Power Trio

Thekla and Kell share a look of consternation as they follow the high elf through a frosted glass door into a cramped hollow, its walls lined with vinyl records. A mobile made from a deconstructed guitar hangs from the ceiling, low enough that it almost brushes Kell’s head.

Anise unbuttons her blazer as she sits. “You two have heard of the Vail, right?”

“We’re familiar.” Kell’s voice is steady, but Thekla knows that this is still a bruise. She gives her girlfriend a stabilizing calf nudge under the table.

“We have a few acts performing there,” Anise says, oblivious to Kell’s disquiet. “GreenAche scored a headline, Shrike’s gonna be at the second stage on Saturday. We’re hoping to seriously show out.”

Kell chews her lip.

“Now, the evening before the festival, plenty of people are coming in, checking into the hotels and such to get ready for Friday. And Warcry every year for about half a decade now has kind of a mini-fest. Gives the people who are jazzing for some music something to do the night they come in, gets attention on bands that might need some advertising during the weekend. Or who aren’t on the bill. And we get a good crowd.” Anise’s leg wiggles, tapping her knee on the underside of the table. “We want to bring you over to Niagara for it.”

A sun is dawning in Thekla’s mind. “That’s really… I mean, I’d love to. Kell?”

“We’re there.” Kell’s eyes are glittering. “And then next year, we’re headlining.”

Anise laughs. “I love that. Seriously, I love that confidence. Cause I’ve got another invitation that’s gonna need it. We want to take you to Laytham this October. We want you at Samhain.”

Samhain.

Samhain is one of the biggest shows in the world. Seven days of music. Hundreds of thousands of people, gathering in the exact field within which the crossover occurred two centuries ago. Thekla never even dared to dream about playing Samhain. It’s a show for phenomena, for artists like Ship of Fools or Quarterback or Vanessa Fields, or, or.

Or Thunderhead. Thunderhead played Samhain thirty years ago this year. Eurotour ‘89.

“You,” Kell breathes, “are fucking with us.”

“You have the sound,” Anise says. “You’re new, but you’re better than half the radio filler that’s going to be there. I truly believe this. And you have the story. You are the story. The son of the greatest enemy of the fairfolk, playing at the biggest fairfolk event of the year, on the same stage his mother played thirty years ago, to the day. This is a rare alignment. This makes Legendary legendary. You say yes and we fast track the record, big ad spend on top of what’s already sure to be big word of mouth. We get it out in the middle of October, and fly you to England. You say no…” She shrugs. “It’s a yes from Laytham this year, when you’re front-page news. Next year I have to doubt it. This is your window. I love the band and I want it successful, and if you don’t go, I’ll work as hard as I can to get you up to where you could have gotten. But we won’t get this opportunity again.”

Stunned silence.

“I’m going to go get more coffee.” Anise stands up. “I’ve given you a lot to think about, I know. Think about it. But don’t take too long. I need your answer tomorrow. These wheels are already spinning pretty fast.” The door slides open and shut on its casters and Kell and Thekla are alone.

Thekla hears Kell’s whistling breath.

“We’re not ready,” the orc murmurs. Her eyes are going misty. “Holy shit. We’re not ready for this, are we?”

A memory of the first day of magic with Sion: Kell’s vision was Vail. Vail was deferred. Thekla had a different vision. She stands up in her seat so the orc is looking up at her. “No, we are not. But we’re doing it anyway.”

“This is real. Right?” A tear rolls down Kell’s face. “This isn’t a dream?”

Thekla does what she wished she could do the first time she saw Kell cry. She brushes her lips against Kell’s cheek and kisses the tear away. “Does that feel like a dream?”

Kell folds forward and lays her head against Thekla’s chest. Thekla rubs the stubble of her sideshave as the overwhelmed orc shivers and quietly weeps, with happiness or relief or fear or maybe a combination of all three.

They leave Warcry in muted shock. On the subway ride home, Kell grips Thekla tighter than she did during the horror movie.

“I’ve got some appointments later.” Thekla’s kept up her light touch on Kell, keeping her as grounded as she can manage while her own head is spinning. “I’m gonna get changed and then go clock in and tell Evan.”

“What do you think he’ll say?”

“You kidding? He’s Evan. We could tell him we booked the eighth circle of Hell and he’d be like ‘amazing idea, I love it, I’ll pack the fire extinguishers.’”

