He went up the stairs to his living quarters. The place smelled odd. Familiar, but not how he remembered it. A faint bit of mildew drifted from the public showers downstairs. Warm electronic scent emanated from the TV set. Burnt dust blew from the furnace vents. He went to turn the thermostat down until the heat kicked off. Ever since his return he’d been uncomfortable in the heat. People kept thermostats way too high around here, particularly for such a warm climate.
He looked around, remembering. He wanted to be glad he was home, but it was all too unsettling. Anymore, he wasn’t even sure he was glad to have survived the surgery.
The kitchen was as he’d left it, of course. Nobody had been upstairs since the day he’d left. He perked up, remembering, and reached into a ceramic cookie jar on the counter for a cinnamon jawbreaker. He’d always loved these things, and had missed them horribly for the first year of his absence. He squeezed it from its cellophane wrapper into his mouth, and as the cinnamon stung his tongue and wafted into his head he smiled. Oh, yeah! He rolled the sugary lump around in his mouth as he wandered into the bathroom. The towel he’d worn two years ago was draped over the toilet seat still.
It was too quiet here. There should be voices. Children chattering under the conversation of adults telling stories. Telling about themselves. Telling about things that were, or about things that might not have been but were true just the same. There is no such thing as “just” a story. He longed for someone to talk to, and even more to listen to. Ginny was history. She hadn’t even visited him in the hospital, not that he still missed her after two years. Cody had her own life that only included him to a point. Everyone’s life included him only to a point. A dark, antsy feeling crept up his back. He tried to sit in his living room, but couldn’t be moved to pick up the TV remote. He could go to bed, but he didn’t feel sleepy. He went back downstairs, left the dojo, and walked to Main Street, to a lakeside restaurant that had a bar.
There were people here, and that made him more comfortable. He sat at the bar and ordered ale, though he knew asking for ale in Tennessee was like looking for grits in New York or a burrito in Glasgow. When it came he sipped it, and though it was weaker than he cared for it was still better than beer. He looked around the room at neon signs, dark corners, and the fellow Americans he’d chosen for company that night.
A young couple played pool on one of the tables in the room, and he watched them knock balls around. The fellow was teaching his date how to handle a stick, and for each shot he snuggled up close behind as if readying to bang her right there. Then the girl, while waiting for her turn, idly stroked her cue stick as if she didn’t know her boyfriend was watching. The guy strutted like a rooster, absolute master of the table. Dylan found himself amused by the none-too-subtle body language, which shouted to the room that two people were getting laid later on. Times had certainly changed, for that sort of behavior around Cait would have gotten him killed.
But with a small shock, Dylan realized that the strutting and flirting was neither more nor less sexually overt than the courtship he and Cait had experienced. It was merely more public, and he and Cait might not have behaved any different from these two had they been free to let the clan know they were courting. The young man and woman playing pool here tonight were allowed to be obvious because nobody around them gave a damn what they did. Dylan thought about all the people in Ciorram who had cared deeply about himself and Cait, each of whom would have been, however distantly, affected by the marriage. He wasn’t sure modern attitudes were an improvement.
Soon, though, the young man noticed that he and his date were being watched. He looked up at Dylan and a deep frown creased his face. Dylan realized he was being nosy. He held up a reassuring palm of apology, and faced back to the bar.
Another man sat at the bar, by the window overlooking the lake, alone and looking like he expected to stay that way. He appeared to be in his forties, but had a well-worn air that said he felt much older. Dylan could tell there was a story there, but also knew he’d get a fat lip if he asked to hear it.
Dylan stared into his glass and thought about the last two years. His time in the past hadn’t been fun. He’d not wanted it, and hated it at first, but in the end he’d found people he loved. Cait, especially. She alone had been enough to make him want to stay. The yearning for her now was so painful as to make him wish Sinann had let him die at Sheriffmuir. The distance between them when she had been in Edinburgh and he in Glen Dochart had been bad enough. But now the insurmountable distance of centuries was setting him adrift in ways he couldn’t even comprehend. She was dead, and furthermore had been dead for . . .
