"Unless he spreads his wings and flies like the wind," Magellan said, absurdly pleased with stretching her metaphor.
"Unless he moves. Yes." She didn't stoop to humor. "If he does, go after him. And without being seen. I'll deal with Luther."
He didn't bother to tell her that he had his own ways of following Luther's activities.
The courier appeared within an hour after Michael's frantic calls, made from the privacy of his bedroom. When the package of fake IDs arrived, Tom and Serrin weren't pleased.
"What's this? I don't like fake IDs," Serrin complained. "Not to a country 1 don't even know."
"Look, term, if there's someone trying to snatch you, do you really want to travel under your own name? On a flight schedule even a seven-year-old with a Radio Shack could deck into? No, chummer. I know Cape Town. This will pass just fine. Hell, a monkey could get through with this, but it's up to you. You want to travel as a sitting duck, be my guest. I'll travel separately under one of my usual fakes."
"One of them?" Serrin said, astonished.
"False identification is not the exclusive province of professional criminals and company men, you know. Not that there's much difference between the two anyway. I have some truly excellent fake IDs courtesy of a couple of megacorps I could mention," Michael said proudly.
"Is this chill, Serrin?" Tom asked uncertainly, looking at the papers and plastic before him. He'd never been outside Seattle, and he hadn't a clue what to think about all of this.
Serrin examined the IDs, the passports and visas and medical chits and all the rest of it. "Looks pretty good," he said grudgingly.
"It's the best," Michael said. "Trust me. There's a sub-orbital flight at nineteen hundred. Gives us plenty of time. I assume you'll want to take some magical precautions against anyone discovering our departure, Serrin. That should give you enough time. With the time difference, we get in just around dawn local time. But that's still not too late to get a taste of the night life; it goes on well past then. I don't know what's your fancy, but whatever it is, you can find it in the Cape."
"Yeah, I bet," the troll said sadly. "Kids dying for a handful of chips or a bagful of white. Women half-dead at twenty on the streets. The kind of thing I guess you don't see up here."
"You won't find me in those places," Michael shot back instantly. "The only bad habits I've got are spending too much on clothes and computers. Go and find someone else to blame. I didn't know about you two, that's all."
"Hey, let's keep the bickering down to sensible limits," Serrin pleaded. "We've got our hands full trying to find out who's going after all these people, right? Let's keep that in mind." Then he left the room, saying he was going to pack his bags.
Tom tried a last glower at Michael, but he knew he'd been unfair to him and the other man wasn't about to back down. Making more noise than was necessary, he followed Serrin out. Michael considered packing one of the Fairlights, then settled for the Fuchi instead. He wasn't given to taking million-nuyen risks on the road.
Dusk had long fallen when the elf's watcher spirits informed him of the little group's departure. Though Serrin had his usual masking engaged to magically disguise their exit, Niall saw through the subterfuge. The very cleverness of it told him the elf had guessed that it was a mage who'd tried to kidnap him. It didn't take long to discover where Serrin and his two companions were headed.
"It's probably the first step along the path," Niall said to his companion. For a moment, the ghost of a smile played over Niall's face at the pun, a play on words that Serrin, like most elves from beyond the shores of Tfr na n6g, would not have understood. The elven form at his side said nothing at all.
"He is gone to Azania, then," Niall said almost sadly, even knowing that he couldn't have hoped for anything better. Serrin would have not found his quarry yet; he would still be struggling. He might need some help. Niall considered his options, and decided to let it be. His pawn seemed, at least, not to be making any false moves.
"Rindown?" he asked his companion. It was almost rhetorical; Niall knew where he had to go now. The blasphemy had gone far enough. Now he needed the help of the one being he could turn to to cover his tracks for the final stages. They would be some time in coming, the elf knew, but the Fool was never one to consider things in haste. Niall wouldn't be able to cajole, to plead, even to beg. All he could do was be himself and trust in his sense of lightness.
The spirit knew, as it always did, what was going through his mind.
"You weren't given this life for it to be easy," it said simply.
The elf smiled at that. Then he looked away, and the lines of pain were visible around his eyes. They were always his betrayal.
"It's just that I wish I didn't feel the beauty of things so much," he sighed, the wind ruffling his hair as he stared out at the moonlight shining on the waters. "That's what makes it difficult at times."
"You are rather self-pitying today," the spirit said in a very matter-of-fact way.
Niall laughed, his mouth curled in a wry smile. He got to his feet and glanced around himself in a wide circle. Maybe it was, after all, just water against stone, the endless struggle of the irresistible sea against the immovable rocks below, nothing more. If he hadn't known that he'd seen the same scene for so very long, in ages before he had been called to the Center, it would have been easier to believe it. It was the sea calling him back to those happier, easier times that he could not ignore.
"I must go," he said quietly. "Protect me. Hide my trail from my enemies."
The spirit nodded assent. Niall drew his cloak around him and bowed his head against the promise of rain from the darkening clouds the eastern Atlantic brought in its airstream. He still had many preparations to make.
"Look," Michael told the troll. Serrin had fallen into a restless doze induced by the wine served to the suborbit-al's passengers; Tom had expressed disbelief at the poor excuse for food served up with it, and unable to take refuge in the alcohol, had stayed awake. His excitement was obvious. As the aircraft descended, Michael saw the first promise of the sun, and knew what Torn would see.
"This is beautiful," he said simply. "I don't care what any scientist says. You don't see this anywhere else in the world. Not like this."
The red orb insinuated itself into view, but almost as a hint, a suggestion rather than a reality. The edge of the sun was there, but it as yet was only a phantasm in the sky. Then the ring hit the horizon.
Light flashed around the world like the inspiration of hope to the desperate. The gentle blue of a new day rose in the thinnest of lines, traced out in a yellow-red shadowing, resolute and irresistible. The troll was stunned by it; no sunrise seen from the surface of the earth had ever looked like this, no matter how glorious.
"Busy old fool, unruly Sun, why dost thou thus, through windows and through curtains call on us? Must to thy motions lovers' seasons run?"
Tom looked at Michael; he hadn't understood a word. Michael grinned at him.
"An old English poet, dear boy. Can't help remembering the lines when I see the sun like that."
Tom leaned back in his seat, contemplating the Englishman. His eyes bored into him, but Michael just sat casually toying with his plastic mug of old, cold soykaf. The sounds of deceleration and imminent landing jerked Serrin into wakefulness, breaking the silence between his fellow passengers.
"Looks like we may have avoided the winter rains this morning," Michael said cheerfully. Serrin grunted and rubbed his eyes, despising people who were cheerful at this hour of the day. The aircraft's huge tires hit the runway with a disagreeable bump.
"Let me talk us through immigration," Michael said earnestly.