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physical exhaustion he could not even best his enemy blade-to-blade.
That left only one thing he could do: stall for time, trigger the trap when
Vidal was not looking, and hope that someone or something would intervene and
tilt the balance back his way.
Pray for luck, in massive quantities-to Danaa and the humans' God, who also
cherished children-that all the pieces could somehow come together at once and
Keighvin could save himself, Fairgrove, and the hostage children.
"Why here, Vidal?" he asked, keeping face and voice impassive. "Why now?"
"To prove to Seleighe and Unseleighe Courts alike that you're a fool, a brain-
sick, soft-headed fool, Keighvin Silverhair," Vidal snarled, scarlet traces of
energy crackling down his hands as he clenched them, his pitted face twisted
with sick rage. "You and your obsession with these mortals, with their works
and their world, when you should be exploiting them!"
So far he hadn't noticed that Keighvin hadn't formally accepted the Challenge.
Until the Challenge was accepted, with the proper words, any means of
defeating Vidal was legal. Until Vidal noticed, Keighvin intended to keep
stalling, while he tried to think of some way of alerting his people back at
the complex to his need.
From a half mile away, his sharp hearing picked up the burbling growl of a
high-performance engine; a particularly odd growl, closer to the sound of a
racing plane than a car. Long familiarity let him identify it instantly as
Tannim's Mustang. And a plan occurred to him with a blinding flash of insight.
All he had to do was keep stalling, for a little longer. The trap would not be
needed after all.
Blessed Danaa, thank you. Sacred Mother of Acceleration be with us. . . .
He swept his arms wide, flinging his cloak to either side as if he had
unfurled wings; at the same time he magically keyed the gate-control behind
Vidal, so that the twin panels receded and locked in the "open" position.
"Oh, impressive," Vidal mocked. He had not noticed that the physical gates
behind him were open; all his attention had been centered on Keighvin's
extravagant gesture-precisely as Keighvin had hoped.
Behind Vidal, the engine-sounds screamed and dopplered as Tannim gunned the
Mustang and turned her. Vidal Dhu had not noticed the telltale noises at all;
or if he had, had thought it was another car on the highway somewhere in the
distance.
Or perhaps, in his arrogance, he accounted the things that mortals did of no
importance.
He sneered, and the vermilion glow about him increased. "What is your next
trick, Keighvin Witling? Do you make an egg appear from your mouth? Or a coin
from your ear?"
The engine's growl pitched up; and behind Vidal's back, the speed-run lights
flashed from green, to yellow, to red.
* * *
Pain from Tannim's abused knee sent streaks of red lightning across his
vision. It felt as if someone had driven a glass knife into his kneecap, and
his leg got heavier with every step he took. Very much more, and his leg
wasn't going to hold him.
Just a few more steps. . . .
Light. Light from the parking lot ahead of him, through the office windows.
The Mustang was close enough to "hear" the remote now.
The keys were in his right hand, although he didn't remember groping for them.
With his left hand clutching his thigh just above the knee, he thumbed the
remote while staggering for the door, and was rewarded with the growl of the
engine.
A few more steps. . . .
The door, the last barrier between himself and the Mach 1. He hit it, hoping
it would open, hoping it hadn't quite caught the last time someone had come
through. It flew wide, spilling him onto the concrete outside. He tried to
roll, but didn't quite make it, and his left knee struck concrete, leaving a
red splotch of blood where he'd hit.
JEEEEsus!
Gasping for air, he got to his feet again, and made the last few steps to the
Mustang. He fell inside, sobbing, unashamed of the tears of pain.
He hauled himself into place with the steering wheel, and stole a precious few
seconds to jerk the harness into place, yanking it tighter than he ever had
before. As he reached over for the door-handle and slammed it closed, he
averted his eyes from the hole in his jeans and the mess underneath. If he
didn't look at it, it might not hurt so much.
Oh God, don't let me have taken my kneecap off, please. . . .
And he was profoundly grateful he'd followed an old cop friend's advice-that
he "couldn't shoot and drive" without an automatic tranny. Right now, there
wasn't enough left of his leg to manage a stick-shift.
He reached blindly for the T-shifter and threw it into reverse, gunning the
engine at the same time. The rear of the car slewed wildly, spinning in a
cloud of exhaust and tire-smoke and a screech of rubber, until the nose of the
Mustang faced the driveway.
He smoked the tires.
Gees threw him back into his seat, and his leg howled in protest; tears
blurred his sight, but he knew Thunder Road like he knew the colors of his
magic, and he kept it straight down the middle.
Fifty. Seventy. Ninety.
The Mustang thundered defiance, getting louder as it built up to speed, the
war-cry of the engine thrumming through the roll-cage, vibrating in his chest,
filling his ears to the exclusion of any other sound. The trees to either side
were a blur, made so as much by acceleration as by his watering eyes.
Hundred ten.
The road narrowed, and he felt every tiny irregularity in the asphalt in his
tailbone-and his knee. The passing-lines down the middle started to strobe-
then seemed to stop-then appeared to pull away from him. It was one of the
most unnerving optical illusions of high-speed driving, daring the driver to
try and catch them. He clamped his hands on the steering wheel so hard they
hurt, and still the tiny corrections he was making sent him all over the road
like a drunk.
And the road got awfully narrow when you were going this fast. . . .
The Mach 1 shuddered and vibrated, as its spoiler and ground-effects fought
against lift. Now would not be the time to research a Mustang's airspeed
velocity.
One thirty.
The trees on either side seemed closer-much closer. The speed made them bend
right over the road, cutting off the stars above the road. There was light
from the streetlamps at the end of the tunnel of trees. The gates were open.
He keyed in his mage-sight.
His mouth was dry. His knee still screamed pain at him, but he was no longer
capable of feeling it. Somewhere, deep inside, he knew he was going to pay for
this later-but that was later and this was now, and he was in the grip of his
own adrenalin.
The speedometer had already pegged, and he was going to run out of road in a
few seconds.
Keighvin counted under his breath, keeping himself and Rosaleen squarely in
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