by Tom Deitz
But David had his chance now, and even as he looked, his eyes took on the expected tingle, and he saw that same mountain rise into an impossibly slender peak, saw it crowned as well with towers, battlements, windows, and arches—and dimly thought he could make out men on those battlements, and dimly, very dimly hear homs ringing in his ears to welcome the sun. And then David blinked and it was gone, replaced by the fuzzy gray bulk of the ordinary mountain.
There was a rustle among the trees to their right just then, and the ginseng hunters turned to see three ravens take wing among the dark trunks. They watched the birds fly out into the open air, wheeling and circling above the fog.
David raised his runestaff to his shoulder like a rifle and aimed experimentally, oblivious to the slight pain that still lingered in his shoulder.
Uncle Dale laid a hand on the smooth wood and slowly but firmly pushed it down. “Don’t even think such things, boy. Shootin’ ravens is bad luck.”
“Just playing around,” David said testily.
Uncle Dale bent over to sight down the face of the rock, and as he bent the brilliant orange cap fell from his white hair and floated down to land amid the brown leaves and moss at the bottom. It rolled to a stop at the base of an ancient, gnarled oak tree.
“I’ll get it,” said David.
“I’ll get it,” said Liz, who was already on her way down the gentler slope to the left of the cliff.
“I’ll get it,” said Uncle Dale. “I was the fool who lost it.”
“Why don’t we all go,” David growled irritably.
Uncle Dale cuffed him gently on the shoulder, but there was warning in the glance he shot his nephew. “And be quick about it. No sense wakin’ up the whole woods arguin’.”
So they all went—Liz down the western slope, David and Uncle Dale down the steeper eastern one. Uncle Dale picked up his cap and paused, peering at the ground where it had lain. Something showed in the soft earth there, the unmistakable print of a cloven hoof, pointed at the front. The old man bent to check it.
“That’s deer sign, and fresh.” Uncle Dale rose and looked back toward the cliff. “But we ain’t huntin’ deer.”
Liz began to lead the way back up the steep leaf-covered slope. To their right the sheer rock face jutted out, gray and crusted with lichens, crowned with a thicket of rhododendron and laurel. Their feet rustled in the damp brown leaves. It was hard to walk quietly, and they slipped frequently. David slipped more than frequently, finally falling onto all fours in spite of his hiking stick. He straightened and looked at Uncle Dale’s back a few paces ahead of him.
Something twanged in David’s ears then—or was it in his mind alone? Something hissed as it flew fast through the cool damp air. Something white flashed and then buried itself in Uncle Dale’s chest with a dull thud. David cried out, lunged forward desperately, aware too late of the telltale burning in his eyes.
Uncle Dale slumped forward, clutching at his throat, his head. He uttered no sound, but simply collapsed, twisting as he fell, to land half on his face in the damp leaves.
Liz, a little higher up the slope, turned and stared at him, gasping, eyes wide, her face pale beneath her red hair.
As David scrambled toward the old man, he spared a brief glance up at the cliff, to see—in plain view, making no move to hide himself—the figure of a very young man clad in white and gray and pale green clothing that was most certainly not consistent with this time or place or world. The Faery held a long white bow in his left hand, and the white fletching of the second arrow he had half-nocked in the other was identical to that of the short shaft that now protruded from the right side of Uncle Dale’s chest. As Davis gaped incredulously, the youth turned and pushed soundlessly back into the bushes.
Gently David rolled the old man onto his back. “Uncle Dale!” he cried.
Liz scooted down the slope to join them. “What is it? What’s happened?”
“He’s had a . . . stroke, I think. Maybe a heart attack, but probably a stroke.” Even as David stared at the Faery arrow, it began to fade, to vanish.
No hole was left in the old man’s jacket, but David knew the damage was done. He recalled that the very word stroke was short for elf-stroke, because people had once believed that those who suffered unexpected paralysis were in fact struck by Faery arrows—usually stone-tipped arrows, if he recalled correctly from The Secret Common-Wealth. Evidently there was some grim truth to the legend.
