Peter S. Beagle - The Folk of the Air

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file:///C|/Documents%20and%20Settings/harry%20kruiswijk/Mijn%20do...n/spaar/Peter%20S.%20Beagle%20-%20The%20Folk%20of%20the%20Air.txt

THE FOLK OF THE AIR

by Peter S. Beagle

Flyleaf:

They were playing at time and magic, but time is tricky and magic is dangerous!

When Farrell returned to Avicenna after years away, he found his oldest friend Ben living with an

unattractive older woman named Sia. Ben and Farrell's girlfriend, Julie, were also mixed up with the

League for Archaic Pleasures -- a group that playacted the events and manners of medieval chivalry,

sometimes too seriously.

Nothing was quite as it seemed. Sia's ancient house developed rooms that impossibly appeared and

disappeared. Apparently helpless, Sia still had enormous powers that no human could defy when she

chose to exert her will. And some members of the League were not playacting -- they _were_ the

medieval characters they portrayed. Even mild-mannered Ben was sometimes possessed by a Ninth

Century viking, driven to madness by the modern world he could not understand.

Attending a League revel with Julie, Farrell was amused by the claim of fifteen-year-old Aiffe that

she was a witch. But later he saw her, attempting to summon a demon, conjure out of air the form of

Nicholas Bonner, who had been sent to limbo five centuries before!

With Bonner's skills added to Aiffe's talents, the pair soon made chaos of the League's annual mock

war. But Bonner's real goal was the defeat of Sia, with whom he seemed to have a mysterious

connection.

Gradually, Farrell realized that Bonner represented a growing evil such as the Twentieth Century

had never known. Only Sia's powers stood against it. But Sia had retreated into a room that could not

exist, hiding in illusion.

Here in his first fantasy novel since _The Last Unicorn_ was published in 1968, Peter Beagle again

proves his mastery in a tale of magic, illusion, and delusion, mixed with a cast of human characters only

he could create.

A Del Rey Book Published by Ballantine Books

United States of America by Ballantine Books, a division of Random House, Inc., New York, and

simultaneously in Canada by Random House of Canada Limited, Toronto.

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A portion of this novel appeared in _Phantasmagoria: Tales of Fantasy and the Supernatural_, edited by

Jane Mobley.

ISBN 0-345-33782-4

Manufactured in the United States of America

Design by Holly Johnson

First Edition: September 1986

For Colleen J. McElroy

without whose aid, advice,

comfort,

cocoa at midnight,

and maddening refusal to understand

that some books just don't get finished,

this book would never have been finished.

Ferrell arrived in Avicenna at four-thirty in the morning, driving a very old Volkswagen bus named

Madame Schumann-Heink. The rain had just stopped. Two blocks from the freeway, on Gonzales, he

pulled to the curb and leaned his elbows on the steering wheel. His passenger woke up with a sad little

cry and grabbed his knee.

"It's all right," Farrell said. "We're here."

"Here?" his passenger asked, still dazed, peering ahead down the street at railroad tracks and truck

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bodies. He was nineteen or twenty, brown-haired and pink-cheeked, neat as a new ice-cream cone.

Farrell had picked him up in Arizona, near Pima, taking the sight of a V-neck pullover, tobacco-tan

loafers and white Exeter windbreaker hitchhiking across the San Carlos Indian Reservation as an

unquestionable sign from heaven. After two days and nights of more or less continuous driving, the boy

was no whit damper or grubbier than before, and Farrell was no nearer to remembering whether his

name was Pierce Harlow or Harlow Pierce. He called Farrell _mister_ with remoreseless courtesy and

kept asking him earnestly what it had been like to hear _Eleanor Rigby_ and _Day Tripper_ for the first

time.

"Avicenna, California," Farrell announced, grinning at him. "Museum of my twisted youth, vault of

my dearest and most disgusting memories." He rolled down his window and yawned happily. "That

good stink, smell it, that's the Bay. Must be low tide."

Pierce/Harlow sniffed as instructed. "Uh-huh. Yes, I see. Really nice." He ran his hands through his

hair, which promptly sprang back into one sculpted piece, polished and seamless. "How long did you

say it's been?"

"Nine years," Farrell said. "Almost ten. Since I made the mistake of actually graduating. I don't

know what the hell I was thinking of that morning. Just got careless, I guess."

The boy chuckled politely, turning away to rummage in his Eddie Bauer knapsack. "I've got the

address of the place I'm supposed to go in here somewhere. It's right up near the campus. I can just

wait." In the smudgy pre-dawn light, the nape of his neck looked as thin and vulnerable as a child's.

