Trapped

Trust the Sparks to have their own private satellites while the rest of Earth couldn't even re-create the Industrial Revolution.

Annah nudged my arm. "What are you looking at?"

"Oh, just the stars."

"Making a wish?"

"One wish isn't enough. We need at least a dozen if we hope to see the dawn."

"Or we could just go home."

I turned toward her, but she'd focused her eyes on the stars and the dark. "Haven't we been through this?" I asked. "Didn't we decide to drink life to the lees?"

"I've been thinking of other ways you and I could do that. Besides dying."

She looked up at me, eyes white in her dark face. I could see she wanted to kiss me; and I wanted to kiss her. Strange that neither of us made a move.

"I've been thinking of such things too," I said. "But if we just ran off and found a honeymoon suite instead of sticking with our friends…"

She nodded. "I could not love thee, dear, so much, lov'd I not honor more."

"All these years," I said, "and I never knew you liked quoting poetry."

"I don't, really." She laughed. "I suppose it's because we're on a quest. Poetry just springs to the lips."

The word "lips" made me want to kiss her again. But I didn't. "This isn't a quest," I said. "It's real."

"The best quests are real. Isn't that the point? Myths are everyday life in disguise. Slaying the Jabberwock means facing your own monsters; searching for the Holy Grail means pursuing some goal you've previously shied away from. But it would be sappy to say that in so many words. That's why poets sing about battling gigantic beasts instead of fending off boredom. And why they sing about finding the Holy Grail rather than… oh, the things you can get only when you give up the nonsense that holds you back."

"What kind of nonsense?" I asked.

"Habits. Inhibitions. A flawed self-image." Annah's eyes glistened. "You know what I'm talking about, Phil."

"I do indeed." I still didn't kiss her. "When I get rid of those, that's when I find the Holy Grail?"

"When you get rid of those, the Holy Grail finds you." She let out her breath, as if she'd been holding it. "Or so the poets say. Grails can be awfully damned slow in getting the message."

She took my face in her hands and pulled me down to her mouth.

When Bing arrived with the coach, everyone piled inside without a word-even Pelinor, who'd decided to forego the driver's seat. Supposedly, he was sitting with us so we could talk "strategy"… but I couldn't help noticing how close he tucked himself against the Caryatid. Not just due to the narrowness of the bench. Annah had obviously been right about the Caryatid and Pelinor; with danger soon approaching, they didn't want to be apart.

But they didn't indulge in any last-minute whispering. No one did. Nor any talk of strategy. We all gazed wordlessly out the windows into the dark, like soldiers withdrawing into themselves before the call to arms.

Five minutes after we left The Captured Peacock, we reached the first of the city streetlights: a garish silver-blue bulb on an OldTech lamp standard that tilted fifteen degrees to the right. The pole's concrete support had tipped sideways over the past four centuries, and no one had bothered to correct the slippage. As the horses clopped past, I thought the slanted pole was a perfect symbol of our modern age. Some Keeper of Holy Lightning had worked long hours to construct the lightbulb by hand, yet had ignored the less complicated job of straightening the pole. Why? Perhaps because making the bulb seemed important and special, while straightening a pole wouldn't impress anyone. Or perhaps because the Keeper thought making lightbulbs was his job and straightening poles wasn't.

There were other lamp standards on the road into town-all tilted, some badly-but only one in four was actually lit. I wondered if the Keepers couldn't make enough bulbs or if they'd decided our modern eyes didn't need as much illumination as the OldTechs had. We're far more accustomed to darkness than our spoiled ancestors; they were obsessed with expelling shadows. If they had to live by candlelight the way we do, they'd soon fall to pieces: trembling at the dark beyond the door. They'd probably see this roadway as poorly lit and creepy… whereas the truth was we had ample illumination to keep our horses on the straight and narrow, so why did we need more?

Even so, we got more. Five minutes later, we reached a stretch of road where every third streetlamp was lit instead of every fourth. The poles were straighter too. Most houses on the block showed nothing but the flicker of candles or the glow of an open hearth, but one or two displayed a single electric bulb burning with conspicuous wattage: in an uncurtained window or as a bright glow behind a vividly colored blind. I suspected these families owned only one lightbulb which they carried from room to room as needed… but at least they had the bulb, and they wanted their neighbors to know.