Fireshaper's Doom

by Tom Deitz

  A short while later the remaining companions faced the fall, with one of Froech’s bundled torches for each of them. Uncle Dale was the first to step upon the Track, first to cross the pool—not wading, but walking on the water itself—then go beneath the rumbling cataract.

  Liz looked up as her turn came to pass beneath the wall of water. She could see it before her, feel its electric coolness in the air. But then she stepped into it and the force diminished. The roar dulled and receded. And though she could see the water falling above her, feel it around her, it was as if it fell at a slower rate, as if she walked in the most delicate of spring rains. And then she was through and looking upon a dark wall of smooth and shiny rock, against which a vertical fissure showed darker yet, illuminated to perhaps knee height by the yellowish glow of the Track.

  Alec’s heels were already disappearing through that slit, and Liz followed as quickly as she could, at once disturbingly aware of the mountain’s mass as an almost palpable oppression upon her spirit.

  It took her eyes a moment to adjust to the flickering torchlight that one instant splashed a uniform glare of red across the walls, and the next highlighted every knob and plane with its own capricious black shadow. She found herself blinking too, as smoke burned into her eyes. The way was fairly narrow at first, but after fifty or so paces, the tunnel began to widen. The echoes of Alec’s footsteps called back to her. And then the walls swept away, as the tunnel opened into a vast, almost spherical cavern, maybe two hundred feet in diameter. She gasped: only the shallow ledge on which the company now crowded stood between them and the gulf. A narrow, rail-less arc of natural stone bridge bisected that emptiness, carrying both trail and Track into a darkness that was broken only by the stark glimmer of a vertical slit in the opposite wall.

  Uncle Dale stooped and scraped his index finger along the floor, then raised it to his nostrils. “Deer passed this way not long ago,” he grunted confidently, rubbing the red stain with his thumb. “Blood’s so fresh it’s still got some warm to it.”

  “Want to go back and get Regan and Nuada?” Gary ventured.

  “Let’s see what’s other side of that there crack, first.”

  And with that the old man stepped onto the span, the others following, Liz again bringing up the rear.

  She very nearly lost her balance at the halfway point, very nearly tumbled headlong into the darkness that yawned beneath her. More than once she had to stop, to stand swaying as she regained her nerve. Three times she had to steady herself with a hand on Alec’s arm. And then she could see the walls again, curving in to meet her at the sliver of light.

  That light was straight in front of her now, the Track humming beneath her feet. But underlying its vibration was another: a trembling of the rock of the mountains.

  Alec’s body blocked most of the view ahead, though a breath of dampness crept by him to kiss her cheek.

  And then he was gone and she was following.

  All at once she stepped into light.

  A veil of falling water lay before her, and she thought for a moment that the Track had played some trick on them, that they were back where they had started.

  But as Alec’s head disappeared beneath the curtain ahead, Liz heard his joyful cry: “Good God, I know where we are, Liz, it’s—”

  The sound was cut off, for Liz had followed him under the veil of mist.

  And emerged in the rich pink glow of sunrise in the Lands of Men. She looked down for an instant, saw the Track paling into vapor as it arched away above the small, placid pool at her feet. Beyond that pool was a clearing circled with pines and strewn with boulders and fallen logs that broke off suddenly into a sheer precipice. Beyond the precipice were mountains, like a pile of nubby, red-purple blankets spread loosely on the bones of the land. A shimmer of water flattened the low places between the nearer peaks, one of which was particularly pointed.

  “That’s Bloody Bald!” she gasped, as she followed Alec off the Track. “We’re on Lookout Rock!”

  But as her foot left the strip of gold, a pain stabbed into her hip from where she yet carried David’s ring. She started to cry out, but a dull paralysis suddenly clogged her throat. Her tongue felt thick, her limbs abruptly weak and distant. Her brain filled with a buzzing that drove away her own will and left her helpless. Dully she followed Alec’s stooping shoulders into full light. From somewhere derisive laughter sounded in her ears: two voices, one high and clear, one lower but no less melodious.

