Fireshaper's Doom

by Tom Deitz

  “Oh, no!” Liz moaned.

  Alec turned to stare at her. “What’s wrong?”

  “We’ve seen that lake before, Alec—just look at the color. And see that Track bearing in to the left, from out of the woods? There’s another one, too: straight across from this one!”

  Alec squinted into the sudden gloom. “Christ!” he gasped. “It’s—it’s the lake of blood, isn’t it? One place I never expected to see again!”

  Liz nodded her resignation. “Yeah, this is the lilied way we saw when we were here before, the path we didn’t take.”

  “Does this mean Lugh’s raised the barrier?” Alec asked. “This is part of Tir-Nan-Og, isn’t it?”

  “Alas, no” came Nuada’s slow reply. “This realm but lies close by it.”

  “Close enough for the Watchers to have an interest?” Liz inquired far too casually. She pointed to a half dozen low-slung creatures that had begun to amble out of the forest and amble toward the left-hand shore. Each one bore a dome-shaped lacquered shell taller than a man. Each one had glowing red eyes fixed straight at them.

  And even as the company looked on, more Watchers wandered from the forest.

  Chapter XXXII: Curses and Vows

  (The Straight Tracks)

  Halt!

  The command stabbed into the ferret’s mind, a momentary dazzle of images adding to the confusion it already felt. Its size was wrong, for one thing, and that made perception strange and awkward. The ground was so very far away—four feet at least, and that alone almost made it panic, for it felt always as if it were toppling forward.

  And what a world had appeared around it! A strange, tingly golden thing beneath its feet, a rush of smells that made it giddy. A looping tangle of briars to every side that it could not escape, though it had tried several times, to its sorrow. More than one tuft of creamy fur hung upon bloody thorns as token of such futile efforts.

  And the weight on its back which was the source of those hateful commands.

  The ferret skidded to a halt, its back arching a bit, as if its length of spine made its hind legs a fraction slow responding.

  Beast! The mind-daggers carved into its brain, though this time the ferret did not understand the images that burst upon it. It closed its eyes, blinked, and waited.

  On its back Fionna nic Bobh was tired of waiting.

  Ensorcelling the ferret so that it was a suitable size to ride had taken a great deal out of her, though not as much as walking would have. And the endless series of shape shiftings that had ended with the resumption of her own human form had done little either to improve her mood or increase her strength. Especially as she was beginning to feel the Call.

  That was far worse than the deep wounds she had cloaked in a filmy gown magicked from spiderwebs and oak leaves, and which even now were on the way to healing. The make-do clothing gave her a vague sense of security, but did nothing to shut out the tugging of Faerie upon her substance, a tugging that passed even through Lugh’s sealing and was made far, far worse because of it, even with the slow increase of Power that reached her from the Tracks, and the trickle that followed the Silver Cord from Erenn. She could not return home now, unless Lugh unsealed the borders, so the Call would persist moment by moment, day by day, until it drove her at last to madness, as it surely had her brother.

  “Curse you, Lugh Samildinach,” she gritted.

  She closed her eyes, tried to compose herself, but a dark thought circled among the ways of her consciousness: failure. It could happen, she knew: almost completely cut off from Faerie, growing madder and weaker until she was but a ghost of discontent lost forever among the Tracks between the Worlds: her splendid brother no better.

  “No.” She rested her hand on the gold and ivory hilt of the sword that now hung by her side, almost by accident let a trickle of Power wander there—and found it answered tenfold! The scales had shifted, of a sudden. Suddenly hope had been reborn.

  There is Power here, she exulted, as her despair gave way to a joy she could scarce contain. Power such as I never suspected, Power which may yet see me to victory. Poor Silverhand, whose mortal flesh could not control it, though he must have known! How our battle must have cost him!

  Very casually, she dropped her hand to stroke Cormac’s roughly severed head, which was tied by its hair to her belt, its glazed eyes staring at nothing.