The sky was the color of mercury, mushy as a bruise. Farrell said, "Usually you can see the whole

north campus from here, the bell tower and everything. I don't remember it getting this foggy." He

stretched until he ached, locking his hands behind his head and feeling stiff muscles crackle and sigh and

mumble to themselves. "Well, I can't go rouse up my buddy yet, it's way too early. Might find ourselves

some breakfast--there used to be an all-night place on Gould." One bright little sparkle of pain remained

when he relaxed, and he glanced down to see Pierce/Harlow smiling diffidently and holding a

switchblade knife against his side, just above the belt.

"I'm really sorry, sir, "Pierce/Harlow said. "Please don't do anything dumb."

Farrell stared at him so long and so blankly that the boy began to fidget, tensing every time a car

hissed by. "Just put your wallet down on the seat and get out. I don't want any trouble."

"I guess we can assume you didn't go to Exeter," Farrell said at last. Pierce/Harlow shook his head.

Farrell said, "No point even asking about the programmer trainee job."

"Mr. Farrell," Pierce/Harlow said in a flat, gentle voice, "you think I won't really hurt you. Please

don't think that." On the last word the knife dug harder into Farrell's side, twisting through his shirt.

Farrell sighed and drew in his legs, still resting one arm on the wheel as he reached slowly for his

wallet. "Shit, this is embarrassing. You know, I've never been held up before. All those years in New

York, walking around at night, everywhere, taking the subway, and I never got robbed." _Not in New

York, at any rate, and not by an amateur who doesn't even know where you're supposed to hold the

knife_. He made himself breathe as deeply and quietly as he could.

Pierce/Harlow smiled again, beckoning graciously with his free hand. "Well, you were due then,

weren't you? It's just an occupational hazard, no big deal."

Farrell had the wallet out now, his upper body turned to face the boy, feeling the knife's pressure

lessen slightly. He said, "You should have pulled this back in Arizona, you realize. I had more money

then. Not having had to buy meals for two people up to that point."

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"I hate driving a stick shift," Pierce/Harlow said cheerfully. "Anyway, come on, I bought gas a

couple of times."

"Seven dollars' worth in Flagstaff," Farrell snorted. "Be still, my heart."

"Hey, don't, don't get snotty with me." Pierce/Harlow was suddenly trembling alarmingly, blushing

in the dimness, stuttering wet-lipped, crisp consonants turning mealy. "What about all that gas I bought

in Barstow? What about that?"

Halfway down the block a young couple came jogging toward them, perfectly matched in their

jouncing plumpness, their green sweat suits, and their huffing clockwork pace. Farrell said, "No, you

didn't. Barstow? You sure?" _Is this a clever plan? What do we do if this is not a clever plan?_

"Damn right, I'm sure," Pierce/Harlow snapped. He sat up very straight, the knife licking snaky

ellipses in the air between them. Farrell stared over his shoulder, hoping to catch the woman's attention

without angering him any further. She did turn her head in passing and actually halted, holding her

companion's arm. Farrell widened his eyes and flared his nostrils discreetly, trying earnestly to look

distressed. The couple looked at each other and huffed on past the bus, out of step for only an instant.

Pierce/Harlow said, "And it was nine-eighty-three in Flagstaff. Just so we have that clear, Mr. Farrell."

He snapped his fingers for the wallet.

Farrell shrugged resignedly. "Dumb argument, anyway." _Oh lord, here goes baby_. He tossed the

wallet so that it bounced off Pierce/Harlow's right knee, falling between the seat and the door. The boy

reached for it instinctively, his concentration flickering just for a moment, and in that moment Farrell

struck. That was, at least, the verb he preferred to remember, although _lunged_, _clawed_, and

_scrabbled_ also presented themselves. He had been sighting on the knife wrist, but got the hand instead

as Pierce/Harlow pulled away, crushing the boy's fingers against the switchblade's rough bone handle.

Pierce/Harlow gasped and snarled and kicked Farrell's shin, yanking his hand free. Farrell let go as soon

as he felt the blade sliding moon-cold through his own fingers, then heard it worrying his shirtsleeve far

away. There was no pain, no blood, only coldness and Pierce/Harlow's mouth opening and closing.

_This was not a clever plan_.

Unfortunately, it was the only one he had. His natural gift for fallback positions and emergency

exits never showed up for work before seven o'clock; absolutely all he could think of at this hour was to

duck away from Pierce/Harlow's frantically menacing flourish of the knife and throw Madame

Schumann-Heink into gear, with some vague vision of driving her into an all-night laundromat on the

corner. As an afterthought, he also screamed "_Kreegaaahh!_" at the top of his lungs, for the first time

since he was eleven years old, jumping off his parents' bed, which was the bank of the Limpopo River,

onto his cousin Mary Margaret Louise, who was a crocodile.

