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  “You’re right,” she said, knowing it was true. Who cared how a lot of junkies died, anyway, so long as the deaths couldn’t be traced back to Threshold? She got to her feet, making Robert stand also. “Look, I’ve got to crash. Beirkoff knows the stuff to order to make up about ten keys of T-Stroke. I’ll come back tonight and put it together.”

  “We could take care of that,” Robert said, too casually. “The formula’s in your lab notebook, isn’t it?”

  Jeanette smiled at him, the street predator that had been hidden beneath a veneer of years and good living suddenly stark and plain in her eyes. It wasn’t that she didn’t trust Robert—she didn’t, that had never been an issue. But T-Stroke was an entirely bigger deal than the other compounds she’d handed over. She intended to keep control of it until she was satisfied.

  Of what, she wasn’t sure.

  You’re hoping you’ll fit the Survivor Profile he’ll come up with, don’t you? The Survivors—Robert’s new race of psionic hitmen. What’re you going to do if you do, Campbell? What are you going to do if you don’t?

  “Aw, c’mon, Robert. You don’t want a numb-nuts like Beirkoff to futz this up at the eleventh hour, do you? You don’t want to be wondering if he got the formula exactly right and have to do it all again to be sure? Give me a couple of hours. It’ll take him that long to get the stuff here anyway. You can call me when it comes in. And meanwhile, you gotta make up your mind what you want to do with the Survivor bitch you’ve already got.”

  She didn’t wait for him to reply. She grabbed her coat and headed out the door before he’d quite rearranged his face into whatever expression he’d chosen. She knew he’d go looking for the formula. He always did. She knew that.

  And she always left one ingredient out of her notes.

  He knew that.

  3 The Rubaiyat

  SIX:

  TO CHAIN THE PHOENIX

  If it was her, so what?

  Mechanically, Eric Banyon went through the motions at the après-concert Artists’ Reception, standing around an overheated room with a glass of seltzer in his hand along with the other soloists, featured performers, and those who’d paid money to meet them and each other. Politically, it was the most important part of the show—at least if you were aiming for a paying gig in the hothouse incestuous world of classical music. There were many other job openings besides Featured Soloist or Touring Superstar—to name just one example, there were chairs in any number of orchestras, from the Boston Philharmonic to the Hudson Valley Symphony Orchestra, that always needed to be filled with the best, the brightest, and the most underpaid. Music scouts made careers out of tracking the progress of new young talent the same way other talent scouts cruised college athletics. Eric had already been approached about a few spots—Composer in Residence in an artists’ retreat in someplace called Glastonbury, New York, various “sure-thing” grants from one program or another, even a booking agent who swore to him that Juilliard had nothing to teach Eric and it was time to look at professional gigs. As if I haven’t heard that song a lot lately, with all of its verses. . . .

  Eric had turned them all down politely. For one thing, none of his reasons for returning to Juilliard were about worldly fame and power—as a Bard, he already had more of both than most people could imagine. For another, he couldn’t get Ria out of his mind enough to give any of them serious attention.

  He was glad he hadn’t been pressured into wearing a tie to the concert tonight. He’d already unbuttoned the neck of his tab-collared shirt—it was that or strangle in the tropical heat of the reception room. He hoped he looked raffishly artistic—it was one of the reasons he’d left his hair long. Image isn’t everything. It’s the only thing. Or so they say.

  His flute in its case was slung over his shoulder; Eric didn’t delude himself that everybody at Juilliard loved him, and a musician’s instrument was an easy target for jealousy. Better to keep it with him than bespell it to keep it from sabotage and risk harming somebody unintentionally.

  Once I never would have worried about that. Give me the power and I would have used it any time it benefited me, and de’il take the hindmost, as my old Irish grandma would have said. I guess this is maturity—taking the responsibility of protecting idiots from themselves.

  I bet Ria wouldn’t think twice about something like that. She’d say it was their own fault for messing with her in the first place.