Ciaran came to mind, and Dylan’s heart clenched. He was gone by now, as well. The realization slammed into him so hard the room spun. Whatever life that had been given to his son had been over for centuries. He shuddered and took a deep slug of his drink, then stared into it some more.
All of them. Their lives had gone on without him, and now they were over. And his was continuing. Every passing moment took him farther and farther from them.
Shaken, Dylan finished his ale and left the bar.
At home, he wandered restlessly around his living room and told himself he should go to bed. His side ached, and sent pain shooting all down his left leg. But lying down didn’t appeal to him. He paced along the low balcony wall, and stopped in front of the tall bookcase at the far end. Most of his books were about Scotland, and it crossed his mind he might find some of them laughable now. He reached for one about Scottish battles, and opened to the index. Glencoe, Killiecrankie, Culloden, but no Sheriffmuir. He put it back and selected another. This time he found a tiny bit about the day he’d nearly died. One of the days he’d nearly died.
It told how the left flank of each army at Sheriffmuir had been routed by the right flank of the other, which made him blink since he’d been part of the Jacobite left flank. “Damn,” he muttered to himself. But, besides the fact that Mar had ultimately withdrawn, which Dylan had known even before the charge, the book offered nothing. Certainly nothing to indicate what had caused Mar’s retreat.
He returned the book to its shelf, then picked up the phone, sat on the sofa, and dialed Cody’s number. After two years, he could still do it from memory. Raymond answered the phone.
“Hi. Is Cody there?”
“Hang on a minute, Dylan.” There was muffled shouting for Cody, then the phone clunked down. Shortly it was picked up.
“Hi, Dyl. How are you feeling?”
“Like I could walk to Edinburgh.”
There was a pause at the other end, then a short, unsure laugh. “Okay. That sounded like something I should ask about.”
He hesitated before speaking, and she waited. Finally he scooted down to lie on the sofa and said, his voice low and quiet, “What would you do for someone you loved?” He pressed a throw pillow to his sore side.
“Anything. I’d do anything for Raymond.”
“If you had kids, what would you give up for them?”
“Everything.” She made a humming noise and said, “You know, these are pretty elementary questions. What are you getting at?”
What was he getting at? What could he say that she would believe? He decided to tell it and see what might happen. “Would you believe me if I told you I’ve been in love for two years and have a son who was born last January?”
She snorted. “Not you. You’d have told me. Nice try, Matheson.”
“No, I’m serious. What if, during the blink of an eye, I went away for two years, fell in love, almost got married, and fathered a baby?”
Now she was giggling. “Whatever you’ve been drinking, Dylan, you’d better check to see if the can says Sterno.”
Maybe this wasn’t such a good idea. He tensed, but pressed further. “You know those scars on my back?” Breathing was hard now, and he felt giddy, finally talking about what had happened.
She stopped giggling. “Uh huh.” Good. She knew he was serious.
“You saw
them. You know they’re there. And you know I didn’t have them the week before you saw them, right?”
“Right.”
“But that’s impossible, right?”
She paused, then, “Right.”
“You saw me walk away from a sword fight uninjured, but then suddenly I was run completely through and covered with blood.”
“Right. That was very weird.”
“I was also covered with dirt, and my kilt was gone. Right? Suddenly I was wearing a baldric I’d never had before, and leggings. I had a dir . . . knife in my hand you’d never seen.”
There was a very long pause, then she said slowly, “I don’t remember the other stuff, and I thought they’d taken your kilt off to see where you were bleeding. But now that you mention it, you were different. You looked different. In the hospital I was shocked you were suddenly so skinny, and you. . . well, you looked older. A whole lot older. I thought it was the surgery.”
