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Leads to Undertown

Aug 9th, 2022
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  1. "First," I said, "I want some questions answered."
  2. "Right, right, right!" Toot screamed. "Ask already!"
  3. "I need to talk to the Winter Lady," I said. "Where can I find her, Toot?"
  4. Toot tore at his lavender hair. "Is that all you need to know? Down in the city! Down where the shops are underground, and the sidewalks."
  5. I frowned. "In the commuter tunnels?"
  6. "Yes, yes, yes. Back in the part the mortals can't see, you can find your way into Undertown. The Cold Lady came to Undertown. Her court is in Undertown."
  7. "What?" I sputtered. "Since when?"
  8. Toot whirled around in impatient loops in the air. "Since the last autumn!"
  9. I scratched at my hair. It made sense, I supposed. Last autumn, a vengeful vampire and her allies had stirred up all sorts of supernatural mischief, creating turbulence in the border between the real world and the Nevernever, the world of spirit. Shortly after, the war between the wizards and the vampires had begun.
  10. Those events had probably attracted the attention of all sorts of things.
  11. I shook my head. "And what about the Summer Lady? Is she in town?"
  12. Toot put his fists on his hips. "Well, obviously, Harry. If Winter came here, Summer had to come too, didn't it?"
  13. "Obviously," I said, feeling a little slow on the uptake. Man, was I off my game. "Where can I find her?"
  14. "She's on top of one of those big buildings."
  15. I sighed. "Toot, this is Chicago. There are a lot of big buildings."
  16. Toot blinked at me, then frowned for a minute before brightening. "It's the one with the pizza shop right by it."
  17. My head hurt some more. "Tell you what. How about you guide me to it?"
  18. Toot thrust out his little chin and scowled. "And miss pizza? No way."
  19. I gritted my teeth. "Then get me someone else to guide me. You've got to know someone."
  20. Toot scrunched up his face. He tugged at one earlobe, but it evidently didn't help him remember, because he had to rub one foot against the opposite calf and spin around in vacant circles for ten whole seconds before he whirled back to face me, the nimbus of light around him brightening. "Aha!" he sang. "Yes! I can give you a guide!" He jabbed a finger at me. "But only if that's all the questions, Harry. Pizza, pizza, pizza!"
  21. “Guide first," I insisted. "Then pizza."
  22. Toot shook his arms and legs as though he would fly apart. "Yes, yes, yes!"
  23. "Done," I said. I opened the pizza box and set it on top of a discarded crate nearby. Then I stepped over to the circle, leaned down, and with a smudge of my hand and an effort of will broke it, freeing the energies inside.
  24. The faeries chorused several pitches and variants of "Yahoo!" and streaked past me so quickly that they left a cone of wild air behind them, tossing my unruly hair and scattering lighter pieces of garbage around the alley. They tore into the pizza with much the same gusto they'd used on the one piece earlier, but there was enough of it now to keep them from mangling it in mere seconds.
  25. Toot zipped over to hover in front of my face and held out his little palm. A moment later, something that looked like an errant spark from a campfire whirled down and lighted on his palm. Toot said something in a language I couldn't understand, and the tiny light pulsed and flickered as though in response.
  26. "Right," Toot said, nodding to the light. I peered more closely at it, and could just barely make out a tiny, tiny form inside, no larger than an ant. Another faerie. The light pulsed and flickered, and Toot nodded to it before turning to me.
  27. "Harry Dresden," Toot-toot said, holding out his palm, "this is Elidee. She's going to pay me back a favor and guide you to the Winter Lady and then to the Summer Lady. Good enough?"
  28. I frowned at the tiny faerie. "Does she understand me?"
  29. I barely saw Elidee stamp a tiny foot. The scarlet light around her flickered sharply, twice.
  30.  
  31. Summer Knight Chapter 13, Page 160-161
  32.  
  33.  
  34. Elidee picked just then to glide back over to me and settle once more on the bridge of my nose. Billy blinked at her and said, "What the hell?"
  35. "This is our guide," I said. "Elidee, this is Billy."
  36. Elidee flashed twice.
  37. Billy blinked again. "Uh, charmed." He shook his head. "So? What's the plan?"
  38. "We go confront the Winter Lady in her underground lair. I do the talking. You stay alert and watch my back."
  39. He nodded. "Okay. You got it."
  40. I looked over to see the last piece of pizza lifted up into the air by greedy faerie hands. They clustered around it, tearing and ripping, and it was gone in seconds. With that, the faeries swarmed away like a squadron of potbellied comets and vanished from view.
