- Chapter 14

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# When the Bough Breaks

## CHAPTER ONE

Maclyn, Knight of the High Court of Elfhame Outremer, leaned forward over the steering wheel of his classic '57 Chevy and flicked on the radio. Q-103 FM was playing two-fer-Tuesdays and had just finished up a set by Fleetwood Mac. The DJ cut into the fadeout, chattering, "Coming up for all you April Fools—two-fers by Phil Collins, The Beatles, and Grim Reaper. But first . . . a Guns N' Roses two-fer. . . ."

"Aw Gawd, not Guns N' Roses. If I want to listen to a garage band, I'll find a good one. . . ." The engine growled and downshifted as his convertible pulled out of the secluded dirt road into traffic. The driver of a late-model Ford Taurus glanced over at them and did a classic double-take, jerking her head around to stare. Mac flashed a grin in her direction, and she waved before driving on.

His elvensteed, currently taking the form of a Palomino-gold '57 Chevy convertible with cream trim, was a traffic stopper. Rhellen didn't cause quite the disruption to traffic he would have in his regular form, Mac reflected, but he was still impressive. And women loved him.

With any luck, he would impress the socks off of Lianne McCormick.

Mac pushed his troubles with the Seleighe Court out of his mind. There would be time to deal with Felouen and her demands. The present, as far as he was concerned, wasn't the time.

"Okay, Rhellen, let's make some time," he told the car. "Tonight—we party!"

The elvensteed growled affirmation and accelerated past two Fayetteville city policemen and one North Carolina Highway Patrol trooper, hitting seventy-five without causing so much as a chirp on their radar.

With Rhellen in full charge, Mac made it to Lianne's apartment complex running seemingly just under Mach One. She, the current human lady of his interest, if not his dreams, was sitting on the deck of her apartment grading papers, a tiny frown of concentration on her face. He pulled up silently and vaulted out of the car in equal silence, which gave him a chance to admire her before she spotted him. She was slender, with short, soft chestnut hair, deep blue eyes and pale, flawless skin—she had the fragile, ethereal look frequently attributed to one of his own people. She had, too, the blazing energy of a human—she was, he thought, one of the delicate mayflies of the sentient world.

Like all humans.

Here today and gone tomorrow. He felt a moment of poignant loss and suppressed it. But today will be a lot of fun, anyway.

He intentionally crunched some gravel on the walk to let her know he was there.

She looked up, and her face lit with an amazingly sweet smile. "Hey!" she said. "Glad you made it. I was beginning to think you'd changed your mind. Or come to your senses or something." She grinned when she said that, but Mac felt the pain of old rejection masked in her voice.

"Stand up a gorgeous gal like you?" he asked. "Not in this lifetime."

She chuckled and arched an eyebrow. "Yeah, yeah—sure, sure. So are we going to go someplace, or am I going to spend the rest of the evening checking math tests?"

He smirked. "You won't even remember what math tests are."

"I could live with that." She shoved her papers inside the front door of her apartment and locked it. "Let's go."

He showed her to the Chevy, and waited for her eyes to light up. Which they did, as predicted.

"Wow!" she whispered, and ran her hand slowly along one gleaming fender. "What a beauty. I've never seen one this color—or in such perfect condition."

Mac felt Rhellen's pleasure and grinned. "Custom job. I'm pretty proud of him."

"I'll bet." A puzzled expression crossed her face. "Him?" she asked. "I've never heard anyone refer to a car as him before."

"In this case, it's appropriate," Mac assured her.

Lianne stood back and crossed her arms over her chest. She tipped her head to one side and studied the car. She went down on one knee and carefully examined the undercarriage. Finally she nodded. "You're right. Definitely a him."

He'll love you for that, Mac thought. I think, lady, that you've just won yourself a friend.

Rhellen preened under all the attention.

"By the way," she said, as she climbed into the passenger's side, "you haven't forgotten the field trip tomorrow, have you? I hope you're ready for it; you're going to need all the help you can get."

