There was another window to the north, this one looking out on the city. As I watched, a streetlight came on. Then another. Then another and another. Some were mercury blue, others sodium orange.
OldTech electric lights. Powered by the hydro-electric station that tapped energy from thousands of tons of falling water. A station tended by the Holy Lightning, but secretly supported by the Sparks.
The tavern door swung open and Bing entered, shuffling his feet to scrape mud off his boots. "You folks decided where you want to go?"
"No," said Impervia.
"Not a clue," said Pelinor.
"Not a fucking clue," said the Caryatid under her breath.
"I know where they're going," I said.
The others turned to me in surprise.
The target had to be the generating station. Nothing else fit.
If the Sparks supported the station, they didn't do it from blissful generosity; they must be using the power for purposes of their own. And the Falls gave them prodigious amounts of power — at one time, Niagara's electrical grid supplied energy to millions of people. Millions of OldTech people, with all their refrigerators, stoves, and computers (not to mention factories, office towers, and neon-bright casinos). Now the generators supplied only Niffles itself… and the power lines didn't even reach the city's outskirts, as evidenced by The Captured Peacock's kerosene lanterns.
So: enormous generating plant, minuscule public consumption. Where was the rest of the energy going? How was it being used?
I didn't know. But Dreamsinger did. And when she realized Sebastian had the psionic potential to threaten the generators, the Sorcery-Lord took off like a firecracker. Now she'd be guarding the power station; and if Sebastian or Jode got near the place, they'd both end up as sorcerous shish-kebab.
Or would they? Why did I think Dreamsinger would be victorious, given that Sebastian had top-notch psychic abilities and Jode had already killed one Spark? It wasn't at all certain the Sorcery-Lord would win. Then again, Dreamsinger had the advantage of twelve hours to prepare a defense, building on whatever fortifications the power station already possessed. (You could bet if the station was truly vital to the Sparks, they'd have done their best to make it impregnable.) Dreamsinger also knew she was dealing with a Lucifer; she wouldn't be taken by surprise like her unlucky brother. And even if the Sorcery-Lord got defeated, it didn't mean Sebastian was safe — Spark Royal would then cry vengeance, and no one could win a fight against the entire Spark family (plus the League of Peoples backing them).
So to save Sebastian, we had to reach the power plant ahead of him. Intercept the boy before he came into Dreamsinger's sights. We'd then have to persuade him his bride wasn't the real Rosalind… after which we'd thrash the Lucifer, take Sebastian home, and pray the whole thing would blow over.
Sure. Simple.
On the other hand, if I hadn't been in Niffles risking my life, I'd be home in my stifling don's suite, marking geometry tests and bemoaning how little I'd made of my intellectual potential.
Was tedium better than facing death? I honestly couldn't tell. Someone else in my position might suddenly realize geometry tests weren't so bad after all. Others might say, "Compared to being a teacher, I'd rather fight alien shapeshifters any day!"
But I couldn't say which I feared more — which I hated more. Quests or tests. Death or monotony.
So it's come to this. And hasn't it been a long way down.
19: THE MUSIC THAT REMAINS
Supper was finished. Darkness had fallen. Outside The Captured Peacock, we waited for Bing to fetch the coach.
Pelinor and the Caryatid huddled together, talking in low voices. Impervia paced back and forth some distance away, surrounding herself with the air of someone who didn't want her solitude interrupted. Annah stood by my elbow, close but not touching.
Silent. Breathing the cool night air.
Stars had begun to appear, plus a few satellites tracking brightly across the blackness at speeds faster than any natural body. Most of the satellites were abandoned and defunct — OldTech derelicts waiting for their orbits to decay — but I wondered if some of those eyes-on-high belonged to Spark Royaclass="underline" relay stations for ghost-smoke tubes that carried the Lords anywhere on the planet.
Trust the Sparks to have their own private satellites while the rest of Earth couldn't even re-create the Industrial Revolution.
Annah nudged my arm. "What are you looking at?"
"Oh, just the stars."
"Making a wish?"
"One wish isn't enough. We need at least a dozen if we hope to see the dawn."
"Or we could just go home."
I turned toward her, but she'd focused her eyes on the stars and the dark. "Haven't we been through this?" I asked. "Didn't we decide to drink life to the lees?"
"I've been thinking of other ways you and I could do that. Besides dying."
She looked up at me, eyes white in her dark face. I could see she wanted to kiss me; and I wanted to kiss her. Strange that neither of us made a move.
"I've been thinking of such things too," I said. "But if we just ran off and found a honeymoon suite instead of sticking with our friends…"
She nodded. "I could not love thee, dear, so much, lov'd I not honor more."
"All these years," I said, "and I never knew you liked quoting poetry."
"I don't, really." She laughed. "I suppose it's because we're on a quest. Poetry just springs to the lips."
The word "lips" made me want to kiss her again. But I didn't. "This isn't a quest," I said. "It's real."
"The best quests are real. Isn't that the point? Myths are everyday life in disguise. Slaying the Jabberwock means facing your own monsters; searching for the Holy Grail means pursuing some goal you've previously shied away from. But it would be sappy to say that in so many words. That's why poets sing about battling gigantic beasts instead of fending off boredom. And why they sing about finding the Holy Grail rather than… oh, the things you can get only when you give up the nonsense that holds you back."
"What kind of nonsense?" I asked.
"Habits. Inhibitions. A flawed self-image." Annah's eyes glistened. "You know what I'm talking about, Phil."
"I do indeed." I still didn't kiss her. "When I get rid of those, that's when I find the Holy Grail?"
"When you get rid of those, the Holy Grail finds you." She let out her breath, as if she'd been holding it. "Or so the poets say. Grails can be awfully damned slow in getting the message."
She took my face in her hands and pulled me down to her mouth.
When Bing arrived with the coach, everyone piled inside without a word — even Pelinor, who'd decided to forego the driver's seat. Supposedly, he was sitting with us so we could talk "strategy"… but I couldn't help noticing how close he tucked himself against the Caryatid. Not just due to the narrowness of the bench. Annah had obviously been right about the Caryatid and Pelinor; with danger soon approaching, they didn't want to be apart.
But they didn't indulge in any last-minute whispering. No one did. Nor any talk of strategy. We all gazed wordlessly out the windows into the dark, like soldiers withdrawing into themselves before the call to arms.
Five minutes after we left The Captured Peacock, we reached the first of the city streetlights: a garish silver-blue bulb on an OldTech lamp standard that tilted fifteen degrees to the right. The pole's concrete support had tipped sideways over the past four centuries, and no one had bothered to correct the slippage. As the horses clopped past, I thought the slanted pole was a perfect symbol of our modern age. Some Keeper of Holy Lightning had worked long hours to construct the lightbulb by hand, yet had ignored the less complicated job of straightening the pole. Why? Perhaps because making the bulb seemed important and special, while straightening a pole wouldn't impress anyone. Or perhaps because the Keeper thought making lightbulbs was his job and straightening poles wasn't.