  He frowned. That had been true once. Was it true now? He gave up trying to ignore the inevitable and devoted some serious thought to the question of the hour. It wasn’t impossible for Ria to have been here tonight. She wasn’t either dead or in a coma—in fact, the last time he’d talked to Kayla and Elizabet (though between juggling Underhill and World Above time zones, he wasn’t quite sure when that was), they’d said Ria was on her way to making a full recovery.

  They also said she’d acquired a conscience and morals, but dammit, what does that MEAN in real-life terms? They said she was still Ria—memories, Gifts, and all—so it’s not like she’s been Touched by An Angel or something sappy like that. She’s still the same Ria I knew, and the Ria I knew was ruthless.

  But not vicious. She didn’t care what happened to other people, but she didn’t go out of her way to hurt them. Not like Perenor. Not that it mattered a lot if you happened to be the person who got in her way. . . .

  All the while his brain kept turning over that unanswerable question, he smiled and made meaningless conversation with men and women in expensive clothes. Lovely concert, yes he was very pleased with his performance tonight, no he hadn’t really made plans for what he’d do after he graduated. Round and round they circled, drawn to Eric by something they probably didn’t even understand—the aura of Power that a fully trained Bard wore like an invisible cloak—though the other performers got their fair share of attention as well. It was a little like being in a shark tank—but Eric wasn’t afraid of any of these particular sharks.

  There’s nothing they can do to me. None of them is pointing a gun at my head or offering to torture any of my friends. They’re all just looking for some way to use me. Once upon a time that would have driven me crazy with righteous indignation. Now it just seems kind of sad.

  He circled around behind the buffet. It was pretty well denuded by now—only some cheese and fruit remained—and the ice-sculpture centerpiece was so melted it was now impossible to tell what it had originally been. Eric reached out and placed his hand against it, savoring the coolness. You’d think they could just open the doors and let some December in, but apparently nobody’d thought of that.

  “I’m not going to let you ruin your future over some silly girlish tantrum.”

  The voice was low and furious. Eric glanced up in surprise. Lydia Ashborn was standing backed into a corner by a tall man in a very expensive suit and an even more expensive haircut. Eric recognized Marco Ashborn, Lydia’s father.

  “Do you want to be a bit player all your life, just some faceless unknown musician without even a separate credit? You should have had a solo tonight, and you know it. Don’t you want to record and tour in your own right? Why are you trying to piss it all away? Is this about me? Is that what this is all about, Lydia?”

  Man, does it all have to be about you? The uprush of anger was automatic, stemming from still-unhealed scars. He’d been in Lydia’s position once: a Trophy Child, treated as nothing more than a playing-piece on the parental chessboard. An accessory. A thing, not a person. And that was wrong on so many levels.

  Eric saw the glitter of tears as Lydia ducked her head, and fought to control his anger. Discipline above all things, Dharinel had told him. A Bard’s displeasure could wound. A Bard’s anger could kill.

  “Don’t you look away from me, dammit!” he heard Marco hiss. Marco grabbed his daughter’s arm roughly, and Eric saw Lydia’s face go white with the pain.

  That’s enough.

  Eric reached for the stillness within that Dharinel had created in him with all those long
months of training, and composed his face into a simple harmless expression of hero worship as he walked over to the two of them.

  “Hey, excuse me, but aren’t you Marco Ashborn, the violinist?”

  The burly man turned toward Eric, irritation warring with the game face that every public performer learns to assume at need.

  “It’s an honor to meet you, sir,” Eric went on, blithely ignoring the emotional undercurrents swirling around Marco and Lydia. “I’ve enjoyed your work so much.” That, at least, was true—though how much he’d ever like Marco’s playing now that he knew what a goon the guy was in real life was an interesting question. “Lyd’s certainly inherited your talent—I’m in some of her classes as well as her chamber music group.” Eric held out his hand, still radiating peaceable obliviousness. “Eric Banyon.”

  Marco’s face cleared. He recognized Eric, and more, he responded to Eric’s calm confidence, his assumption of being someone whom the famous Marco Ashborn would want to know. It was the simplest sort of magic—and not really magic, because in its own way, it was true.