David laid his hand on his uncle’s chest, moved it to his neck, his wrist, searching for a heartbeat, a pulse. Both were there, faint but steady. And he was breathing shallowly.
The old man fought to rise, but somehow his body would not obey him. His blue eyes sought David’s, wide and panic-stricken, and he tried to talk, raising his good left arm and pointing to his right side; and then his eyes rolled back and he fainted.
“Quick, Liz, we’ve got to cover him up and get some help; there’s nothing we can do here. It was a stroke, I think.” David hesitated. “You go and get help,” he said finally. “I’ll stay here.”
Liz stood up, flustered. “You go, Davy; I don’t know the way too well—I might get lost.”
“He’s my flesh and blood,” David said hotly. “I’m staying here. Just get to the top of this ridge and then follow it down. You’ll come to the road that goes down by our house. It’s not far, really. Get Pa, and call a doctor.”
“All right, Davy, all right. If you’re sure there’s nothing I can do here.”
“Look,” David almost shouted, “one of us has got to stay, and one go. I’m gonna stay. I want to be here in case . . . in case . . .” He could feel tears welling up in his eyes as he looked down at his uncle lying flat on his back among the leaves.
David took off his jacket and spread it over the old man as best he could, thought for a moment, and removed his shirt as well, to stand shivering in a white T-shirt. He frowned up at the top of the cliff, face set.
“Here, Liz,” he said at last, throwing his walking staff toward her, “use this. Maybe it’ll help.”
Ash, he recalled, was supposed to afford some protection against the Sidhe, and there was iron on the ends, which was also good. There was no way he could protect both Liz and his uncle, so he’d give Liz what protection he could.
Liz caught the staff easily, and to David’s surprise, his eyes tingled and he thought he saw a faint white glow spread outward from where her hands touched it.
“Go on! Hurry!” he cried.
Liz turned and half ran, half crawled up the mountain side. She was gone from sight in an instant, but David could still hear her crashing through the bushes upslope.
He sat down beside Uncle Dale and stared emptily through the trees at the dissipating fog. The old man didn’t seem to be getting any worse, but he didn’t seem to be getting any better, either.
Damn, David thought, gazing up at the rock face again. I shouldn’t have let him come. He clenched his hands into fists and almost looked away before he saw the Faery youth appear again upon the cliff top.
David watched fascinated as, without the slightest hesitation, the boy leapt from the cliff and floated easily down from that height. It was almost as if he had not weight enough to fall at a normal speed. The boy landed in a bent-kneed crouch, bow still in hand, and walked calmly toward David.
Frantically David grabbed a broken branch from the forest floor and held it before him. A twinge of pain ran through his shoulder, but he ignored it.
The youth laughed and continued to approach.
“That is not a very good weapon against one such as I,” the Faery said. “And at no time would it be simple for you to slay me in your World. You, on the other hand, do not appear to be as well protected as you have been, or else my arrows would not have been able to touch the old man. Interesting. You haven’t lost anything lately, have you? A ring, perhaps?” He lifted his bow and nocked an arrow.
“I’m more good to you alive,” said David, trying to stall for time.
>
The Faery lad laughed again, but there was a hollowness to the sound, a lack of conviction that did not quite ring true to David. The youth lowered his bow and seated himself on a fallen log, motioning David to sit beside him.
It was all David could do to suppress his rage. This boy had hurt Uncle Dale—probably killed him. And he had the nerve to ask David to sit beside him?
David gritted his teeth and glared helplessly, half a mind to swing his clumsy stick in that other’s face again and again, as many times as he could, and then continue with his fists. It would be good to see those too-pretty features turned to bloody pulp. Iron and ash indeed! He’d give him hot flesh-and-blood fists!
But that would be a mistake, he realized; there was more at stake here. The boy had returned for some reason and David had to find out what it was. He risked a glance at Uncle Dale’s prostrate form. The old man seemed to be getting no worse. David took a deep breath and dropped the stick but continued to stare at the youth. There was something disquietingly familiar about that clean-chiseled face.