He laughed. "Forgotten, no. Worried? Also no. What's to worry about a herd of kids who're probably car-crazy to begin with? It'll be a snap."

She didn't reply; just smiled, the kind of enigmatic smile found on the Mona Lisa. The smile that said—"I know something you don't know, but you're going to have to find out for yourself."

The kind of smile his mother Dierdre would give him—

For a moment, he was taken aback by it, enough for a nagging little worry to intrude.

Then he dismissed it. What could this mere human know that he, with all his centuries, didn't? Ridiculous. He'd enthrall her little flock, dazzle her with his cleverness, and it would all be a pleasant day for everyone concerned.

Right now, he would concern himself with tonight. Tomorrow was not worth even thinking about. . . .

* * *

Looks like the troops have arrived. "Hey, beautiful!" Mac shouted across the parking lot at Lianne as she jumped out of the first of the two bright yellow school buses to arrive at Fayetteville International Speedway. "What's a babe like you doing in a place like this? Sweetheart, where have you been all my life? Come, let me take you to the Casbah, where we will make beautiful music together. We will make lo—"

She made a shushing motion at Mac and blushed. "Like tigers," he finished. Neither the gesture nor the blush escaped the noisy herd of children who followed her out of the bus.

"O-o-o-ooh!" yelled one boy. "Miss McCormick has a boyfriend!"

"Miss McCormick has a boyfriend," someone else repeated.

A chant started. "Miss McCormick has a boyfriend—Miss McCormick has a boyfriend . . . ."

Maclyn regretted his impulsive teasing. He had obviously just made things difficult for her, and he suspected she didn't appreciate the attention she was getting.

A teacher from one of the other buses, a good-looking woman in her mid-thirties, stared at him curiously, then walked over and whispered something to the beleaguered Lianne. Lianne nodded slowly, and the other woman raised an eyebrow. She gave Mac an appreciative once-over as she returned to her own flock of children.

He was used to getting those calculating looks from women. Usually, he enjoyed them. This time, for some reason, he felt embarrassed.

Lianne got her class lined up and led them across the pavement toward him. She sent him a killing glare as she and the rowdy fifth-graders advanced.

"Lianne, I'm sorry. I didn't realize that they would do that," he said.

"I'll bet." The kids behind her had taken up a whispered refrain of "Miss McCormick sitting in a tree, K-I-S-S-I-N-G," and Lianne did not look mollified in the least by his apology. "The only way you wouldn't have known they would do that is if you'd never been a kid in the fifth grade before."

And there, he thought, you have it. I haven't ever been in the fifth grade. So how was I supposed to know? It's not my fault your class is a mob of little barbarians. I'm innocent—this time. Unfortunately, there is no way in the world that I could convince you of that without blowing my cover.

He smiled at her, shrugged helplessly, and tried to look boyishly ingenuous. "What can I say?" he asked. And then, in a louder voice that carried to the last kid in the back of the last line, Mac introduced himself to the class. "Hi. I'm Mac Lynn, and I drive race cars."

:Och, and he drives the maidens wild, he does, too!: came an impish, entirely uninvited thread of Mindspeech. :You have only to ask him, and he'll tell ye so!:

:Mother!: he snapped, trying to regain his aplomb.

:So gallant, so regal, so handsome. And so modest he is—his hat sometimes even fits him these days! Why, he drives race cars, does he? Sure and what a fine man he must be!:

:MOTHER!:

Despite Dierdre's teasing, it was a good opening line. The kids calmed down and studied him, checking, he suspected, to see if they recognized him from television.

Mac didn't mind. It wasn't likely that they would, but the moment of their uncertainty would buy him their attention. He could take it from there. He drew on his years of racing experience, and with purely elvish fervor, translated his enthusiasm into terms that drew the sixty-plus fifth-graders in front of him wholeheartedly into the world he loved.

"What do you watch on television?"

