by Tom Deitz
David gulped. “I’m sorry, I’ll . . . I’ll try to be more careful. But,” he added, “there are a couple of things I kinda need to ask you, and some stuff I need to tell you, too—stuff you folks really ought to know.”
“Oh?” Nuada replied somewhat distantly.
“Yeah,” David said carefully. “Like why can I see Straight Tracks all of a sudden? I must have seen four—no, five of ’em on my way back from Valdosta. And I shouldn’t have been able to see any at all, should I?”
Nuada shook his head. “Not unless Power has touched them.”
“Power?”
“Most of what the Sight sees is Power. When the Tracks are awakened by the touch of Power, their own Power increases.”
“But how else can they be used, except by you folks traveling on them?”
“Any number of ways,” Regan answered. “Mind travel, the sending of messages, exploring the Worlds, maybe. But the hairy star disrupted all roads Eastward until lately.”
“You said something about exploring,” David noted. “Could that be like somebody searching for something—or someone?”
The lady pursed her lips thoughtfully. “It is possible. Why do you ask?”
David cleared his throat. “Well, there’ve been some problems with . . . what looks sort of like an elk causing trouble in our World. I saw it, almost wrecked my car because of it . . . and I think it’s one of the Sidhe. In fact—I’m afraid it might be Ailill. I thought somebody might be using magic to look for him.”
Nuada frowned. “Grievous news that, if true; but not likely. My last message from Ard Rhi Lugh was this morning, and at that time he was watching Ailill be put through his paces with Caitlin’s son, Ciarri, on his back. Now, if I have allowed for the difference between the Worlds correctly, that would still have been after you saw the Tracks—or the animal. Also, the bonds about Ailill are very strong. I myself must be there to break them.”
“Yet something may be amiss in Tir-Nan-Og,” Cormac observed. “For what your young friend saw seems certainly a thing of our World.”
“Faery creatures often wander onto the Tracks,” Regan noted. “But they do not usually stay long, nor do they venture far from them, for the call of Tir-Nan-Og is very strong. Usually the drawing is so strong they cannot help but return.”
“But this wasn’t necessarily an animal,” David protested. “Its shape flickered between three forms: man and horse and deer. I wish I could have got a better look at the man.”
“Boredom is the chief curse of our kind,” said Nuada finally. “And our folk sometimes run the Worlds in forms of other-seeming. Lugh does not like such things, but he cannot watch every man and woman, every half-grown child with a taste for stretching his Power. It could be anyone.”
“Even Ailill?” Alec asked pointedly.
Nuada shook his head emphatically. “If Ailill were loose in the Worlds we would know, of that I am very certain. Now, there are other things I would discuss with you: affairs of the Lands of Men. I have many questions that the Traders cannot answer.”
They talked then, for a very long time. The walls of tension that had briefly risen quickly fell away. Many subjects they discussed, many questions raised and answered, but at last it was time to go.
“Farewell, David Sullivan,” said Nuada at the border of the camp. “But come again tomorrow. And bring your brother. He will be safe here, I promise.”
“Right,” said David. “You got it.”
Chapter XIII: The Wrath of Lugh
(Tir-Nan-Og—high summer)
“Escaped? Windmaster has escaped?”
Lugh’s shout of rage echoed around his bedchamber like a clap of thunder.
The High King of Tir-Nan-Og slammed his goblet down upon the long wooden table before him. The stem buckled slightly between his fingers. A chip of pearly inlay flaked from the table’s edge and fell into the thick white fur that lay beneath his feet.
Beyond the table Froech bowed his head, not daring to face the wrath that blazed in the eyes of his overlord. He was already kneeling. Perhaps he would be crawling next. Perhaps he might be crawling for several centuries, given Lugh’s penchant for shape-spells as punishment.
Lugh’s hand tightened on the heavy gold chalice. A ruby popped free.
He stared at Froech with a terrible calm anger in his dark eyes that the youth found far more frightening than the threats and rantings he had feared.
“And how was this escape accomplished, boy? Four metal locks there were, and four magic, am I correct? And four binding spells as well? Were they not sufficient?”
