by Tom Deitz
“Forewarned is forearmed,” David said. “You can’t know too much about that stuff when your survival may depend on it.”
“But—”
“I’m gonna forearm you if you don’t hush and let me read my blessed letter.”
Alec clamped a hand over his mouth and steepled his brows in feigned contrition.
And David started reading.
“So what’d she say?” Alec asked when the letter had been refolded and tucked back into its envelope.
David smiled cryptically. “Well, most of it I’d rather not repeat: stuff about wanting to ravish my manly body, and all—Don’t look at me like that, I can dream, can’t I? You were right about the T-shirts. She got them at a Renaissance Fair. The small’s for you.”
“Little does she know.”
“Ahem, McLean. Just cause you gained fifteen pounds since last summer.”
“And three-quarter inches.”
“We’ll forget that.”
“I won’t.”
“So you outweigh me now. So what? You’ve always been taller. But I have my own advantages.”
“Name two.”
“This, for one thing,” David said, fishing into his shirt collar for the silver ring that hung on a silver chain around his neck. “And this, for another,” he added, pointing to his eyes.
Alec yawned in obviously feigned boredom. “A magic ring and the Second Sight. Big deal.”
David poked him in the ribs. “You thought so last summer.”
“Has it really been that long. Almost a year?”
David frowned thoughtfully. “Close to it. It was July thirty-first when I got the Sight, and the next day—Lughnasadh—when I heard music in the night and followed it to the woods.”
“And saw the Sidhe.”
David began to stroke the ring. Almost before he knew it he found his mind agleam with images: a moonlit forest; a golden radiance upon the ground; a parade of men and women mounted on beautiful horses, their faces fair but far from human, their clothing from another time entirely. The Sidhe of Ireland at their riding.
He had read of them—dreamed of them . . .
Met them on a summer night nearly a year before and nothing had been the same after. The fabric of his reality had shattered in twenty-one days, and he still hadn’t put it back together.
The sun slanted through the windshield, warming his face.
“David?”
“Huh? What?”
“You went off all of a sudden.”
David smiled apologetically. “Sorry. But you know, if it wasn’t for this ring Oisin gave me I’d almost think it was a dream.”
“Those were interesting times, that’s for certain,” Alec replied carefully. “I still feel bad about not believing you when you told me about the ring.”
“Well, let’s face it: the idea of a whole system of other worlds overlying our own’s a lot for anybody to swallow. I doubt I’d have believed it either, if it’d happened to you.”
Alec’s brow wrinkled thoughtfully. “Probably wouldn’t have, though. Things like that avoid me like the plague.”
“Unless I drag you in.”
“Yeah, but I know you’d go again in a minute if you had half a chance.”
“Would you?”
Alec paused, scratching the sparse line of stubble on his chin. “I don’t know. Part of me would like to, but part of me’s scared I’d get stuck there and not be able to get back. I think you could make a go of life in the Otherworld, but I’m not so sure about myself. I . . . I need normality, at least most of the time. I guess I think one world’s enough.”
“But nothing’s really normal, even in this world.”
“Particularly not Mad Davy Sullivan.”
“Nor the fool of a Scotsman he claims as his best friend.”
“At least I don’t become inarticulate when discussing a certain young lady.”
David did not answer. His face had gone distant and dreamy again. “You know, the thing I regret most is that business about Fionchadd,” he whispered at last.
Alec stared at him, then frowned. “Get off it, Sullivan,” he said a little roughly. “You can’t change what happened.”
“Yeah,” David replied bitterly. “What’s done is done, and who’s dead is dead. He could have been my friend, Alec.”
“Or you could have been born in Kalamazoo, and then you’d never have met.”
David sighed and squared his shoulders. “Yeah, right—as usual. ’Tis just a case of the moodies sneakin’ up on me,” he added in a convincing brogue, though his apparent good spirits seemed more than a little forced. “Now how ’bout readin’ me some o’ yon massie volume, laddie?”
“You can read, Sullivan, do it yourself.”
“Ah, and sure that I can, lad. But would ye have me be doin’ it while I’m drivin’?”