Mac was answered by a barrage of titles—almost all of them cop shows or adventure cartoons. "See, now, on all of those shows, you get to watch car-chases, or the heroes drive hot cars. Think of Don Johnson without the Daytona, or Magnum without the red Ferrari—it just doesn't work, right? Hey, your folks drive cars, you see ads on TV, there are roads practically everywhere—people are in love with cars. Some of us love 'em so much we want to drive 'em for a living. Think any of you would like to do that?"

A chorus of "Yeah!" and "Sure!" came back at him.

They were in his pocket. It was time to get them moving—show them the sights. He asked them, "So . . . . do you want to go look at some race cars, or what?"

They cheered.

Nice kids, he thought. I'm glad I decided to do this.

* * *

Gruesome bunch of larvae, Mac thought. He'd spent the better part of two hours showing the kids garages and pits, the medevac helicopter, the infield and starter's tower, and introducing them to mechanics and crew chiefs and various race drivers. Including his mother.

They'd enjoyed his mother, who just happened to be his crew chief. D.D. Reed (not as close to Dierdre as Mac Lynn was to Maclyn, but it would do) was ninety-five pounds of lightning and thunder, all wrapped up in one coveralled, pony-tailed, hellcat package. She took no guff from anyone and handed out twice the grief he ever gave her. She also looked half his age.

She gave him lip mental and audible, the mental over Lianne and his ego, the audible over everything else—much to the entertainment of the rest of the pit crews: his, and everyone else's within hearing. His crew knew the secret, of course, and thought it hilarious. Of the rest, there were a few more SERRA mages nearby that had a notion—and to those left, it was still funny to hear a "girl" giving hotshot Mac Lynn a hard time. Those who couldn't "hear" the telepathic comments were very nearly as amused as those who could.

The kids—little sadists—had loved it.

He'd also spent the better part of two hours watching them stick chewing gum on walls and under ledges when they thought no one was looking, kick each other in the shins, poke and prod each other and then stare off innocently into space when someone screeched. When he'd joked that some cars were held together with bubble-gum, one kid actually, sincerely, offered him his. Freshly chewed. Mac couldn't believe it.

He had no idea how many lug-nuts would be missing by day's end. He'd listened to their gross jokes. He'd answered their weird questions. He'd had more than enough. Finally, it was time to sit down on the small stands and watch the drivers speeding alone around the track in the time trials.

Mac was ready for the break. As kids wiggled and squealed and squirmed and passed notes and stuffed paper down each other's shirts, he knew a moment of sheer gratitude that he had been spared the indignity of fifth grade.

:They'd not have had you. You were worse than any of them.:

He sighed. :Thank you, Mother.:

His mother might have been right, he reflected. Nevertheless, he felt admiration for the guts of the teacher who had to put up with this sort of nonsense on a regular basis. He rolled his eyes and grinned over the kids' heads at Lianne.

She raised her eyebrows in a mime of disbelief at her class's behavior and grinned back.

Cars roared around the track, and from their front-row seats in the pits, the smell of oil, gasoline, exhaust, and hot rubber numbed the nose while the howling of engines numbed the mind. The few fans in the stands screamed and cheered at their favorites, as if by sheer volume they could push the drivers to better times. The palpable electricity in the atmosphere always got to Mac—that excitement was what had originally pulled him out of the timeless magic of Underhill and into the very human world of auto racing.

In between runs, the kids asked more questions.

One stub-nosed kid with bright brown eyes waved his hand in the air at Mac and bounced up and down on his bleacher seat until Mac was sure it was going to have a permanent bow in it. "Yes?" he asked warily. He'd already had more than a taste of what fifth grade boys considered reasonable to ask.

"I want to drive a race car when I get out of school, but Mom and Dad say I have to go to college. Did you have to go to college?"

That question seemed pretty harmless.

Lianne, however, gave Mac a warning look.

Oh, yeah. College. That great baby-sitter of the post-adolescent masses. Naturally Lianne is going to want me to be strongly in favor of it.

Mac shrugged helplessly. "No. I didn't go to college, but I wish I had." It was an easy lie. With luck it would mollify Lianne. "A college education is a good idea. If nothing else, it will give you something to fall back on if racing doesn't work out."