“It was the Lady, Majesty,” Froech managed to stammer. “It must have been the lady. I . . . I meant to tell you about her.”
Lugh drained the wine. “Froech, look at me.”
The youth raised his head.
Lugh’s gaze locked with his and would not release it. He closed his fist around the goblet. A panel of silver scrollwork was pressed into ruin. A second ruby fell as the High King tightened his grip. Finally he opened his hand and flung the mass of twisted metal against the floor a handsbreadth away from the cowering boy.
“Would you rather that were your head, Froech? It will be if you do not tell me everything.”
“My Lord . . . I . . .” Froech’s eyes widened. He sought his voice but could not find it, searched his memory and found emptiness waiting there—that and the image of a dark-haired woman whose face he could not bring to focus. Perhaps he had lain with her. But he could not remember.
Lugh’s eyes narrowed; he rose from his heavy carved chair and paced around the table, the fur trim at the hem of his black velvet robe swishing across the stone floor.
“Stand up!”
Froech did, though his legs almost failed him. His breath came in shallow gasps.
“Look at me!”
Their eyes met again: Froech’s guileless, fearful emerald pale before Lugh’s fierce, dark blue.
Lugh’s stare reached beyond the boy’s eyes, pierced his memory.
Froech felt his touch there, fought it to no avail.
Lugh saw everything. Hopes, fears, battles, trysts—lots of those—but no deceptions. And another thing, an image that fled elusively as he pursued it.
But he was the Ard Rhi, Lugh Samildinach, the man skilled at every art, even that of chasing wayward memories. He followed that image though it ran, found it though it hid, ripped it from Froech’s mind and read it like a page of illumination.
Froech gasped at the touch of the High King’s Power. His entire memory seemed ablaze: five hundred years of life exploded into fragments and swirled around a center of pain like ashes wind-whipped before a firestorm.
“So that is the way of it,” Lugh whispered to himself. “That woman I know, I think, though she seems to have gone far down her mother’s path to madness since our last meeting—and her brother’s way to treachery as well, it would appear. She must have freed Ailill and set herself as his replacement.”
He broke the contact then, ignoring Froech’s cry of pain as the youth staggered against the table.
“Well, boy, it seems to me that, though foolish, you truly are no traitor.”
Froech dragged his head up. “No, Lord.”
Lugh twisted absently at a strand of sweeping mustache. “That is a good thing, Froech, for I have a task for you. Ailill must not be allowed to escape my judgment, and I fear what he might do if he reaches the Lands of Men. It may be that he is still in my realm, or it may be that he has passed beyond into the webwork of the Tracks. The former choice I will deal with myself, but the latter I entrust, in part, to you: Go and seek Nuada Airgetlam, who currently travels in the Mortal World. Order him to cease his watching there and commence a search for Windmaster. Now, go!”
Froech managed a shaky bow and turned toward the high bronze door.
Lugh’s brow furrowed thoughtfully. “Wait!” he commanded.
Froech spun around.
Lugh’s fingers tapped a certain rhythm on th
e pattern of the tabletop before him. A panel opened. He reached forward and drew out two elongated objects masked by matching scabbards of white leather: a dagger and a sword of identical design. Both had gently curving blades and graceful S-curved quillons. Both had ivory hilts rich with jewels and banded gold that exactly continued the curvature of the edges.
Froech’s eyes widened in wonder. “They are beautiful, Lord.”
Lugh nodded grimly. “Aye.” He picked up the sword and balanced it across the palm of one hand as though its weight were nothing. “Take this to Nuada. He will soon grasp its implications.”
The youth took the weapon gingerly, then squared his shoulders, bowed stiffly, and clipped the scabbard onto his gold-linked belt.
Lugh waved his dismissal. “Go now and summon the Morrigu to me; then hasten on your errand. Take the fastest horse you can find, or put on the fleetest form your skill commands. But travel quickly, boy, for my wrath will blow behind you, and if it catch you, you may be consumed.”