“Not the surgery. Cody, I went back in time to 1713, where I met and fell in love with a woman named Caitrionagh, and we had a son. The reason I have scars on my back is that in 1714 I was arrested and tortured by the English army. My kilt was left on the battlefield at Sheriffmuir, in Scotland, on November 13, 1715, the last big battle of the Jacobite uprising of that year. That is how I was run through with an English cavalry sword just before I was returned to this century.”
“Dylan, you’re scaring me.”
“Cody, I’m sane. You saw the whole thing. You asked about the scars. You know they can’t be explained any other way. That claymore you found? It was enchanted by an Irish faerie. I touched it, and it sent me back almost three centuries. I was there for two years.”
Cody considered that for a long, silent moment. Dylan held his breath. Then she said, “They tortured you?”
He closed his eyes with relief that she believed him. His voice went soft and low, remembering the dungeon at Ft. William. “Yeah.”
“And you have a son?”
“His name is Ciaran. I never got to see him, but I wanted to.”
“A son.” Her voice held awe, and it seemed to take some effort to grasp the idea. Then she said, “Jesus, Dylan, you might have descendants living in Scotland right now.”
He pressed the pillow harder against his side as his gut clenched. “Cody, no. I can’t think about that. I can’t think . . .”
“The baby’s mother; what was she like?” Cody laughed. “Is it true what they say about nobody bathing or shaving back then? I mean, did she have hairy legs and armpits?”
Dylan had to chuckle, and thought a moment. “You know, I never noticed. By the time I even saw her legs, things like that didn’t seem to matter. And people did, too, bathe. Just not all at once and hardly ever with hot water. Everything else there smelled so bad that sweat just wasn’t that big a deal after a while. I loved the way she smelled. It was like . . .” he searched for a description, “she smelled . . . like sex feels.”
She gave a soft laugh. “You loved her a lot, didn’t you? I always knew you would fall like a ton of bricks once it happened to you.”
He had to chuckle though his throat was tight. “Cody, I would walk through fire for her. She was tall, and strong. She could probably kick my butt if she wanted, but she was the sweetest, gentlest . . . she had a heart so big and soft you could curl up in it to sleep.”
He tried to continue, but helplessness choked him again. “Cody, there’s nothing I can do. It’s all screwed up now. It’s like I’m living my life backward. It’s like I’ve suddenly been able to see who I am, and now I’ve got to go back to being who I am not.”
“What can you do?”
“I don’t know.”
“You need to do something, Dylan. You sound miserable. I can’t imagine what you’re going through, not being able to see your baby. Or Caitrionagh.”
“Cody, I don’t even have the words to tell you.” But he tried. They talked into the night and he told her his stories of three centuries ago. He talked about Sinann and told the story of the white hound, and of Fearghas MacMhathain’s battle with the Vikings. He told of the cattle raids and robberies. There was no talk of the men he’d killed, for that was something he could never hope to make her understand. But he did tell her of the knife fight with Iain, and the hunting trip when he’d lost the tip of his ear. He laughed when she berated herself for not having noticed the nick, and it felt good to laugh.
In that conversation he found no answers for his situation, but being able to confess to Cody helped clear his mind. The traffic on Main Street was silent by the time he pushed the “talk” button on his phone, set it on the floor, and curled up on the sofa to sleep.
But there was no sleeping. He lay awake, listening to his heart beat. The world was silent and still, but his heart was thudding loud enough to hear. He was alive, and would continue to live, but most things he held dear were long dead. He sat up, and a queer shiver ran up his back. His body vibrated with the energy of his existence and his yearning. He stood, unable to contemplate sleep.
Brigid was with the bundle of clothing he’d brought from the hospital, and he slipped her into his belt. Then he left the apartment by the back door and clattered down the wooden stairs to the raggedy grass at the back of the building. The willow tree by the water’s edge rustled in the slight breeze, and Dylan felt of the almost bare branches and yellowing leaves as he ducked under to his rowboat. Willow bark tea. The memory was strong.
