she began to call for order, her voice rising above the shrill piping of the fighting elves. Titania did not look quite as human as she had back on earth. Her eyes gleamed like ball bearings. When she spun around, her hair stood out wildly from her head and revealed ears inhumanly pointed at the tips. She had shed her long green coat and her silken gown flowed over her body like water. She was pretty impressive, actually, but the effect was spoiled by some problems with high heels in the snow. And the shrieking.

Trip winced when he saw her and held his saucepan firmly on his head. "Damn, what did I ever see in—"

One of the horses screamed and reared. Two horses bolted from each other in opposite directions, but were brought up short and sank back on their haunches. Their tails were tied together.

"Let's go, now," said Bob. He and Thomas started out towards the gate, Elizabeth followed, helping Joe along. Trip brought up the rear, brandishing his poker. Joe drew his gun and paused to take aim and fire at an elf who swung his crossbow in their direction. When he pulled the trigger, nothing happened. "Shit!"

"Keep moving." Elizabeth felt very vulnerable with only a skillet and a poker.

Bob squeezed off a quarrel towards the elf who was still on taking aim at them, his shot went wild and hit one of the horses which squealed and bolted. The group guarding the gate disintegrated into complete chaos. Elizabeth crossed into the inner ring of standing stones with Trip at her heels. Joe started to stumble and Thomas dropped back to help him.

A white glow flared up around Titania. Elizabeth hastily averted her eyes and tried to prepare herself for the headache, which was the minimum of what she expected to be thrown her way. She sensed Titania's rage at the loss of discipline among her followers and risked a peek. The white glow roiled red and she raised one blazing hand.

From beyond the stones, fluting voices piped a complicated series of notes which ended on a rising pitch. Tall slender forms raced towards them across the snow.