  “You will die, Silverhand,” she whispered fiercely. “The means are surely within my grasp, now. And my brother will watch it happen!”

  Chapter XXXIII: The Well of the Bloody Strand

  (Tir-Nan-Og)

  Cliffs marched across the horizon: cloud-high; orange-pink where morning sunlight shattered against vertical rock faces. A blur of green crowned those crags; a sky of pearl-blue hovered above them; a slow-motion splatter of silver plumed from their heights into white mist. It took David a moment to realize they were waterfalls.

  Only Tir-Nan-Og could look like that, he knew; only that land held colors so wonderfully bright, light so incredibly clear.

  He had made it, then; Morwyn’s ship had brought him through Lugh’s sealing.

  For a long while David stared at the distant spectacle, watching it grow slowly larger and more distinct. The ship was still moving forward, he knew, though he could discern that motion only by the steady curling of pale wisps of low-lying sea fog around the dragon prow. No wind enlivened the air, yet odors came and went as if at will: salt spray and evergreens and the thick, rich scent of flowers.

  David glanced over his shoulder, past the flaccid weight of sail to the distant flame of the pillar of fire. Looking forward again, he half expected to see the glimmer of Track before the prow—but that familiar companion was gone. They had left it, he supposed, when they had passed from pillar to ocean. He shuddered involuntarily when he recalled how narrowly he had escaped being caught on deck. Man! Just thinking of that made his balls crawl right up next to his liver.

  As if in sympathy, his stomach growled, which only served to remind him he was hungry.

  And why.

  He’d regained consciousness abruptly, gratefully aware that the howling outside had ended, more grateful that the giddy motion, the constant reversals of perception, of up and down, of dark and light, had ceased. But his stomach had not been as forgiving as his head and had demanded its own accounting, which he had given—over the rail of the ship.

  He felt better now, but only slightly. He had found no water on board, so he’d slaked his thirst with Morwyn’s wine—not such a good idea. He had managed to snag a bucketful of water from the sea, only to discover that it was bitterly salty, so he’d used it to wash up with—which hadn’t been so smart either. Finally he had resumed his place in the bow and begun trying to get his act together.

  He still hadn’t succeeded.

  Eventually the ship arched across a skim of waves before a wide, black beach and entered a cleft in the rock face where a small stream issued from the land beyond.

  And stopped, its bottom grating across sand, the great outstretched spars that braced the sail barely clearing the dark, wet rock to either side.

  “This is it, then.” David struck a theatrical pose with his legs braced wide apart and drew the sword from the deck. He started to sheathe it, but it twitched in his hand as if it were possessed of some life of its own. David raised an eyebrow and drew it out again, holding it at arm’s length, balanced on his palm.

  To his amazement, the blade twisted about, the point angling at least ten degrees to the left of where he had originally pointed it. He shrugged and took a firmer grip as he vaulted over the railing.

  A stronger wave dashed against the shore, sending a low crest billowing up the narrow estuary in which the boat had come to rest. The sturdy timbers creaked and groaned as they rode the swell.

  David looked at the ring Morwyn had given him. He thrust the sword into its scabbard and, with both hands free, scratched the head of the golden serpent three times.

  A prickle of heat trace
d itself up his finger, and the tiny serpent swelled almost imperceptibly, as though its metal body sought to breathe. David felt a little foolish standing there with a fancy ring pointed at an absurdly beautiful ship, but then, he recollected, there was no one to watch him anyway. And then the metal beast was breathing, minute sides pumping furiously in and out.

  He caught his breath, for a breeze had sprung up, a mere tickle of the air at first, and then stronger, skipping and cavorting around the boat in curious puffs. It gained in strength as the tiny serpent’s sides pumped harder, and very soon loose sand was stirring on the beach and ripples upon the water.

  A small whirlwind engulfed, the ship, and as it spun, the boat dwindled, until perhaps a minute later the same immaculate model David had seen earlier floated placidly among the wavelets.