Froech left the room at a run.
The bronze door boomed shut behind him.
Lugh began to stalk the chamber. Sparks leapt from his fingertips whenever he paused to touch an object. The fur trim on his robe crackled ominously. His dark hair lifted beneath its golden circlet. He came to a high-arched window and stared briefly across the empty plains and forests of his kingdom, before his gaze was drawn to the large blotch of map that hung on the wall beside it.
Worked on the thin tanned hide of a golden wyvern, which shape it still bore approximately, Oisin had made that map for him in the days before his blindness. It showed all of Tir-Nan-Og, with the Tracks worked in fine ribbons of beaten gold and the lakes and rivers of quicksilver cased in a film of glass so thin it could be bent like paper and not shatter. Forests were marked by a crust of pounded emeralds, and deserts by ground topazes. A twelve-pointed star of faceted diamonds indicated the palace itself.
Lugh wrenched the map from the wall. He rolled it roughly under his arm, and strode from the room, only pausing at the table to snatch up the dagger he had left there.
Fourteen flights of stairs coiled around him before he reached his throne hall.
The room exploded about him in a thunder of light and color, of white piers and distant silver arches, and windows like frozen fire or burning water. Artfully placed mirrors caught the sun’s rays and sent them shooting here and there among the piers and pylons, filling the whole vast chamber with a textured web of light.
There was no movement anywhere, nor any sound except the purposeful slap of Lugh’s boots against the mosaicked floor.
At the center of the room was the throne: made of plain, squared stone, as were all royal thrones in Faerie. High-backed it was, and high-armed, cut from the bare rock of the land on which the palace was built. Not apart from the land, but a part of the land, its roots were one with the roots of the mountains.
Lugh seated himself. “And now, Ailill Windmaster, we will see how clever you really are—and how brave.”
He unfolded the map, placed it on the throne’s wide left arm, and laid his hand palm-down upon it.
With his right hand he drew forth the ivory-handled dagger and unsheathed it. It gleamed in the morning sunlight. Somewhere a bird called. The only other sound was Lugh’s breathing.
He closed his fingers about the hilt, raised the weapon—and stabbed across and downward.
The blade pierced his hand, but he did not cry out, for he felt nothing, so keen was that weapon’s edge. It pierced the map of Tir-Nan-Og, and it pierced the stone beneath it.
Lugh left it there, felt the pain awaken.
Blood oozed forth from his palm; he could feel it now, trickling out like cold fire. In a moment it had soaked through the vellum.
Lugh felt the Power start to rise: the Power of the Land and the Power of the High King joined by metal in a bridal bond of ever-increasing pain. He closed his eyes and sent his Power outward.
He did not allow the blood that now crept from between his fingers to pool in random patterns. Rather, he set it to tracing the lines limned upon the map, following them outward toward the border.
It was begun, then: his seeking and his sealing. If Ailill was anywhere in Tir-Nan-Og, the Power Lugh had just unleashed would discover him, and if he had escaped into the Lands of Men, either Nuada would, or else the dark Faery would find himself forced to put on the hated stuff of the Mortal World, or face the ever-increasing strength of the Call, which if unheeded led to madness. Hopefully he would give himself up before that happened—that was the plan. Ailill had sworn himself to Tir-Nan-Og, had joined with it for the time of his service there, was now much more a part of it than of Erenn. And now Lugh had cut him off. The High King could endure the pain—but could Ailill endure the Call that could destroy his mind? It was a gamble, a game of bluff and counterbluff. The waiting had begun—and Lugh was very patient.
At the far end of the hall a lofty door cracked open. The shape of a woman showed there, darkness cut out against light. Tall she was, and dressed in red, with a crow perched on her shoulder.
“You sent for me, Lord?” the Morrigu inquired.
“I have sealed the borders, Lady of War,” Lugh told her. “Now, this is what must happen . . .”
Chapter XIV: By Moonlight
(Sullivan Cove, Georgia)
It was just past eleven-thirty when Liz eased the car onto the Sullivan Cove road.