  Her awareness rapidly fading into lethargy, Liz nevertheless strained her vision, seeking among the black-shadowed rocks for the source of that unnerving laughter.

  And found it—for stepping from beneath the boughs at the edge of the lookout were the shapes of a tall, black-haired man, and beside him a beautiful, black-haired woman who looked to be his close kin. The man held a naked sword at arm’s length before him, point-up, its S-curved quillons at near eye level. He stared at it with a vague, unfocused intensity even as he continued to walk forward.

  The weapon’s fine taper seemed distressingly familiar to Liz, but she couldn’t place it; couldn’t concentrate at all. She tried, but the effort brought only a flash of pain stabbing and twisting behind her eyes. A scream rose in her throat, but her mouth would not respond: her vocal cords seemed frozen; her lips would not open.

  The woman threw back her head and laughed again, her black hair rippling about her hips and across her shoulders like a shawl. She stepped forward.

  Something bobbed against her thigh; something white and red, tied to the woman’s waist with strips of thick black cord.

  Liz stared at it, felt her gorge twitch, as the thing swung around.

  It was Cormac’s head.

  A stray tendril of hair caught on a pointed canine in the slack-jawed mouth as the woman continued forward. She jerked at it nonchalantly.

  The man inverted the sword, lowered it, blinked his eyes as if he had just awakened, then allowed his gaze to drift idly across the motionless company before returning it to the woman. He raised an elegant eyebrow.

  “This is not quite what I expected, sister, yet I see fortune has found us already. It seems that this sword has virtues beyond the restoration of shapes and the healing of minds. If only it could restore our own Power as easily as it controls that of another.” He stared at the hilt curiously. “There is something familiar about it, though; maybe when I have lived in my own shape longer I will remember—”

  The woman’s curt nod cut him off. “You must keep up the Calling a short while longer, my brother, and be sure it stays wound with the Binding; it would be a pity for our quarry to escape us now—though we have already caught more than we summoned!”

  Chapter XL: A Sudden Change of Fortune

  (The Straight Tracks)

  Morwyn was caught.

  Her summoning had touched Ailill at last: briefly, then more firmly, but so subtly he had not felt it until he was beyond escape. He had been injured, so it had not been possible to bring him to her as quickly as she desired—though she had used Power as a goad with a certain degree of satisfaction, driving him harder and harder.

  But just when she thought she had him wholly in her grip, she had lost him. On the Track one moment, off it the next—then nowhere.

  She had searched for him, looked in all the Worlds that layered near the place she last had sensed him.

  But instead he had found her, he and one other; had ripped her Power from her and turned it to their own use.

  And now Morwyn was being summoned, being dragged as fast as she could go through a fog of varied Worlds: the salt plain, then a not-place; through forests and groves, and then the Realms of Chaos where briars alone kept out the nothingness.

  Only the Track was the same.

  And ever the Call grew stronger, and her efforts to resist it weaker.

  But all was not lost, she knew, rubbing the finger she had pricked when she had left David.

  You may summon me, Ailill Windmaster, she thought. B
ut I, too, leave a trail. And there exists a certain thing that is bound to follow me!

  Chapter XLI: Battle

  (Tir-Nan-Og)

  There were at least twelve of them, quickly spreading out shoulder-to-shoulder to span a quarter circle behind him: crack wall-wardens of Lugh Samildinach. The white marble walls of Lugh’s palace gleamed at their back; massive trunks of red-barked trees provided sporadic cover as they advanced down the slope. Their feet made no sound at all on the carpet of tiny needles.

  They were tall, and every one had jet black hair hanging past his shoulders. Beneath black velvet surcoats, dark-toned mail shimmered from head to foot. Each of those Faery warriors had drawn his sword—and every sword was leveled at David’s heart.

  David’s mouth dropped open; nerveless fingers stretched wide and weaponless. Almost, he turned and ran; almost, he threw himself upon his knees and begged for mercy.

