Tar pit, yuk! Francesca thought. This is getting confusing. I can hang on to the Welsh-Celtic imagery Getaint’s generating, but this is a definite whiff of old-time John Bunyan. Whoever sculpted this sure has a sense of humor. In the distance, she thought she heard an owl hoot. Passive alert. Geraint would have heard it, too. They’d missed something, obviously. If it was white IC. no sweat. If it was gray, they were in trouble now. There didn’t seem to be anywhere to go, either.

Shifting into sensor mode, she saw the concealed pathway between the trees when she returned to the woodland they’d just left. As Francesca-Viviane urged the bard forward, his eyes flashed everywhere, looking for menace underfoot and in the trees. Her intuition told her they were getting hot now. She was right.

Passing below the tree canopy they beheld a castle-moat, drawbridge, pennant-topped towers, and all. The central processor. This had to be it. There was nowhere else to go.

As they approached the drawbridge, it lowered and a mighty knight mounted on his thunderous charger appeared before them. In the swirl of his flowing robes, it was almost impossible to perceive his outlines clearly. He wasn’t armored, but the robes shimmered with magic. Geraint was becoming worried about the defenses the IC construct might have. It would be hard to focus an attack on him. Francesca-Viviane did her best to hide her form as her companion spoke his words of invocation. She didn’t think it was time yet to join the fray.

In his own perception, Geraint called the great Eagles of the Hunt, and drew down the wise serpent to the battlements. The snake’s honeyed words seemed to calm and transfix the guards preparing their weapons upon the castles battlements. Suppressed an alert there, he thought. Now give me strength to defeat this mother. This is serious killer IC. The Eagles tore at the helm, shoulders, and body of the knight, ripped with their talons at his destrier, and drew blood. As a ripple of intense blue light flowed from Taliesin’s staff, the knight raised his shield to deflect it. The bolt flashed incandescent when it struck, reducing the shield to a corroded lump of burning wood. The knight dropped it and galloped forward, Lance raised, tip pointed at the offending magician.

Do I attack or defend? Geraint thought wildly. My serpent-frame is occupying the other guards, so I can’t use it to defend me. I live or die here. Another spell to destroy this errant knight.

The feathery flames hovered over the knight, then engulfed him as he rode on to the solid ground beyond the drawbridge. The mount faltered and the knight fell from his mount, but no call was heard atop the battlements. The serpent calmed the hearts of those within the castle.

“Haste, Taliesin!” Viviane called. They rushed across the drawbridge and entered the citadel. Within were many towers, a keep servants scurrying to and fro. Two squires stared at them uncertainly; gray IC not yet activated, they guessed. The enchantress scanned the scene, her inquisitive frame-servants exploring the citadel.

Taliesin grew increasingly anxious, wondering how long the confusion would last. As Viviane pointed in triumph to the far limestone tower, a trumpet sounded. Great, he thought! they’re on to us. Work swiftly, my priestess. We have little time left to us now.

Reaching the tower just as the dogs were unleashed in the courtyard, they slammed the door behind them with a crash. She led him up the winding stone staircase to the warded and barred door. He battered on it with his staff, screaming spells to dispel the magical protections. On the stairs, they heard footfalls and clanking sounds. Stuff the organic feel of this, Geraint’s panicking brain was howling, these guys have got swords.

The door opened without a sound, revealing a room in which myriad crystals floated airily, each containing a picture and a scroll. Viviane’s summoned sprites began to examine and read, analyzing the contents. They had taken one crystal and were looking for another when Nimue appeared before the bard’s eyes.

She smiled seductively at him, her hands alive with gelatinous webs. Her voice soothed him, called to him, her eyes alive with poignant sorcery. She cast aside her flimsy gown and stood naked before him. Adrenaline raced through his body at the sight of her, his arousal distracting him from his true task. Feebly he murmured an incantation of self-defense as the succubus advanced on him. Her body brushed his, and he delighted in that instant. He could feel her breasts pressing against his body as she began to wind her arms around him.

“Tell me, darling, where you have been, that I may come with you and rest within your bower and be your lover. I want to bring you my delights.” she purred, curling a leg around his, rubbing against him with her thigh, her tongue seeking his. He almost fainted.

Sorcery! Succubus!”

Taliesin heard the words in time and turned to see Francesca’s form changed into the fury of Morgan le Fay, in an instant changing again into the black bird. He changed his own form into that of a dove and escaped up into the airy cupola of the tower, circling around with the raven beside him. As one they dived beyond the furious, clutching maiden and sped down and out of the tower.

They were hunted. They heard the wolves and erinyes, the seductive words of sirens, but they closed their cars and flew through the air, over the rustling trees, across meadows stalked by enraged guardians, past gates and barriers. As they flew toward the exit to the Isles of the Sun, a great fireball came down at them from the heavens, and as they soared over the sea the fire engulfed them in a flash that blinded and disorientated them.

Yet they soared still, and their forms came home at last to the blessed place. Viviane carried with her a tattered bag, the spoils of their foray into the deadly castle. They landed amid a copse that smelled sweetly of lavender and apple blossom, and instantly jacked out.

“Oh, God.” Geraint was coming down from the boosters. It seemed that Edward had significantly downplayed the drugs’ after-effects. It was four in the afternoon and he had dark circles under his eyes. He looked like he hadn’t slept for a week.

Francesca, however, was jubilant, alive with energy. “I’m not going to download this lot yet. Maybe that lady you were so engrossed in got a fix on your magical home, my Welsh bard. We’ve got to get out of here fast. They may have our location.”

Geraint was seeing double, but they managed to pack their decks, adding them to their other luggage, and made it to the parking garage in seven minutes flat. He couldn’t even remember the faked identity he’d used to check in.

“Mr. and Mrs. John Smith,” Francesca sniggered as they closed the car doors. “The traditional alias of furtive lovers. But we’ve been doing something much better than that.”

It was true, he reflected. Francesca really got off on a good run in a way that she never really did with sex. Perhaps I should have used Edward’s little recipe after all, he thought idly.

“Now, you’ve got dinner tonight. I think we should drive to, um, let’s see.” She ruffled the pages of the road atlas. “Banbury. That’s nice. Those old fakes, the druids, have got some stuff out there. Let’s check in there. Ooh, and they’ve got a Holiday Inn too. Aren’t we lucky?” She turned the key in the ignition and pulled away quickly.

“We did it. We got something. The spirits were smiling. Tonight I can get a good look-see at what Transys has got on us.”

28

Arriving home, Rani had to face far stronger opposition than she had expected. Imran had shaken Sanjay out of his usual self-indulgence, and the two brothers confronted her angrily. She’d been out all night, she’d been seen on the street, bilking to strange men-none of which she should be doing if she had any respect for the family’s good name. She belonged in the safety of the home. They were worried about her. The streets were not safe. All the old arguments came pouring out. Finally. lmran forbade her to leave the house without his permission for the following week.