  He reached over to snag the vessel, then looked around for a place to hide it. There was a narrow shelf just above eye level in the cliff to his left, with a distinctive zigzag pattern in its dark granite. That would do, he decided, and set the tiny ship safely in the hollow.

  And now to it. He sighed as he drew the sword, feeling its insistent tug to his left even before he had it fully free. I’ve no choice but to follow the stream till the cliffs lower, I guess, otherwise I might lose my landmark. No way I’m gonna climb anything that high, he added as he examined the dark rocks to either side. An idea struck him, and he piled three small stones in what he hoped would be an unobtrusive heap directly beneath the ledge on which he had stowed the ship.

  And set forth into Tir-Nan-Og.

  Lugh’s realm was empty.

  That was what David told himself as the land unfolded around him. Nothing moved out there, though he could feel eyes everywhere. Once he had seen the dark silhouettes of mounted riders flashing across a distant plain. One had stopped, stared toward David, shading his eyes with a hand—and had moved on, raising no cry that David could discern. Maybe there’s a glamour on me, he thought, only half believing it. Or maybe mortal matter can’t be seen in this World, as the Tracks can’t be seen in mine . . . or maybe they’re only waiting.

  Through delicate bushes to either side of the stream he followed, rolling meadows were visible; and once or twice he had seen tall towers or low-slung halls of stone and heavy wood. But there were no people. The land seemed to be holding its breath—like the monster in a horror movie, waiting for exactly the right moment to dart out and—He didn’t want to think about it.

  But for now the land was empty and peaceful, its lush greens made even richer by contrast with the stark whiteness of the Lands of Fire.

  A little way ahead the stream entered a dark wall of forest. David paused, checked the sword, and felt with some relief its pull in that direction: he’d be less exposed there, he hoped, though there’d be more places for watching eyes to hide.

  Moments later he was in the shelter of ancient branches. At his side, lily pads made a blue-green mosaic on the water.

  It didn’t take him long to reach the end of the wood. Beyond a last screen of maidenhair ferns lay a broad, undulating meadow, sunlit and artfully dotted with boulders on whose sides primitive faces were carved in low relief. Beyond a clump of trees to his right, he could see the peak that in his own land was called Bloody Bald, and atop it the cascade of terraces and gardens, walls and faceted towers that was the High King’s palace.

  He checked the sword. As he expected, the blade pointed toward the castle, but a little to one side. Probably the secret entrance opened outside the immediate precincts.

  He began to jog again, setting a springy pace across the meadow, his mail jingling softly as he moved, spongy turf giving his every step an added bounce. The wyvern-hide boots were fabulously comfortable. Either there were no stones at all in the earth of Tir-Nan-Og, or else the boots, though thin-soled, filtered out the shock of such encounters.

  Something nagged at him, though, as he came to a smaller stream that blocked the way before him. Go right, the sword’s pull told him, and he obeyed, following the stream bed as the nagging became stronger and stronger.

  All at once he realized that he’d been here before. In this very field his previous journey to Tir-Nan-Og had ended—here he had met the Sidhe to complete the Trial of Heroes . . . and Fionchadd had been killed, and Ailill Windmaster brought low.

  But there was nothing here to mark that episode now, only a well-beaten path in the grass, and farther to the left a glimmer of Track.

  Something was different, however: close by the stream, though not connected to it, lay a small, deep pool, barely a yard across, almost like a well. Its clear waters looked very cold and very inviting.

  And he was thirsty. Throwing caution to the winds, he knelt and scooped a handful of water into his mouth.

  It was the best he had ever tasted—cold and vaguely sweet, with the barest hint of carbonation. He paused, and took another, longer drink, then unslung his empty wine flask and refilled it.

  He splashed a final handful on his face and stood up, looking again toward the palace. A sudden dizziness caught him, giddy and invigorating. His blood seemed to dance to a faster tempo. He ran through a quick series of stretching exercises, and was surprised at the supple ease with which his body moved, in spite of its various encumbrances.

  David started toward the castle, but had taken barely three steps before a flash of color to his right focused his attention once more on the ground.