  41. Elidee fluttered off my nose and started drifting down the alley in the other direction. I followed her.
  42.  
  43. Summer Knight Chapter 13, Page 162
  44.  
  45.  
  46. Elidee led Billy and me through alleys, up a fire escape to the roof of a building and then down on the other side, and through a junk-cluttered abandoned lot on the way to the Pedway. It took us better than half an hour of scrambling after the tiny faerie through the muggy heat, and by the end of it I wished I'd told Toot-toot that we wanted someone who could read a street map and guide us there in a car.
  47. Chicago's commuter tunnels are fairly recent construction, compared to much of the rest of the city. The tunnels are a maze if you don't know them - long stretches of identical overhead lights, drab, clean walls dotted with advertising posters, and intersections bearing plain and not always helpful directional signs. The tunnels closed after the workday and wouldn't open up again until around six the next morning, but Elidee led us to an unfinished building at Randolph and Wabash. She flitted around in front of a service access door that proved to be unlocked and that led down to a similar door that opened onto a darkened section of the Pedway that looked as though it had been under construction but was abandoned when the building had shut down.
  48. It was completely dark, so I slipped the silver pentacle off my neck, lifting it in my hand and focusing a quiet effort of will upon it. The five-pointed star has been a symbol of magic for centuries, representing the four elements and the power of spirit bound within the circle of will - primal power under the control of human thought. I held the pentacle before me, and as I concentrated it began to glow with a gentle blue light, illuminating enough of our surroundings that we could navigate through the dark, silent tunnels. The little faerie drifted in front of us down the tunnel, and we followed her without speaking. She took us to the intersection with the main tunnels of the Pedway and on a brief walk down another tunnel, to a section shut behind a rusting metal gate with a sign that read, DANGER KEEP OUT. The gate proved to be unlocked, and we went down the tunnel, into a damper section of tunnels, rife with the smell of mold, that was clearly not a part of the Pedway proper.
  49. After another fifty or sixty feet we reached a place where the walls became rough and uneven and shadows lay thick and heavy, despite the glow of my wizard's light.
  50. Elidee drifted over to an especially dark section of wall and flew in a little circle in front of it.
  51.  
  52. Summer Knight Chapter 13, Page 164-165
  53.  
  54.  
  55. I eyed the younger man, and he gave me an impatient look. I shook my head. I don't think I could have adequately conveyed the kind of danger we might be walking into with mere words in any case. I took a deep breath and then nodded to Elidee. "All right, Tinkerbell. Let's go."
  56. The tiny scarlet light gave an irritated bob and then darted through the concealed doorway and into the darkness beyond. Billy narrowed his eyes and followed it, and I went after him. We found ourselves in a tunnel where one wall seemed to be made of ancient, moldering brick and the other of a mixture of rotting wooden beams, loose earth, and winding roots. The tunnel ran on out of the circle of light from my amulet. Our guide drifted forward, and we set out to follow her, walking close together.
  57. The tunnel gave way to a sort of low-roofed cavern, supported here and there by pillars, mounds of collapsed earth, and beams that looked like they'd been added in afterward by the dwellers in Undertown. Elidee circled in place a bit uncertainly, then started floating to the right.
  58. I hadn't been following the little faerie for five seconds before the skin on the back of my neck tried to crawl up over my head and hide in my mouth. I drew up short, and I must have made some kind of noise, because Billy shot a look back at me and asked, "Harry? What is it?"
  59. I lifted a hand to silence him and peered at the darkness around me. "Keep your eyes open," I said. "I don't think we are alone."
  60. From the shadows outside the light came a low hissing sound. The rest of my skin erupted in gooseflesh, and I shook my shield bracelet clear. I lifted my voice and said clearly, "I am the Wizard Dresden, Emissary of the Winter Court, bound to pay a call upon the Winter Lady. I've no time or desire for a fight. Stand clear and let me pass."
  61. A voice - a voice that sounded like a tortured cat might, if some demented being gave it the gift of speech - mewled out of the shadows, grating on my ears. "We know who you are, wizard," the voice said. Its inflections were all wrong, and the tone seemed to come from not far above the ground, somewhere off to my right. Elidee let out a high-pitched shriek of terror and zipped back to me, diving into my hair. I felt the warmth of the light around the tiny faerie like a patch of sunlight on my scalp.
  62. I traded a look with Billy and turned toward the source of the voice. "Who are you?"
  63. "A servant of the Winter Lady," the voice replied from directly behind me. "Sent here to guide you safely through this realm and to her court."
  64.  
  65. Summer Knight Chapter 14, Page 167-169
  66.  
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