  But something woke within him—a fire he had not felt in far too long. Anger and fear fueled it: this new found determination to be lord of his own fate. No, he would not run; he would stand and fight. Die, maybe, but not as a coward. No Faery blade would nail him to the ground, if he had any say. And with that hard-won thinking came an acknowledgment from some unsuspected shadow-self that he was doing the proper thing; a secret voice that claimed the right for that time and place to set his course on the road of battle.

  David found himself dodging to the left, to claim the scanty shelter of the uppermost of a grove of twisted oaks that sprawled below the last of the redwoods.

  Above him the warriors began at once to spread out and advance, taking their time, flicking sunlight from blade to blade as entertainment.

  David tensed warily; gnarled branch-wood brushed harsh against his forehead as conflicting choices warred within him. But even as his mind laid out alternatives, his hands had unslung the bow and begun a quick restringing. And then he was reaching into the quiver, nocking an arrow. An instant more, and he had taken aim and fired his first shaft, the bowstring releasing with a gentle, satisfying twang that resonated in the hollow of his back as the arrow whistled clear.

  A stare of blank surprise flashed across the face of the closest warden as the triangular head ripped mail asunder and buried itself in his body. He flung down his sword and fell, both hands clutching at the soft flesh between left-side ribs and hipbone from which a white fletching protruded. Two other warriors stepped sideways to take his place, as their fellows slowed their advance and dropped to wary crouches, dark eyes darting from side to side as they found their cover fading.

  One of those guards let his glance linger a breath too long on a possible place of concealment to David’s right, and that distraction proved his downfall as another arrow buried itself below the outer angle of his collar bone.

  David couldn’t believe it.

  He knew a little about archery; it had been one of the many skills to which David-the-elder had exposed him. But he hadn’t practiced in a couple of years—not since he’d gotten too big for the small bow he’d used as a boy. Yet here he was, shooting with absolute precision, almost without thinking about it. Almost, in fact, without aiming. A part of him felt very satisfied, but another, better part twisted a dagger of conscience in his stomach as he realized what he had actually done: sent a shaft of wood thumping into the living flesh of another thinking being. At least neither shot had struck a vital spot.

  But he shouldn’t be able to do it at all.

  Pay attention!—his thought, or another?

  The surviving wardens were spreading out now, arcing forward to surround him.

  Panic tasted sour in his mouth; he started to run. But then his body took control again, and he had sent two more shafts smacking into warriors before he could consciously choose one target.

  And then the warriors were charging, racing straight toward him by an unspoken command that he too felt—as a vague metallic buzzing in his brain. The first two got arrows in thigh and elbow respectively before they had gone four paces.

  Another approached, only to take a shaft in the shoulder, and then the remaining five were falling back, crying out for their wounded fellows to follow as best they could, while David loosed arrow after arrow, piercing sword arms and knees with uncanny accuracy.

  The lizard had become extremely agitated, David realized suddenly; he could feel its frantic scurrying about the inside of his hood, hear its excited chirpings. Small explosions of excitement burst within his brain; half words, half emotions: good, good, good, good.

  Beyond him the remaining wardens had taken cover behind a convenient log; he could see them scurrying about, regrouping, some of the less-wounded jerking arrows free of bloody flesh, or breaking off shafts in wounds that stopped bleeding far too quickly.

  Of course, David thought. They’re immortal. A simple arrow wound wouldn’t hurt them, once the shaft itself is removed.

  He checked his own arrow supply, frowned. Three left: by no means enough for every one who remained—and now the soldiers he had first wounded had crawled back to join their comrades.

  No, not nearly enough. But maybe they didn’t know that.

  David skirted right, toward an immense tree that grew close to the woods—

  Then the guards too were moving again, and he had to loose two more shots; and yet one elbowed closer. He reached for another arrow, and felt the cold brush of terror against his heart, for the quiver was empty.