  At the far edge of the pool a small green lizard was watching him, narrow head upraised at a perky, interested angle. Its iridescent scales shone bright as faceted emeralds. It was the first animate thing he had seen in what seemed like hours, and he was frankly grateful. David knelt and extended a tentative finger toward it. The lizard backed away, skittering on wide-splayed legs, then crept forward again. Its tiny black tongue darted out and neatly flicked a drop of water from his finger.

  David extended his hand farther, ran a finger along the flat skull, and at last, emboldened, picked the lizard up and placed it on his shoulder, where it remained by his ear, clinging tightly with tiny serrated footpads that felt like velcro.

  And then he began the trek to Lugh’s palace.

  Chapter XXXIV: Awakening

  (Sullivan Cove, Georgia)

  Little Billy Sullivan couldn’t sleep.

  He was worried about Davy, mostly. It was past four-thirty in the morning by the bright green numbers on his new digital wristwatch (the one that turned into a car if you did one thing to it, and into a robot if you did something else). Four-thirty and Davy wasn’t back yet, and his mama and daddy weren’t saying much, though his daddy had come back an hour or so before, looking like he’d looked the day Uncle Dale got sick that time, and his mama hadn’t said a word but had cried a lot. They were sleeping now—or pretending to, Little Billy suspected. But he knew that they were worried.

  And so was he.

  He wanted to get up and look for Davy, but he had no idea where to start. His brother had last been seen at the gippy camp—the Gypsy camp, he corrected himself—so that might be the place to go first. But he couldn’t get there ’cause it was too far to walk (and dark besides, and he suspected there were things in the woods that sometimes had designs on little boys), and he couldn’t drive (though David had let him sit in his lap and steer the Mustang once, while he worked the pedals and shifter), and it would take forever on his little bicycle. So he didn’t know what to do.

  He scratched his head, sat up in bed, and stretched. Ripping the curtains aside, he gazed idly out the window toward the dark wall of mountain that sheltered the house by day (and threatened it at night, he always thought). It was light out there. Funny, ’cause it really shouldn’t be, or at least not light like he saw. This demanded investigation.

  He slipped out of bed and dressed quietly: jeans and T-shirt and new Reeboks, just like Davy’s.

  Out the door, onto the porch, into the yard.

  He looked up—

  Saw the cross burning in the sky.

 
; “Davy,” he said.

  JoAnne Sullivan wondered how Big Billy could snore like that while all the current mess was going on. She wondered how he could even sleep at all. But he was, and that was a fact; she ought to know that by now, ought to know that Big Billy Sullivan could sleep through anything. He’d do what he could, and if that wasn’t enough, well then, it was out of his hands. If they’d started a search, he’d have been there in a minute. If the sheriff had suggested dragging the lake or riding in a helicopter, or inspecting the back forty with a magnifying glass, he’d have been first to say, “I’ll do ’er.” But as far as acting on his own volition was concerned, well, he was a little lacking there. He loved David, she knew that, though they fought a lot, as boys will who were trying to become men, and men will who were trying to stay boys. And he loved Uncle Dale as well. Loved her and Little Billy, too. But sometimes he took a peculiar way of showing it—like trusting those very people to look after themselves. “Davy’s a smart boy,” Bill had said. “And Dale’s been his own boss longer’n I been alive. If they ain’t back by suppertime tomorrow, then I’ll start to worry.”

  But that didn’t help her any.

  She wondered about Little Billy too—how he would take it if anything really had happened to his beloved brother.

  And she was still wondering when she heard the little boy’s door squeak open, heard his footsteps padding down the hall, heard the back door swing open and then thump shut again, exactly as if the little varmint had tried to shut it quietly and not quite been successful.

  Better check on him, she thought. Things been a little strange ’round here the last year or so.

  She climbed out of bed, spared an almost contemptuous glance at Big Billy’s naked, snoring figure. No housecoat, just her thin blue nightie—it was warm, and who’d see anyway?