Alec stuck out his hand in despair. “Give me the blessed thing, then.”
“I was just tryin’ ta take yer mind off other problems,” David chided, the brogue already disappearing.
“Such as?”
David turned the key, revved the engine a great deal more than necessary, and returned to his natural voice. “Such as the two-hundred-fifty raging Ford horsepower I have just awakened!”
“I’m reading, Lord. I’m reading!” Alec moaned extravagantly.
David slipped the ring back under his shirt and shifted into reverse. “I really am sorry about Fionchadd, though,” he whispered again, as though to some invisible confessor. “I still feel like I killed him.”
But in a high place in Annwyn, someone would soon disagree with him.
Chapter II: Messages
(Faerie—high summer)
1: Annwyn
A single torch guttered in a circular chamber of polished white marble; the light of a thousand seldom-seen stars sparked at each arched, glassless window. A fair woman stood alone in the center of a floor mosaicked in a knotwork maze of blue and silver . . .
Morwyn verch Morgan ap Gwyddion grasped a bloody fistful of red-gold hair in each of her ivory hands and screamed.
The walls screamed back at her, perfectly smoothed stone mirroring sound as easily as it cast back pale, wavering images of the tall, white-skinned woman whose heavy silk gown was as red as the blood that trickled from her temples.
“Dead!” those walls cried her dismay. “My son is dead. Fionchadd of the sun-bright hair and the cat-quick hand has left me!”
She cast back her head, so that the line of her jaw and her breast and her delicate throat formed one taut curve of anger and despair.
“Dead. Dead. Dead.”
Even in her anguish the words chimed like bells.
A raven had brought the message: one of Nuada’s ravens, white as the cold moon of Annwyn. Whiter, even, than her own pale skin or the sharp teeth of the cat-shape she favored when her own form began to bore her. Almost she had put on that other seeming; almost she had devoured Silverhand’s messenger. But that, she had recalled in time, would be discourteous in the extreme. There was her heritage to consider: her father of Faery blood, brother to Annwyn’s queen; her mother of the race of the Powersmiths, daughter of a Fireshaper, a mighty man of Power in his own right, if not a king in earnest—for the Powersmiths hold no lord above their own, and among themselves no single one is master.
“The messenger is not the message,” they had taught her. “Truth is beyond emotion. Wrath ill focused is wrath in vain.”
And so she had made herself listen.
“Lady Morwyn,” the raven had begun, “I bring you the grace of good greetings from Nuada Airgetlam, sometime Warlord of Lugh Samildinach, High King of the Sidhe in Tir-Nan-Og, and from Lugh Samildinach himself.”
She had inclined her head at this, for she had little use for protocol.
“And with this greeting,” it had continued, “I bring apologies for its tardiness. Nearly a year has lapsed since first these words were given me, but well you know the state of the seas and t
he Tracks. Only now have I been able to come here, and a year is a long time in which to contain ill tidings.”
Her shape had flickered then: a warning. A ghost of furred claws danced upon long fingers.
“Very well,” the raven had croaked. “This am I commanded to tell you: In the second quarter of the afternoon forty-five sunsets after Lughnasadh, the son of your body, Fionchadd mac Ailill, was pierced with an iron-pointed spear wielded by the hand of his father, and so died the Death of Iron. His soul has fled. His likeness may no longer be found among the realms of the Sidhe. Only his ashes remain, at one with the winds and waters of Tir-Nan-Og.”
The raven had paused and cleared its throat. “That is the message, Lady. But more there is to follow, if you will hear it.”
“Hear it I would indeed,” Morwyn had replied. “How came my son in combat with a mortal man? More to the point, how came his father to be the agent of his dying? I did not think even Ailill so dark-souled as to countenance that.”
“It was the Trial of Heroes, Lady. Ailill had been troubling the Lands of Men since he came to Tir-Nan-Og. Somehow a mortal boy gained the Second Sight and saw the Sidhe at their Riding. Ailill challenged him to the Question Game and the boy bested him. After that there was no peace between them. Ailill became obsessed with capturing the lad, but was forestalled. At some point, he enlisted the aid of your son—though truth to tell, Fionchadd had little heart for it. In the end, Ailill took the mortal’s brother as a changeling. Lugh did not like that at all, nor was he pleased that Ailill had begun to flaunt the laws of his kingdom. And then one day Ailill dared to raise a sword against the High King himself, and Lugh exiled him.”