The oars leaned against his boat, and he set them on the ground. Then he lifted the side so the boat slid off the blocks, and carefully heaved it over and upright. It whumped onto the grass and tottered there before coming to a rest at a tilt. Then he set the oars inside and went to the prow to drag the boat across the grass and into the water. There, he stepped in and shoved off with an oar, then he set the oars into their oarlocks and pulled onto the dark lake.
The lights from the volleyball courts on Main Street hid the stars as he rowed. Reflections danced on black water, and became small and still as he pulled down the inlet, away from the causeway, toward the main channel of the lake. Houses on either side were dark. Quiet. Trees rustled, and the breeze tossed his ragged hair around his face. Goosebumps rose, and he shivered them down.
He knew the power of his surroundings now. The water below him, the air around him, and the stars above each had their place in his existence. He felt of them, and sensed he was out of time. He didn’t belong here. They told him to go home, but had little to say about how to get there. The trip down the inlet was slow as the dark shore slipped by on either side, and the world was silent but for the tiny splash of oars and their creaking in the locks.
There was a small island, covered with underbrush and trees, where the inlet met the main channel of the lake. He landed on the rocky shore and pulled his boat up until it was hidden by growth. Then he climbed the small hill to the center of the island, where a clearing had been made by illicit picnickers, and a fire pit had been dug. During high school, he’d partied here with friends often. It had been a gathering place for telling ghost stories and making out. Tonight he had something far more important in mind.
He gathered deadwood that was good and dry, and made a small fire that threw a thin line of white smoke into the air. He added to it a green branch of a cedar tree that grew nearby. Brigid he laid on the ground next to it so he could pull his shirt off over his head. Then he kicked off his shoes, peeled off his socks, and unbuckled his belt. His jeans dropped to the ground and he stepped out of them, then his shorts joined the pile. He shivered. A fluttering grew in his belly, and he took a deep breath. He felt the air around him, the moonlight on his skin, and laid a hand over the crucifix that rested against his chest. Cait’s ring was still with it, and felt warm against his palm.
His pulse picked up. He took Brigid and stood by the fire to clear his mind and center himself. The breeze was soft on his body. The cedar smoke sharpened the air and his senses. Then he pointed Brigid straight int
o the fire and walked three times deiseil around it, knelt, and sat back on his heels with the blade point in the dirt and his hands resting on her hilt. He took a deep breath and let it out slowly, then stared into the fire and emptied his mind of everything. All doubts that this would work left him. Doubt would make it impossible.
Finally he spoke in a soft monotone, “A null e, a nall e. Slàinte. Dirk of fire, dirk of power, your breath of life gives life.” A shock like electricity ran from his hands, through his arms, then into his body. Pain shot through his gut, and he struggled for breath, then gathered himself and plundered his mind for the words that would focus the power. “The purity and sanctity of the fire is yours. By that power, take me to Caitrionagh. Rejoin that which was riven. Make my soul one with hers. By the power of the sun and moon, let this be done.”
For several minutes he sat and only breathed. The night became so comfortable he might have slept sitting up. The warmth of the fire on his skin dimmed as his senses numbed. As he focused, the more he concentrated, the warmer Brigid became under his hands. Then she began to glow with a silvery, moonlike light that shot out in rays between his fingers. It bathed him, and he could feel the power of the broch enter him.
When all seemed still and his body was relaxed, he closed his eyes and allowed Cait into his mind. Lovely Cait, the other half of his soul. So far away, and so long ago. Patiently he took himself back through the centuries, across the ocean, distances that stretched his ability until he thought he might not make it. Or he might not make it back to his body.
Then he was flying. Wings outstretched to either side, the long feathers were shiny and black. The night air rushed past him, both exhilarating and terrifying. He glided on, toward Edinburgh. The sun rose on the day the battle was being fought and the moment he was . . . dying.
He lit on a windowsill of a large house and saw her, dressed as he’d never seen her before, like an Englishwoman. Her hair was in a kerchief, and she knelt on the floor. Her eyes were red with crying and swollen with purple bruises. His mind called out to her. “Cait . . .”
Son of the Sword Page 35