The most immediate thing that happened was that his worn sneaker slipped off the clutch pedal.

The second was that the rearview mirror fell into his lap, as Madame Schumann-Heink rose up on her

back wheels and danced ponderously into the middle of Gonzales Avenue before she came down again

with a smash that threw Pierce/Harlow face-first against the dashboard. The switchblade sagged in his

fingers.

Farrell had no chance to take advantage of the moment; he was half-stunned himself, and Madame

SchumannHeink was frisking in second gear toward the left-hand curb, heading straight for a parked van

with MOBILE IMMENSE GRACE UFO MINISTRY stenciled neatly on its sides. Farrell hauled

desperately on the wheel and found himself veering under the nose of a garbage truck that bore down on

him like a ferryboat through the fog, glowing and hooting. Madame Schumann-Heink spun in a

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surprisingly agile U-turn and scurried before the truck, rocking cripplingly on dead shocks, her tail pipe

farting in tin-can bursts and something Farrell didn't want to think about dragging just back of her front

axle. He pounded on the horn and kept howling.

Beside him Pierce/Harlow, sand-pale with shock and rage, knuckled blindly at his mouth,

sputtering blood. "Bit my tongue," he mumbled. "Christ, I bit my tongue."

"I did that once," Farrell said sympathetically. "It's a real bear, isn't it? Try to put your head back a

bit." Without turning, he began walking his hand shyly toward the knife lying forgotten on Pierce/

Harlow's lap. But his peripheral vision was also sleeping in this morning; when he struck a second time,

Pierce/Harlow made a sound that was all inhale, snatched up the switchblade, and missed medical

immortality by cringing inches, getting the seat cover instead. Farrell swung Madame Schumann-Heink

hard to the left, cutting in front of a bellowing semi, and careened down a side street lined with office

furniture warehouses and bail bondsmen's establishments. He heard everything loose in back go

booming from one side of the bus to the other and thought _oh, sweet Jesus, the lute, sonofabitch_. The

new worry kept him from noticing for two blocks that such traffic as there was was all coming toward

him.

"Well, shit," Farrell said sadly. "Wouldn't you know?"

Pierce/Harlow crouched on the seat, elbows flapping absurdly as he tried to brace himself against

everything, including Farrell. "Pull over or I'll cut you. Right here, I'll do it." He was almost crying, and

color was puddling grotesquely under his cheekbones.

A Winnebago the size of a rural airport filled the windshield. Farrell whimpered softly himself,

hung a fishtailing right turn on the wet pavement, and bucked Madame Schumann-Heink up a parking-

lot driveway. At the top of the ramp. two important things happened: Pierce/Harlow grabbed him around

the neck, and Madame SchumannHeink popped blithely out of gear--her oldest trick, always most

judiciously employed--and began to roll back down. Farrell bit Pierce/Harlow's forearm, somehow

contriving while chewing to wrench the Volkswagen into reverse and send her shooting back out into

the street, well in the wake of the motor home, but squirting like a marble straight through a sawhorse

barricade around a pothole. _The lute, oh please, goddamn_. A taillight exploded, and Pierce/Harlow

and Farrell let go of each other and screamed. Madame Schumann-Heink popped into neutral again.

Farrell pushed Pierce/Harlow away, fumbled for second gear, which was never quite where he had left

it, and stood on the accelerator.

Madame Schumann-Heink, who normally required a tail wind and two days' notice to get up to

fifty miles an hour, was doing sixty by the time she hit Gonzales. Pierce/Harlow chose that moment to

try another frontal assault, which was unfortunate, because Farrell took the corner, and a "Swingers

Exchange" vending machine along with it, on the far side of two wheels. Pierce/Harlow ended up on

Farrell's lap, with the knife curiously snuggled into his own armpit.

"I think you should have taken that computer job," Farrell said. They were tearing back down

Gonzales, nearing the freeway. Pierce/Harlow disentangled himself, wiped his bleeding mouth, and got

the knife pointed the right way. "I'll cut you," he said hopelessly. "I swear to God."

Farrell slowed down slightly, gesturing toward the approaching overpass. "You see that pillar

coming up, with the sign? Yes? Well, I was just wondering, do you think you can throw your knife out

the window before I hit it?" He smiled a shut-mouth crescent smile, which he hoped suggested a

syphilitic picking up weather reports from Alpha Centauri on his bridgework, and added in a serene

singsong, "Her tires are all bald, her brakes suck, and you are about to become sticky stuff on the seat."

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