“Well, have you seen enough?” the Faery asked wryly. “Should I stand up and turn around? Take my clothes off, maybe?”
“I’ve seen enough,” David said grimly. “One of your arrows is in my uncle’s chest. Why did you do that? What’d he ever do to you?”
“I was . . . told to do it,” the boy said. “The old man is important to you; we have hurt him. He will not die unless he himself chooses to, but he will never be any better unless we heal him. We want only one thing in return for that healing: you.”
“That’s what I was afraid of . . . but why me?” David played innocent.
“I thought Oisin made that clear to you: We want you where you may do no more harm.”
“You are one of Ailill’s minions, then?”
The Faery’s eyes narrowed haughtily. “I am my own man . . . but yes, I have some obligation to that one’s service.”
David sat down cautiously, finding it difficult to maintain anger toward someone so reasonable-sounding, so fair-spoken. But then his glance touched Uncle Dale, and he found his anger returning and his words coming more easily.
“So you’re going to pick away at my loved ones until I give myself up?”
“That is the plan as it was revealed to me.”
“What if I won’t?”
“Then those you love will suffer for it.” The Faery took a breath and continued, his voice earnest—David hoped sincerely so. “You cannot be everywhere, David—but you can be one place where those you love will be protected—and yourself as well.” He stood up and came to sit beside David, laid a hand on David’s leg so that the mortal boy shuddered.
“Come with us, lad; it’s not so bad. There are women wondrous fair and quick to lust, and food like you have never tasted, and wine such as you have never drunk—though you have not drunk much wine, have you? Or tasted many women? And for sport there are hunts. You think hunting the beasts of this world a pleasure? Wait until you have hunted manticores, or taken a kraken from the depths of the sea with Manannan MacLir! You can meet your heroes, David; you can learn magic, see other worlds, even go beyond this poor round planet if you have the courage for it. Only come with us.” The grip on David’s leg grew tighter. “Come for a day only; we ask for nothing more, if Faerie does not please you.”
“I know what a day can be like in Faerie,” David replied fiercely. “I’m not stupid; I’ve read about it—and I’ve met Oisin.”
A shadow crossed the Faery’s face. “Oisin, yes! A fine old man, but troublesome. He thought Ailill had forgotten he was mortal once, but Ailill remembered. Lugh has forbidden Oisin to meet with you again.”
David’s heart sank, but he maintained his front. “Why did he have to do that?”
The Faery shrugged. “Lugh views this matter as a contest between Ailill and Nuada alone; he does not want Oisin meddling.”
“Isn’t that what you’re doing, though? So why don’t you just kill me now and be done with it?”
“I think you know the answer to that as well as I do,” the Faery boy replied. “Nuada is right about you, you know: You do have the stuff of heroes in you, even I can see it now, and something of Power as well. Killing you would be a waste. But it would be interesting to see whether that Power you hold flares to flame or passes into darkness—as your uncle’s life soon will, if you do not make a decision very soon indeed.”
David stopped listening; it was more than he could stand to hear. His gaze began to wander.
Abruptly something caught his attention out of the corner of his eye. He looked at it for a moment, then glanced quickly back at the Faery boy lest his expression betray him, but the lad was looking uneasily at a large raven perched on a limb above his head.
David acted.
He lunged to his left, a long body-leap, and barely managed to grasp the bow the Faery had laid aside. Quickly he regained his footing and whirled back around, gripping the bow by one delicately filigreed end. He raised it above his shoulders and made as if to strike it against the trunk of a nearby oak.
The Faery sprang up, his body tense, a feral light in his eyes. Panther-quick he leapt at David.