  “I saw your performances tonight. Both of them. That solo was most impressive,” Marco rumbled.

  “Thank you, sir,” Eric said. “I was pleased with our ensemble work. Lydia made me look good,” he went on, deliberately misunderstanding the other man’s words. “You must be very proud of her.”

  He could almost see the conflict between the desire to administer another put-down to his daughter and the instinct to appear praiseworthy chase themselves around Marco’s face, but the older man, as Eric had expected, went with political expediency. You didn’t get to where Marco was on talent alone. A career was built on a network of relationships. Prima donna attitude might make good news stories, but professionalism and tact built a career that lasted.

  “Yes, I am,” Marco said, gazing into Eric’s eyes with deep sincerity. “I only wish her mother could have been here to see her.”

  Eric felt rather than saw Lydia dart an angry glance at her father, hating him for his hypocrisy. Eric sent out the tiniest tendril of Power, willing someone to appear who could end this deadlock before Marco could resume taking Lydia apart again.

  “Marco—darling! I’ve been trying to get you alone all night. Hello, Eric—you were wonderful this evening. You must come and play for us some time soon. Now, this won’t take a moment—” The tall grey-haired woman—Eric had spoken to her earlier, but didn’t remember who she was—expertly claimed Marco for her own and led him off. As Eric had hoped, Marco was too much a manipulator to want to carry on abusing Lydia with witnesses present. That sort of emotional torture worked best when no one suspected it.

  Well, I suspect it. For a moment he was tempted to cast a geas on Marco that would keep him from ever being cruel to Lydia again, but Dharinel had emphasized, over and over, that use of the Power was like a stone thrown into a still lake—ripples spread out from every action, and the smallest uses of Power could have the largest—and most unforeseen—consequences. Unless he was certain of what would happen, he’d better leave the matter alone—at least magically.

  Eric glanced at Lydia, who favored him with an effortful smile before turning blindly away. He knew he hadn’t done much to help, but at least he’d done something. And undoubtedly Marco Ashborn would be jetting off to some exotic foreign city soon to leave his daughter in peace.

  For a while. But maybe a while will be enough.

  After a few minutes more, Eric was able to make a graceful exit from the Artists’ Reception and head over to the student party in the dorms. The celebration there was a lot noisier and a lot more honest—everybody was blowing off steam, filled with relief at having gotten through the all-important Winter Concert without absolute disaster.

  There was a “No Alcohol” rule for the dorms, honored except by those few who simply had to break any rule just because it was there. But this party was proctored, and after the performance high of the concert, nobody really needed anything other than soda and fruit juice to get really rowdy anyway.

  “Hey, Eric!” Jeremy shouted, waving. The young bassoonist was balanced on the end of the battered couch in the Student Lounge, his pale hair damp and standing up in spiky cowlicks. He looked like a goblin-child from a Victorian children’s book.

  Now where the hell did THAT simile spring from?

  “Hey, Jer,” Eric said, coming over. There was a big cooler beside the couch. Trust Jeremy to take up a strategic position by the refreshments. He was as savvy in his way as Kayla, Elisabet’s young Healer-apprentice, was in hers.

  “Have a drop of the pure,” Jeremy said, lifting the lid of the cooler and pulling out a bottle of Glacéau.

  It was spring water flavored with various fruit essences, and was a great favorite with the elves: Eric’s refrigerator at Guardian House was full of it. Eric twisted the cap off and chugged the bottle, relishing the shock of cold. The reception had taken more out of him than he’d thought it would. He felt grimy, like a window so covered with smudged fingerprints that the light barely shone through.

  Dharinel told me there’d be days like this. “Nothing comes without a price,” he always said. Being a Bard makes you vulnerable to influences most people never even notice, while at the same time it gives you power most people can never imagine.

  Jeremy handed him another bottle without even asking. “You looked better backstage before we played. So. How many propositions did you get?”

  Eric stared at him blankly. Do you mean that the way it sounds? Jeremy was 17, but he was short and round-faced, and looked much younger. The boy’s face twisted, and for a moment it wore a bleakly cynical expression that Eric had never seen before. “You know. The ‘I could do so much for your career with just a little private tutoring’ line?”