Morwyn had felt herself growing impatient. “I would hear of my son, bird, not of his father’s folly.”
The raven had fluttered its wings nervously and continued. “That is next to be told, Lady: Neither Lugh nor Ailill had reckoned on the mortal’s strength of will. Almost too late the lad learned of the Trial of Heroes and claimed the right to undertake it. Victorious in the Trial of Knowledge and the Trial of Courage, he came at last into Tir-Nan-Og for the Trial of Strength. He met Ailill there, even as that one was being escorted from Lugh’s kingdom. Ailill claimed that Trial as his own, but Fionchadd put forth a better claim, and Lugh, as Lord of the Trial, with the consent of the Morrigu as Mistress of Battles, agreed. So it was that the mortal boy competed with your son at swimming—and bested him. He was given the knife with which to claim Fionchadd’s life, and he did not—thus by his mercy ensuring true victory. But this so enraged Ailill that he seized an iron-headed spear from one of the mortal’s comrades and tried to slay him. Alas! Ailill missed, and the spear drank up the life of your child.”
“And Ailill? Tell me of him. Was he punished? Or does his cursed luck stand by him?”
“Lugh’s judgment has been laid upon him. Ailill hid his changeling in the form of a white horse, and so Lugh’s daughter, Caitlin, whose child Ailill had left in the mortal’s stead, claimed the right to make of Ailill a mount for her son until he be of an age to bear arms. Ailill will live in horse-shape until young Ciarri’s growth is finished.”
“A fitting form, too—though one, perhaps, too elegant,” Morwyn had observed thoughtfully.
“More than one voice has said that,” the raven had agreed.
“Is there more news?”
“Much more, though none of it so dreadful. Would you have me give it?”
“No. Leave me; I will see you again at sunrise. Perhaps I will set upon you the shape of a man and we will feast together. But now—there are rites a woman should perform when her son dies the Death of Iron. I must be about them.”
The raven had bobbed its head then, and flown away. And then the screaming started.
At some point the torch went out; eventually the sun rose.
Morwyn raised herself from the crumpled heap into which she had collapsed somewhat earlier. There was crusted blood on her temples and beneath her fingernails; dark, brittle lines of it had dried upon her cheeks. Her red-gold hair was wild as the clouds of autumn.
She straightened, raised her arms above her head, and closed her eyes.
The Power came, burning hot as the core of the Earth-heart. She began to glow, as though her body were metal long steeped in forgefire. The red silk of her dress flared up and was gone in a rain of black dust and droplets of gold. The brown flakes of hardened blood crisped away in instants. Flames encased her in a pillar of blue-white light. It was a purification: all the anguish in her soul set free, so that one thing only remained:
Vengeance.
She banished the flames and swore: “Vengeance, Ailill mac Bobh, for the death of my son, and for the distress and dishonor you have cost me and that continues to cost me still!”
She would go to Tir-Nan-Og, she decided. And she would find the mighty Horn, of which Ailill long ago had told her. The Hounds of Annwyn would have a feasting they would long remember.
“Vengeance!” she whispered again, into a room whose walls were now black marble.
And those walls, as if fearful, gave back no echo at all.
2: Erenn
“He was still your nephew, Finvarra, your own half brother’s child. Does the honor of the High Kingship of Erenn not concern you? If you will not act, I will.”
So Fionna nic Bobh had begun her tirade as soon as word of the raven-borne message had reached her at first light. Now, halfway to noon, her rage showed no signs of faltering. Indeed, it beat about the chilly stone of Finvarra’s high-arched feast hall like the demonwaves of a winter storm. No man was safe from it, nor was Fionna either, to judge by her appearance: Her cheeks were flushed, her black hair wild and tangled, the side laces of her tawny velvet gown undone as though she had dressed without thinking. In her blue eyes glinted dangerous red sparks of madness.