  And then something snapped within him. He felt himself explode from cover and launch into a mad, headlong sprint toward the startled warriors. He ripped his sword from its scabbard and waved it in furious circles above his head, all the while yelling at the top of his lungs in a language he could in nowise understand.

  The warriors paused, astonished. One or two almost grinned, but their faces clouded again as dreadful realization filtered through.

  “Iron,” one screamed, as David’s blade whistled through the air.

  Several of them fell back, but three nevertheless rushed in to encircle him.

  Though David had never drawn a sword in anger in his life, his body slipped automatically into a defensive crouch that seemed completely natural: knees bent, right leg leading, sword arm angled before him, blade tip poised above his shoulder. More bursts of excitement sparked in his brain. Right. Right. Right.

  Who’s there? he had time to wonder.

  —And then a lightning flash of silver metal whistled toward his face.

  At once his arm was up, the blade suddenly horizontal above his head, the Faerie sword crashing against his own, driving it back toward his startled eyes as sparks splattered into the air.

  And then another blow sliced toward his legs; and his sword flashed down to meet it—and another to his left, and his blade was there too; and again; and then to the right in a feint. Metal clanged and belled in harsh cacophony, as—beyond all hope—Mad David Sullivan held off three Faery warriors with a single iron sword.

  But the rest were circling now, darting in, then rushing out. David began to despair.

  A stab of pain across his left arm (the one he had snagged in his belt behind him lest he find himself tempted to use it as a shield) showed the worth of Morwyn’s mail, but showed also that he was not invincible. He cried out in anguish, almost releasing the sword. And in that brief, distracted moment, another edge caught him from the front, parting surcoat and mail above his knees, sending blood coursing down his calves.

  “Die, mortal!” one of the guards called scornfully.

  —And then they were upon him: all of them.

  David did his best, and one or two of his blows found targets. He slashed across a velvet surcoat—alarming plumes of flame shot up it, until its owner quenched them against the ground. A clever flick of his wrist left a long gash across a smooth, flushed cheek, sending the owner screaming away as the skin drew back in quick, dark crisps.

  But there were too many of them, and more blows flying than David’s skill could counter.

 
And he was getting tired.

  More swords pricked him. None did any lasting damage, but each added its accent of pain to his rapidly increasing fatigue.

  An edge flashed straight toward his face, and David thrust up his trembling blade to block it, but his hands had lost their strength. He felt his wrist go numb with that impact, and saw, with strange detachment, the sword fly from his helpless fingers.

  The wall-warden grinned and grabbed David’s shoulder roughly with a slender black-gloved hand.

  But even as David stared at him, the man’s mouth gaped wide open, his eyes growing wider by the instant. A shadow flowed around them both, and a familiar, musty odor tickled David’s nostrils.

  The Faery released his grip, thrust himself away in horror. Shouts echoed among the trees. The wardens were falling back, dropping their swords and running.

  David stood as if frozen, his eyes shifting frantically from side to side.

  All the guards were running now, turning black-clad backs toward him. David too was terrified—whatever could send Lugh’s soldiers flying was too awful to think about. But he had to know. He risked a glance across his shoulder—and saw, looming behind him, the towering form of the wywern he had so lately seen inside Lugh’s treasure chamber.

  Now how did that get here? he asked himself stupidly.

  The lizard resumed its scampering inside his hood; buzzing filled his brain. Good, good, good!

  David still did not dare move.

  Yet he felt no fear, he realized, as the wyvern swept past him and continued in pursuit of the guards, now running on its ostrichlike hind legs, now flapping clumsily for several yards before rising into a steady distance-eating glide above the ground. Once David saw it grab a helpless warden in its claws and carry him into the air, only to drop him again among his comrades.

  David shrugged and retrieved his sword, the bow, and as many undamaged arrows as he could salvage—not as many as he would have liked. Then he set off at a jog downhill straight toward the dark smudge of forest he could see across the plain below him. A towering golden filament emerged from the lands beyond that line of trees: the tower-Track, he suspected, by which he had entered Tir-Nan-Og.