The look in her eyes when he said that, though, made him think he should have quit with a simple no.

And just then, D.D. popped up. "Mac doesn't need college," she said, with a sly look and a toss of her blond ponytail that told him she was going to zing him again. "He doesn't even need a brain; he never uses the itty-bitty one he's got. He has the rest of us to think for him. We don't believe in overstressing anything that weak. Now me, I needed every mechanical engineering and physics course I could cram."

The kid looked confused. "Why?" he asked. "You're just a mechanic."

D.D. cast her bright green eyes up to the sky. "Gloriosky. Just a mechanic? Sweetie-pie, I not only have to know how every part in that car works, I have to know why. This is leading-edge technology here; what we've got on our cars your daddy won't be able to buy for ten, maybe twenty years. There's no manual for what we're doing; we're working real automotive magic out there."

"I'll say," one of the crew called out. "And D.D.'s the great high wizard of Ah's. She can tell you what's wrong with an engine just by listening to it."

"And you don't get that kind of expertise working on a dune buggy in your back yard—right, Mac?" she finished triumphantly, and vanished back behind a stack of tires.

:There. Saved you again.:

With the sinking feeling that he was getting deeply mired in something he was never going to escape from, he sought a graceful out. A flash of deep blue on the track caught his eye and promised sudden salvation.

"Much as I hate to admit it, my crew chief's half right. Here's the other half. There's more to racing than driving fast—" he told them "—more even than winning races. Racing is a business. And it's a tough one. If you can't make that business pay off, you won't be racing." He waved over to the starting line. "Look at Number Fifty-eight, the car getting ready to start now. That's Keith Brightman. He's driving a '93 Lola Wombat right now. He owns it himself. He has an efficient crew and a talented mechanic, and he's a very good driver—but if he didn't know how to run a business, he wouldn't be able to race his own cars."

D.D. appeared from somewhere else. "And if he didn't know his engineering, he wouldn't be able to trouble-shoot his vehicle while he's driving it. Half the time he tells his crew what's wrong, which is a heckuva help, let me tell you, and more than Tom Cruise here can do."

She vanished again. Mac chose to ignore her.

"Keith is a good example of somebody who is doing what he wants to do because he has the smarts and the guts, and because he isn't afraid to work hard. If you want to be a driver, use him as your example."

"Does he have a college education?" the school-hater asked with a hopeful glance towards the deep-blue Wombat.

"You bet," Mac said. He'd picked Keith as his shining example of racetrack virtue for precisely that reason. It was going to pay off, too, he could tell. Lianne sent an appreciative glance in his direction. "College was where Keith learned about mechanical engineering, and probably learned how to run a business," he added. "And had fun doing it."

"Brightman, K. Mech-E, Rose-Hulman Polytech, class of 1987, cum laude!" screeched a voice that was getting tiresomely familiar, from just behind Mac.

The Wombat took off with a roar, and the questions stopped. The kids watched the car intently. Maclyn could tell they were impressed. Hell, he was impressed. More than it ever had before, the Wombat moved; Keith was putting on a real show. Mac could hear a difference in the engine, a rich, deep throb of power that grabbed deep in his gut and twisted; the rookie's mechanic had made an exotic modification somewhere. That damned Wombat was flying like it thought it was a fighter plane and had forgotten the ground.

What has Brightman done to that engine? Wonderful stuff, Mac mused. Magic with gears and cylinders—and maybe something Mom can duplicate. I hope she's listening.

:I am—what do you think I am, tone-deaf? I also happen to be Watching it. Teach your grandmam to suck eggs, why don't you.:

Maclyn had to give the Wombat's crew credit. On a shoestring budget and what amounted to little more than native genius, they were putting themselves in a position to give the big boys a run for their money.

Mac's ears followed the car even after it was out of sight. :He's taking seconds off of the best time we've had so far.: Mac commented to his crew chief.