She shook a sharp-nailed finger in the handsome, hard-lined face of Finvarra, who was also her half brother, totally oblivious to the ten-leafed symbol of the kingship of Erenn that glittered on his black hair, completely ignoring the plain granite throne where he sat wrapped in furs and green-checked wool, with the naked blade of the two-handed sword of state shimmering ominously athwart the two high armrests.
“I will go into Tir-Nan-Og, brother,” Fionna swore, eyes flashing as she faced the king. “I will have my vengeance. Not by any mortal’s guile will my brother be dishonored. Nor by the guile of Silverhand or High King Lugh, either! It was their doing, of that I am certain now. A plot to discredit Ailill, an insult to your sovereignty, if you would but see it—for he was your ambassador. Not for all the mortal blood in the Lands of Men would I suffer such impudence! My nephew dead by treachery. My brother—my twin—imprisoned in the shape of a horse, to be ridden by gutless fools! Lugh’s justice? Ha! Better call it Lugh’s shrinking fear—he who was once a fighter and will fight no longer. A warrior with no love of battle. A king with no right to his throne. Thanks be for you, brother, who still know how to govern. But you must act, and quickly!”
Finvarra sighed and rubbed a ringed finger across his lips. “Sister, you know I cannot.”
Fionna’s eyes brightened dangerously. “I know you will not. There is more than a little difference.”
The High King shook his head and took a sip of wine from the silver goblet that rested next to the sword’s pommel on the throne’s right arm. “Cannot, Fionna. But there is another thing I cannot do as well, and that may fulfill your wishes.”
“And that is?”
“While I may not aid you, neither may I forbid you to seek such justice as may seem good to you. If you were to ride the Road to Tir-Nan-Og, there is no one in all of Erenn who would lift hand or sword to stop you. Whether there is anyone in Lugh’s land who might receive you is another tale entirely.”
Fionna set a thoughtful fist to her mouth. “If I succeed, there may be war.”
Her brother shrugged and folded his arms across his chest, tugging his fur cloak closer with one hand. “It has been
a long time. If you succeed, so be it. If you do not, then that will be as happens.”
“I will go,” she said decisively. “And I will return. Pursued by warriors, or leading them. But with me I will bring two heads . . . or maybe three.”
“One head will be sufficient,” Finvarra told her pointedly, “if you see that it be your own. And take no warriors.”
Fionna paused, stepped forward to retrieve the curious heavy goblet she had earlier set at the foot of her brother’s throne. She grasped the ivory-toned cup by its thick, gold-mounted stem and raised it into the stray shaft of sunlight that broke the space between them, turning it so that the eye sockets faced her. “MacIvor’s braincap is becoming worn,” she observed, smiling. “The skull of a mortal boy would make a fine replacement, I would think.”
“It is what the boy thinks that matters,” replied Finvarra. “From what I have heard, his head seems to take care of itself very nicely.”
Fionna turned away then, so that her unbound black hair swung like a mantle of night drawn across the trees of green and gold embroidered on her garment. “Perhaps I will leave his head until last, then,” she whispered over her shoulder. “A mortal man may live a long time without his limbs. With Power cleverly applied, he might live for several hundred years—a thousand, even. Think of it! A thousand years crippled, blind, and sexless—with only his tongue left to scream as his wounds are opened daily and boiling oil poured in them.”
Finvarra slammed his goblet down on the throne’s arm so that the wine sloshed out to paint dark patterns upon the stone. “Fionna! Such thoughts do you no honor. An enemy worth your challenge is worth your mercy!”
“You are beginning to sound like Lugh” came his sister’s sneered reply, as she swept with deadly hauteur from the chamber.
Finvarra thrust himself up from the throne, took an angry step forward. “You are beginning to sound like a fool!” he shouted to her shadow. His words echoed among the complexity of pointed arches above in a hollow chant: “Fool, fool, fool.”
Or, he added to himself, when the sound of her footsteps had faded, like your poor, mad mother who sundered the Silver Thread a thousand years ago and now screams alone in the darkness beyond the Borders.