This unearths a laugh from her shellshocked girlfriend.

“You want some alone time or do you wanna come so you can see the look on his face?” Thekla asks. “Labyrinth’s always open to its mascot.”

“Thekla Kamiyon,” Kell says. “If our sizes were reversed, I’d get you one of those baby backpacks and make you carry me everywhere.”

“That’s a yes?”

“Yes.”

* * *

Evan receives the news with the same tight hug and determined joy as Thekla expected. It’s such a relief to have him back as Legendary’s anchor. The tattooists of Labyrinth treat him the same, giving him the usual slaps on the back and companionable coffee orders. It’s bizarre, seeing him collecting waivers at the desk, answering clients’ questions as they wait, like he’s not going to perform in front of a half-million strong festival in a couple of months.

He was never the one Thekla was worried about convincing. Neither is Sion, who’ll probably use it as an excuse for some kind of mass blood magic sacrifice. Oh, well.

Thekla’s been ducking calls; she has to repent for that. And Samhain is the sort of event that bears discussing in person. Time to visit the matriarch.

After her last client for the day, Thekla hugs her lovers, tells them she’ll see them at home, and takes her bike on the downtown J, out of the metro core. Way out, to the last stop.

From there, it’s ten minutes of pedaling until she reaches the Kamiyon complex. Outside it’s a blocky, unremarkable apartment tower, four stories of red brick and gated windows.

Thekla chains up her bike and finds the warren key on her ring, the one corroded a little by neglect. She arrives at the birdcage elevator and swings the gate shut behind her. She presses the emergency button and the third floor button at the same time, and holds them until she hears the click. The lift lurches as it takes her down, and down, and further down. She closes her eyes, to start their habituation to the dark.

The elevator bumps to a stop and she steps into the stone-hewn tunnel beyond. Neither Evan nor Kell could stand up straight in here; the arched ceiling barely clears five feet.

A wrought iron door at the end of the hall. She tugs the chain that hangs in front and listens to the muffled chime. A slot clacks open, shiny yellow eyes behind it. Kamiyon eyes.

“Hail, confederate,” she says in goblin. “Before you is Thekla of Kamiyon.”

“Confederate Thekla.” A gravelly he-goblin voice. Cousin Rivyet, she thinks. “You are awaited. Unanswered was the call and delayed the arrival.”

“Delayed no longer, confederate.”

The doorman’s eyes narrow. “And this transgression/faulty tunnel is to be banished by your presence, no matter the late hour?”

“Air/life and breath I have, to explain myself before Our Matriarch,” Thekla hisses. “Not to spare upon her porter.”

The doorman’s face jerks up. His nostrils flare. “Enter then, Thekla of Postponement. Tribute your air/life to Our Matriarch and see how she values such a trifle.” The lock disengages.

“Many thanks, confederate.” Thekla swings the door out, revealing Rivyet in a linen tunneler tunic over a pair of patched jeans. “Dickhead,” she murmurs in English as she passes him.

“No English in the warren, confederate.”

“Alack,” she scoffs. “I did forget.”

The warren is as packed as ever, the still air thick with the susurrus of Kamiyon goblins in conversation. Little pools of colorful light populate the maze like constellations, pointing the way to teeming dormitories and fungal nurseries. Thekla scurries down the wide thoroughfare, exchanging greetings and hugs with those family members she’s only talked to online for the past few months. She has to beg off gifts and displays of fealty from a few of her traditionally minded delegates.

“Beloved confederate.” Cousin Yriga keeps ducking her head in supplication and trying to give her an ornamented, wavy-bladed dagger. “Nights I have spent in worry at the thought of our Representative among the towering/oafish surface dwellers, with no steel at her side. Will you not take this tribute to ameliorate my dread?”

“Your dread is a coin unwisely spent, beloved confederate.” Thekla tries to laugh Yriga off. This is why she never enjoys coming back here. “A mighty paramour I have, strong of arm and sharp of tusk, and surer than any blade.”

A backbreaking number of these reunions later, ranging from the genuine and warm to the skincrawlingly awkward, and Thekla arrives at the second lift. This one is hand-cranked and guarded by uncle Sivi, an older, heavier goblin. Here’s a nod to the modern world above: he’s got a shoulder-holstered handgun, big and boxy. He inclines his head to her. “Confederate and Representative. You are anticipated.”