:I'm paying attention, Mac.: D.D. retorted. :Unless someone else comes up with a miracle, he's just gotten the pole.:

The car did a flawless lap and dove into the final curve as if it owned it—and there was a sudden hollow, popping sound. It wasn't much of a noise really, but Mac's throat tightened, and his mouth went dry. The sudden hush of the crowd in the stand across from the pits was the first indication of the seriousness of the problem—then the car became visible from the right side of the pits, and Mac saw a tiny trail of smoke and sparks that streamed out from beneath the front wheels.

D.D.'s voice was in his head, all humor gone. :Sweet Daana—Mac, a control arm just sheared! The lad's going to lose her any second—:

For one timeless instant, the car continued as though nothing was wrong, and then it seemed to bunch itself like a wild animal crouching for the attack. It swerved wildly to the left, then fishtailed back to the right, and in the middle of its rightward spin, collided with the outside wall. It rebounded and launched itself into the air, bounding end over end like a skier doing stunts off a ramp. The Lola disintegrated just as it was designed to, but in the direction it was heading, it was going to hit the low retaining wall in front of the pits nose-first at around a hundred miles per hour. And it was going to do it a mere twenty yards from sixty-plus school kids.

"No!" Mac heard someone bellow, and realized the voice was his own. Gods and demons, he thought. Oh gods above—Keith isn't going to make it out of there, and we aren't going to make it out of here!

A deep bass whump marked the car's impact. Bits of car ricocheted back towards the crowd, and others came over the retaining wall; flames spurted from the engine pinwheeling across the asphalt. Screaming fans saw impending disaster and panicked. They jumped off the sides of the stands and tumbled to the ground, packing and running like frightened cattle in a slaughterhouse pen.

The roll-caged cockpit skidded upside-down in the middle of the track, trailing sparks. It followed the flaming engine unit as though they were strung together, its trajectory matching the engine's—one of the worst possible scenarios Mac could imagine.

They're built to come apart to save the driver, dammit! Mac thought in anguish, as he watched the cockpit collide with the engine right in front of the stands. Fuel spurted from the ruptured fuel-cell, torn open lengthwise, next to the limp driver. The spreading puddle of fuel inched nearer the shooting flames. I can see the flames. Gods, I can see the flames—alcohol fuel should burn almost invisibly—this is even worse than it looks. Keith's gotta be dead by now.

Mac could only watch numbly. His puny magics were useless here. From the paddock, vehicles were gunning to intercept the wreck before it had even stopped moving. He heard a metallic whine, building in pitch, as the track medevac helicopter started its engines. Now the whole tank goes, he thought. We have to get the kids out of here—

There was no way. Shrapnel would be filling the air in a second, and it would fall everywhere, even in the paddock. "Get them down beneath the seats," he shouted; he, Lianne, and the chaperons started pushing kids down.

He became aware of a tingling at the base of his skull. The hair on his arms was standing up—and he realized that he had first felt this sensation right after the car started to go out of control. His mind gave the sensation a name.

Psi. TK.

D.D., the Healer, the Empath, Mindspoke with quiet amazement. :No one has been hurt yet by the flying debris. The car hasn't exploded yet. It's coming from near you, Mac—but who's responsible? There isn't a SERRA Psi out here, and no elves but us, and none of the mages have the right spells. . . . :

Somebody nearby was keeping the car from blowing.

Mac Looked around him. One fragile-looking little girl sat, transfixed, watching the disaster. Motionless, silent, unblinking, she could have been a statue of a fifth grader, except for the breeze that blew her wispy blond hair around her face and caused her plaid skirt to ripple around the tops of her white kneesocks.

And from her poured incredible power.

* * *

In the crowd across the track from the paddock, one woman ignored the people milling around her—seemed even to ignore the accident. She read the face of a meter whose needle was in the far right-hand side of the red zone; she wore a cool, satisfied smile. Then she locked long, perfectly manicured fingers around a voice-activated mini-recorder and whispered into it.