  Funny. Isn’t that the phrase Ria used once?

  “Oh, you know,” Eric said lightly. “The usual nebulous job offers. But nothing like that.”

  “You’re lucky,” Jeremy said, then looked guarded, as if he felt he’d ruined his Captain Cool image by saying too much.

  If he’d been someone else, Eric would have urged Jeremy to tell him more, to report incidents like that to his Student Advisor. But Eric already knew that offers like that were rarely made openly. It was all interpretation and innuendo, impossible to prove. And the act of bringing the accusation could bring an end to a promising career before it even started.

  “Yeah, well,” Eric said. “Nobody rides for free. Isn’t that what they say?” Everything comes with a price. Too bad they don’t always tell you what it is going in.

  “That’s what they say,” Jeremy said, obviously relieved that Eric wasn’t going to go all over Adult and Role Model on him.

  “Hey, Eric!” someone called. It was David, another of the soloists, calling him over to congratulate him on his playing. Eric turned away, the second bottle of Glacéau still in his hand.

  He’d only meant to look in at the after-concert party, pick up his jacket, and then go on home. He didn’t have any classes tomorrow, or even any rehearsals, but he did have a big assignment in Music Theory that had to get done Real Soon Now, and that meant making time for work instead of socializing.

  But the next time he thought to look at a clock—watches didn’t work well Underhill, and Eric had never been much for timebinding at the best of times—he realized it was after midnight and the party was starting to break up.

  By the time he stepped out onto the street, Lincoln Center was deserted, the cafes and restaurants that abounded in this high-living area mostly closed for the night. If someone wanted a set for New York After The Bomb Dropped, they couldn’t pick a better place than right here, right now. Eric shivered, even in the dark-red leather jacket he wore, as he juggled his options. He had to get home somehow. It was too cold to walk, and he hated the subway. The Center was usually a good place to pick up a cab, but since the Mayor’s new policy on medallion licenses, cabs were in short supply everywhere. He looked up and down the deserte
d street, and decided to chance it.

  Putting his fingers to his lips, he whistled loudly and shrilly, a few bars of her signature tune forming in his head as he summoned his elvensteed to him. The tune was “God Bless The Child,” a Billie Holiday song. He’d named Lady Day for The Lady of the White Camellias, and the song was his surest link to the elvensteed. He felt her acknowledge the call, and a few moments later—far too quickly for a vehicle that had been paying any attention at all to the posted speed limits—he heard the deep growl of Lady Day’s engine and saw the gleam of her lights as she suddenly popped visible.

  The elvensteed pulled to a stop in front of him and waited, engine thrumming. She looked almost smug, and so she should, having figured out all by herself how to get here while drawing the least attention to herself. If any mortal had enough Talent to manage to glimpse her as she drove by, he wouldn’t have seen a riderless motorcycle—and if he had, well, people had a way of editing what they saw until it made sense.

  Eric patted her gently on the gas-tank, and heard a ghostly whicker of amusement inside his mind. He climbed aboard, retrieving his helmet and gloves from the back of the saddle and putting them on. As he settled into the saddle, Eric realized that he’d been neglecting Lady Day these past few weeks, taking cabs and subways to school and even walking, and a good run was just what they both needed. A little magic would take care of the cold, and there was nothing on earth more sure-footed—or sure-wheeled—than an elvensteed.

  “What do you say, girl? Want to go for a run?” He squeezed the throttle experimentally, and was rewarded with a wail of glee from the elvensteed’s engine.

  A few turns, and they were headed up Riverside Drive, going north. The enormous bulk of the George Washington Bridge towered above him, and for just a moment, riding through the night, Eric felt a flicker of temptation to just keep on going, let the road take him away from all pressures and responsibilities and everyone he knew. But the thought quickly vanished—not out of any artificial sense of other-imposed responsibility, but because he’d already done that dance in all its many variations. The footloose existence of the open road no longer held any enchantment for him.