“I dread going home,” David sighed, noticing that the lights were still on at his house. “And I really dread what Pa’s gonna say when I get there. I wouldn’t be surprised if he weren’t waiting for me belt in hand.”
“You two should try not to fight so much,” Liz said. “I know you care about each other, you just don’t like to show it.”
“Yeah, well, it just kind of happens, you know how it is—Hey, you just missed the driveway!”
Liz was continuing out the road, her eyes focused straight ahead with deliberate concentration. The headlights picked out a pattern of split rail fences laced with weeds, and fields beyond those fences, with mountains looming above them all like waiting beasts: dark, watchful shadows in the night.
“Liz?”
She grimaced momentarily as the surface roughened, then flashed an amused glance at David. “Well, you said you didn’t want to go home yet, and I certainly don’t want to go home yet, and we’re both enjoying the conversation, so I thought I’d see if I could find a good place to finish it. Reckon B.A. Beach’d do?”
“Sounds good to me,” David agreed. Very good, he added to himself, if it meant what he thought it might.
In a moment they had reached the turnaround, the line of steel gray lake now glimmering under the first stars. The moon was almost full. The best thing, though, was that the place was deserted. Liz pulled over to the right and parked the car.
Wordlessly they got out and began to pick their way across the field to the north, then entered the woods. The tracks Darrell’s van had left there six weeks before were still faintly visible, and it was that trail they followed until they lost it and turned left toward the sound of lapping water.
A short while later they came out of the sheltering pines and onto a mossy bank overlooking a thin strip of natural beach. Before them was the lake. To the left, almost hidden by a hump of forested peninsula, was Bloody Bald. The naked rocks at its mortal summit gleamed vaguely pink above a zigzag of trees.
“Too bad we couldn’t have come at sunset,” David said, pointing at it. “Then I could have given you the Sight, and you could have seen the palace that’s really there. Even with the Sight you can see it only at sunset and sunrise. That was the first thing I ever saw that gave me any idea about the Faeries.”
Liz did not answer, and David suddenly wondered if she was doing the same thing he was: recalling the last time they’d both been there.
It had been at the end of the previous summer, right after their journey to Faerie. Right before school had started. Right w
hen David was beginning to think their years-old friendship might turn into something more. But he had been too scared, too confused to pursue it, so they had picked blackberries instead and complained about the heat. She had told him that her parents’ divorce had been finalized and that she was going to spend the next year in Gainesville with her father. The schools were better there, she had said. They’d almost had a fight, and he’d practically had to bite his tongue to keep from smarting off. He had always wondered if she’d noticed.
“I didn’t dare try for Lookout,” Liz whispered. “Couldn’t get all the way in the car, and didn’t want to risk your folks seeing us, anyway. No way we could have gone up that road unnoticed.” Her voice quivered ever so slightly.
“Right,” David mumbled awkwardly. “Sure.”
They sat down on a layer of smooth pine straw atop a carpet of moss. Thirty feet beyond them water lapped gently against the rocky shore. The moss felt cool beneath them, and they kicked off their shoes.
David flopped back against a fallen tree trunk, and Liz lay down beside him. They looked up at a medallion of starlit sky that was brighter by far than the trees that framed it in three directions.
Liz took a deep breath. “I’ve missed you, David.”
David’s breath was even deeper, and tinged with a trace of nervousness. “I’ve missed you too, Liz. I—Why was it so hard for me to say that?”
Liz rolled onto her side and plucked a dandelion that grew between them, then looked up at David as she rolled the stem between her fingers.
“I can’t answer that, David—but I think you ought to listen to what your heart’s saying once in a while. You might get some interesting answers.”
David regarded her seriously. “Do you do that, Liz? Do you listen to your heart?”
“Always; even when my head seems to be ruling, it’s my heart that’s giving it the choices.”
David folded his arms behind his head. “You were pretty good about that during the Trial of Heroes. Do you really think I was that way then? The selfless hero? Funny, I can never think of myself as a hero—even though I’ve gone through the ritual to prove it. It doesn’t make any difference in the real world.”