David swung the bow around, but Fionchadd was on him before he could complete the swing. They fell to the ground, rolling over and over in a Gordian knot of arms and legs, the bow somehow unbroken between them. All at once David found himself lying atop the Faery. And though he could touch that Faery stranger, feel the solidity of his body beneath him, it was as if the Faery could not quite touch him, though he glared up at David with bared teeth, golden sparks flashing in his green eyes, wet brown leaves sticking in his golden hair, soiling the white velvet of his tunic. David grasped the bow with both hands and brought it down across the Faery’s throat. The boy intercepted it, and for a moment they struggled inconclusively.
The Faery lad was surprisingly strong, for all he was more lightly built than David, but David could feel a cold fire raging in himself, boiling up from somewhere deep inside. He thought about Uncle Dale lying unconscious behind him, of Liz wending her frightened way down a mountain, and he slowly and inexorably began to press the bow down toward the Faery’s throat, resting it at last atop his windpipe, oblivious to the pain that shot through his injured shoulder.
“I told you, nothing you can do in this world can harm me for any longer than it takes to heal,” Fionchadd hissed.
“What if I break this bow, then?” David said through gritted teeth. “It was when I began to threaten it that you attacked me. What’s so great about this bow?”
“It is none of your concern.”
“What’s so great about this bow, dammit? You tell me, or I’ll break it.”
The Faery’s eyes flashed fire. “It is a bow made for me by Goibniu, the smith of the Tuatha de Danaan. Rarely does he work in wood, but when he does the work is fine indeed. I prize it above all things in the Worlds I have seen, for it never misses.”
“Better tell me how to heal my uncle, then, or I will break it.”
The boy’s face grew pale, almost fearful, and he grimaced. “That I may not do, mortal lad, much as I might now wish to, for I do not know the answer. I am a hunter, not a master of Power or of lore. I may shoot a man in Faerie and be drinking with him again the next night, but such is not the case in your world, and the rules which govern that difference I do not understand. I cannot help you.”
David’s eyes blazed. “Swear that you can’t?”
“If you like.”
“On your bow?”
“If you like.”
“Swear, then, that all Power may be gone from this bow, and that it will never shoot true again if you lie.”
“I do swear. Now are you satisfied?”
“A little.”
“Let me up, then.”
“Not yet. What do you know of my ring?”
“I know that you do not have it, but that its protection is evidently still upon you to some degree.” The Faery hes
itated, took a deep breath, chose his words carefully. “I also know that he who was sent to procure it has failed.”
David’s eyes narrowed. It was as if the pauses, the subtly accented words of the Faery’s speech were meant to convey some second, hidden message that must remain unspoken.
“If the Sidhe do not have the ring, then where is it?”
“Somewhere in your World, I suppose.”
“Swear that this is the truth.”
“I swear that I do not know where the ring is; to make further oaths in ignorance would be foolish.”
David grunted. “Sure?”
“It is as I have said. Now will you let me up?” The Faery sighed wearily. “There is nothing more I can do to help you.”
“No, I suppose there isn’t, is there?” David smiled a smile as grim as the Faery’s. He withdrew the bow from the boy’s throat and stood up stiffly.
Fionchadd rose as well and dusted himself off. He extended a slim right hand. David looked puzzled.
“You have bested me in a fight,” said the boy. “And few have done that. I would offer you my aid, but it is sworn elsewhere and I may not break that oath. But when this song is ended, let us be friends. Maybe yet we will meet as comrades in Faerie.”
David didn’t know quite what to do at first or why he did what he did do, but that phrase rang in his mind as something sacred, old, and honorable—beyond good and evil. Hadn’t the champion of the Tuatha de Danaan said that to the champion of the Fir Bolg when first they fought in Ireland? Hesitantly he extended his own hand, and clasped that of the Faery youth.
They looked into each other’s eyes for a moment, then released each other’s hands. The Faery boy took his bow from David’s loose fingers. “And now I must depart,” he said. “Ailill has asked of me almost more than is his right to ask.” The boy disappeared into the trees before David could do or say anything further. The leaves did not rustle under his tread, but the print of his back was still visible in the soft loam of the forest floor. David sat down by Uncle Dale and waited, looking often at his hands, wondering whether or not he was a traitor.