She gives him a curt bow back and steps onto the lift. It squeaks and sways as she lowers herself into the darkness. It’s getting cold. She wishes she wasn’t in bike shorts.

Sweetly scented cones of smoldering wax. A high and vaulted ceiling, designed to show off the suboptimal use of tunnel in an otherwise strict economy of space. In a seat of tangled roots and packed earth, in an ocean of spider-silk robes, sits the matriarch, crocheting. Her wrinkled ears are weighed down with gold. Her filmy, sightless eyes track Thekla’s scent as she steps off the lift and into the throne room. “Thekla,” she croaks, and then, in deeply accented English, “Great Granddaughter.”

“Joy to you, Our Matriarch, and supplication.” Thekla drops to both knees and bows deep. “Unworthy Thekla of Kamiyon prays for clemency.”

The matriarch sighs. “We talk English, okay? You are only girl of mine brave enough to speak it to me. I need practice.”

Thekla switches with no small relief. “Of course, great grandma.”

“There is thing I must tell you, Thekla. Is good you are here. Important.”

“Anything, great grandma.” Thekla stands up, wiping dirt from her knees.

“You have been a little naughty, Thekla.” The matriarch tuts. “You not picking up phone during this whole human Houper… eh. How you say resaniaka?”

“Shitstorm,” Thekla says.

The matriarch rasps a laugh. “Shitstorm. Your mother very cross.”

“I’m sorry, great grandma. We were overwhelmed. I wanted to sort myself out before I returned to duty.”

“Duty.” The matriarch chuckles. “Duty is meaning tinaiyak, yes?”

“Yes, great grandma.”

“This duty is not your love, Thekla.” The matriarch’s bangles clatter as she shakes her head. “Your love is this boy. And this purple girl. And your music, yes? It goes, eh… Fossil! Fuel! Yes?”

A warmth suffuses Thekla’s chest. “Holy! Rule!” she sings along with the matriarch. “That’s right.”

“Is wonderful song. Loud.” The matriarch’s nose wrinkles. “But such is youth. Loud and mistakes. To shake fist at it is shake fist at your own reflection, looking back through many years.”

“Even so, great grandma. I’m sorry. I never meant disrespect.”

The matriarch shrugs, hands open. “This is thing I must tell you. This is what you are, Thekla.” She tilts into goblin. “The Worm That Eschews the Knot and Tastes Fresh Earth. Is not wicked thing. But you will not be matriarch.”

It’s as if air is sucked from the room. Thekla has never had eyes for the throne; but the matriarch’s disapproval, should she voice it, bears heavy weight.

“I have thought long on this. Is not punishment, mi Theklaya, okay? Not because of misdeed. It is I think you not want to be matriarch. This is thing I wanted, thing your mother wants maybe. But not you.”

Thekla lets out a breath she didn’t even know she was holding. “No, great grandma. I don’t want to let anyone down. But my life is on the surface. I’m going to Samhain, great grandma.”

“Samhain. This is place?”

“It’s a festival. A big musical festival, maybe the biggest. My band will be there. And a lot of people are gonna hear us. It’s going to be the most people a Kamiyon has ever stood in front of.” Her body already tingles at the thought of so many eyes on her.

“They put the video of this? On the—” The matriarch mimics a computer keyboard.

“Yes, great grandma. Online. When I’m back, I’ll show it to you.”

“You do this thing. You bring the Kamiyon with you. On your skin.” The matriarch pats her own back. “In your inner sun.” She presses a palm to her heart. “This is your tinayak, mi Theklaya. This is service to Kamiyon. When I return to the earth, matriarch will be, eh. Your mother, maybe. She has a liking for argument.”

Thekla smiles. “She certainly does.”

“Come here.” The matriarch extends her shaky arms. Thekla goes to her, kisses the Kamiyon signet on the matriarch’s hand. Her great grandmother tuts and embraces Thekla. She feels so insubstantial, but her touch still holds strength. “Yours will be the tunnel that finds the vein, great granddaughter. Go in love. Not future matriarch. But always Kamiyon.”

“Thank you, great grandma. Honor always to the clan. Honor to Kamiyon.” Thekla carefully pulls from the hug and replaces the matriarch in her cushions.

“And call more,” the matriarch says.

“Yes, great grandma.”

“And next time you bring the chocolate I like. The toblerone.”

“Of course, great grandma.”