Areas of forest and field and far-off mountains also had their own strange patterns. Complex patterns, mostly, like tiny spi-derweblike strings of every color, intensity, and hue, and in and around areas where nothing should be there were patches of various pastel blobs in a variety of sizes.
It was beautiful.
“Fairy sight,” Joe told her. “The strings are spells, magic and sorcery of some sort. The blobs are living things, creatures mostly of faerie. Although we’re a sort of soft red, in general watch out for the reds and yellows and whites. They tend to be on the darker side of faerie. The blues and greens tend to be almost always to the good, the rest sort of in-betweens. Don’t take them for granted, though. As the Kauri are reds, and not evil, so, too, are there exceptions to all the Rules.”
“The reason why they call the darkest magic black is that it is,” Marge told her. “And black strings and blobs blend in and can’t be so easily seen until it’s too late. If you ever see any sort of blackness and suspect it might have moved, ever so slightly, stay away! Don’t depend on fairy flesh or the were curse to save you—there are things far worse than death. Just imagine something eating you alive… forever.”
The point was well taken, although, in truth, as weres they were better protected than Marge.
“Let’s go over to the military encampment first,” Joe suggested. “It’s likely to have fewer defenses from ones like us than the other place where the bigwigs are, and I want to see just what the hell they’re training for.”
It was becoming easier by the moment. You just picked some sparklies that were going in the general direction you wanted and got into their flow. Only when you had no lifting aid from the air did you work at it, and it quickly was becoming automatic, even at that.
“Remember,” Marge warned, “we’re just about incapable of an offense, so, if you run into anything, fly or run like hell. If you can’t, let me handle it and go along with whatever I do, no matter how idiotic it looks to you. There are a few things only experience can tell you.”
From this height, you could see the military camp clearly, even at this distance. It was huge, with tents and temporary structures all over the place, some going all the way out to the horizon.
A lot of the Valisandran army was there, much of it bedding down for the night, but both Joe and Mia were struck by the enormous waves of feelings coming from the camp. Enormous waves of loneliness, unhappiness, even despair, and, over all, an atmosphere of terrible fear you could almost see. It was almost too much for Mia to handle, and she fought back tears. “Those poor guys,” she sympathized.
“Yeah, you really get the weight of the world as a Kauri.” Marge sighed. “After a while, though, you get to handle most anything. To me, that’s the biggest banquet hall I ever did see.”
“Yes, but how do you feed on it?” Mia asked, and, almost immediately, her body told her. “Ohhh…” she managed.
“Yeah, well, you shouldn’t feel hungry right now,” Marge told her, “because I’ve had no problems getting energy around this place and you got what I got. Maybe tomorrow night. It just seems normal only you get a whole extra body kick to it and, instead of being tired at the end, you’re rarin’ to go.”
Joe ignored the interchange, far more interested in the lay of the land. “There’s the centaurs there. Big, mean-looking suckers, aren’t they? They’d be like mounted archers that could hit a target at a couple of hundred yards, I bet. And over there, off by themselves… Bentar! I knew those bastards would be here someplace!”
The Bentar were the fiercest race of fighting fairies, totally without mercy, conscience, or any moral sense at all. Their tall, grim visages were at once like a bird of prey and yet oddly reptilian, with mean eyes that reflected the light. You didn’t need fairy sight to know those were real sons of bitches down there.
“I don’t understand it,” Marge said, shaking her head. “It looks as if they’re assembling something the size of the Battle of Sorrow’s Gorge, yet where’s the heavy stuff? The big catapults and siege machines and all the rest and the second army on wheels with all the supplies?”
Joe thought it over. “The only reason you’d have something like this without those things is if you didn’t think you were going to need them,” he replied. “That’s not an army of conquest being assembled down there—it’s an army of occupation.”
Mia looked out over the assemblage and to the stars beyond, and, quite suddenly, a few of the stars winked out, then on again, then others did the same.
“Black shapes!” she warned. “Coming in fast from the plain! Flying!”
“Scatter!” Marge shouted. “Rendezvous back on the hotel roof!”
The concept of being eaten alive forever hadn’t lingered far from Mia’s consciousness. She was off like a shot.
The Kauri, it was true, had no offense at all, but they were by no means helpless. In addition to Marge’s bag of illusory magic tricks, they were very light and very, very fast when they needed to be, and had a flight instinct second to none. There were some birds and tiny fairies, like pixies, that could match them in speed, but for both speed and distance they were virtually unequaled.
Mia rose, caught a fast current, and made six or seven miles from the military camp to the hotel roof in no more than seven minutes, a sprint that, she suddenly realized, meant she’d made something like sixty miles an hour! And she’d done it without really thinking at all!
Incredibly impressed with herself, she was equally amazed to find that Joe had beaten her.
“It’s the collar,” he said. “Probably slowed you down a bit. And, yeah, I’m impressed, too. I never knew she could do that. And we’re not even breathing particularly hard!” He looked around and frowned. “But where is Marge?”
They waited worriedly for several minutes. Finally, the real Kauri arrived, but not from the direction of camp, flying low.
“Sorry, but I figured I’d give ’em something to chase in the wrong direction. They’re pretty slow, relatively speaking. I had actually to slow down so I wouldn’t lose ’em until I was ready to.”
“What were they?” Joe asked, looking around at the sky.
“Nazga. All leathery wings and teeth and hard as a rock. Not too bright on their own, though, and one of ’em had riders. Odds were they were just told to patrol for flying intruders as a routine thing.”
“I’m not so sure about that other gathering now,” Joe said worriedly. “They’ll have a lot more security there than at the camp, and it’s possible they may be warned about us.”
“Aw, I doubt if those flying stomachs will bother warning anybody. They have enough trouble remembering their own names,” Marge replied. “But, you’re right. They’ll have a lot more security. I’m still game, though, if you are.”
Joe sat back on the rooftop and sighed. Mia looked at him and couldn’t get over how naturally feminine the moves and manner of the big macho man were as a Kauri. The fact that it was still his methodical fighting man’s mind speaking actually just gave his form real strength.
In fact, except for the slight difference in accent and choice of words, Joe, as a Kauri, seemed just like Marge.
“All right,” he said at last. “But we don’t push it. If we can’t get near, then we can’t get near. Understood?”