"The accident went off flawlessly—shouldn't be enough left of the car to prove sabotage. Rumors were right—definitely telekinetic activity here. Localized it to the pits across from where I'm standing, but too many people around to get a definite fix. TK is preventing the explosion of the car, though—bet anything on that—think one of the racing people must be our target. This explains why the Fayetteville track has such a good record, maybe. I'll try to move in for a closer read."

She stuffed the meter and the tape recorder, still on and ready, into her bag, and worked her way out of the crowd.

* * *

The fire crew sprayed foam on the blazing engine block and the spreading puddles of fuel; Heavy Rescue cut away bits of twisted metal. Mac stood transfixed, watching the kid who stared at the wreck.

:Catch her before she leaves—I want to talk to her!: D.D. ordered.

He agreed absently—then his attention was drawn to the racetrack, where one of the rescuers gave a triumphant shout.

They pulled Keith Brightman out of the car—and he stood on his own.

A number of things then happened at once. From their hiding place beside the stands, the crowd went wild. The rescuers and the young driver sprinted for the pits and the little cover they provided. Lianne noticed that one of her students was still in the path of potential danger, and Mac saw her pull the girl down behind the bleacher.

And that was when the fuel cell blew.

Shrapnel flew across the infield and into the pits. Mac winced at the sound of metal-on-metal as pieces of car went into the mesh that protected the stands. The crowd's cheers became terrified screams.

:Dammit!: Mac thought as he huddled for cover behind a stack of tires. :The kid's got to be a line-of-sight TK. Lianne broke the contact when she moved the kid.:

There was a pause. Then D.D. told him, :I can still feel the child, Mac. She's controlling the shrapnel. And no one's been badly hurt yet.:

Mac looked through the huddle of scared fifth-graders for the girl. Sure enough, she was peeking over the bleachers, still intent on the wreck.

The air cleared, and the crowd started climbing back into their seats. Several young soldiers on leave from Fort Bragg organized the mob of fans, then moved quickly through the crowd, looking for wounded. They escorted the three folks with small lacerations down to the infield medic.

There were no other injuries.

Down in the pit, Lianne McCormick and the other fifth-grade teachers efficiently rounded up their own crowd, herded them into a raggedy line, and marched them toward the exit.

"Lianne!" Mac bellowed. "Wait a minute!"

Lianne came back—the rest of the field trip contingent kept going. "We have to leave, Mac. This is the sort of thing parents have heart attacks over—we want to have the kids safely back to school before any footage shows up on a local newsbreak."

"But I really wanted to talk to—"

"Gotta go, Mac," Lianne interrupted. "See you soon?"

He forced a smile. "As soon as possible."

She hurried after her students.

Mac's watched his little TK trooping away, way to the back of the line—when, as if she felt his stare, she turned and looked directly at him—and the look in her eyes became one of startled recognition.

"Elf—" he read on her lips. "You're an elf—"

He nodded, staring past her young face into her old, old eyes.

:My name is Maclyn of Elfhame Outremer. My mother Dierdre Brighthair and I need to talk with you.:

She didn't respond to his Mindspoken request. She did, however, start to walk toward him—

And her face changed. Mac would have sworn that her eyes had been dark brown—but they weren't. They were light green. The appearance of age and wisdom, the look of recognition that had been in them, were gone. Instead, her face reflected pure terror. She wrapped her skinny arms around herself and stared at him in wide-eyed dismay. Then she fled. She disappeared into the crowd of kids, leaving Mac standing open-mouthed and bewildered.

:Mother,: he noted, :That was, I believe, the strangest encounter I have ever had with a human being.:

D.D. had witnessed the last part of the odd exchange, and for once she had no sharp comeback. She only nodded, and replied, :Something is very wrong there, Mac. I don't know what it is, but there is something seriously wrong with that child.:

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Framed

Title: | The Otherworld
Author: | Mercedes Lackey, Larry Dixon, Mark Shepherd & Holly Lisle
ISBN: | 0-671-57852-9
Copyright: | © 1992 by Mercedes Lackey
Publisher: | Baen Books