by Tom Deitz
“Don’t try to talk, just nod.”
The old man nodded; a jerky motion, like the movements of the banshee.
“Uncle Dale, do you have any idea about what’s been going on with the banshee and all?”
“David!” Liz cried.
“As close to that world as he’s been tonight, I think he’s aware anyway. . . . You know about the banshee, don’t you, Uncle Dale?”
The old man nodded again.
“Okay, then. Good. Look . . . I may have a way to cure you, if it’ll work. I just don’t know—but I’m going to make the attempt. And if I fail . . . well, you won’t be any worse off than you are, all right?”
Uncle Dale looked at him and nodded again. David saw the muscles in his scrawny neck and jaw grow taut. The old man’s mouth contorted awkwardly, and a string of grunts and groans passed his lips, but he finally managed to wring out one single intelligible phrase. “Go . . . now . . . or I die.” He closed his eyes again and fell back against the pillows.
David had no further need for decisions.
Chapter XIV: The Lord Of The Trial
Alec tapped gently on the screen door and then eased out onto the back porch, where David was sitting on the steps staring down at the yard. David had explained to him and Liz about the Trial of Heroes, and then he had asked for a moment alone to clear his head. “You ready now?” Alec asked.
“Not really.” David shook his head and glanced sideways at his friend. “Know what I’ve been going through now, don’t you?”
Alec shook his own head in turn. “No, but I don’t think I ever will. It’s too much, Davy—too much to put together this fast.”
David sat up straight, squared his shoulders, and clapped his hands on his knees decisively. “Well, I can’t put this off any longer, I’ve got to be going—though I haven’t a clue as to how I’m going to get through this.”
“I’m sure we’ll think of something.” Alec extended a hand toward David to help him up.
A flush of anger crossed David’s face as he took Alec’s hand. “We? Who is we?”
Alec looked surprised. “Why, you and me and Liz, of course; who’d you think?”
David froze where he stood. “Alec, don’t you see what’s going on, yet? Don’t you remember what I’ve been saying to anybody who would listen for the last two weeks? It’s the ring, Alec, the damned ring. It protects me. Even though I don’t have it, it still protects me”—David thumped his chest—“against the Faeries. But it doesn’t protect you, Alec—or Liz, or anybody else unless I have it on. You know about Little Billy and Uncle Dale now; you could find one of those magic arrows sticking out of your chest just as easy as Uncle Dale did.”
“We’re your friends, Davy,” Alec said quietly.
David smiled grimly. “No, Alec, this is my fight.”
“Dammit, Sullivan, I’ve already had one fight with you tonight ’cause I was wrong. Am I gonna have to have another one with you now ’cause I’m right? Let me tell you one thing, Master Sullivan: Protected or not, you confront the Sidhe on their own territory—take the battle to them, as you’re threatening to do—I’m gonna be right there by your side, and so will Liz.”
David had slumped against one of the porch posts, hands in his pockets, still gazing at the yard. Alec laid an arm across his shoulders and drew him toward the door. “What’re you crying for, brother?” he asked.
David looked up and smiled. “ ’Cause I’m not alone anymore.” But he knew he could not let them go.
“I really wish you folks would change your minds, both of you,” David said a moment later as he rifled the kitchen drawers in search of the longest, sharpest knives he could find. Probably they would be of little use, he thought, but maybe they would provide psychological protection.
“I mean, I appreciate your concern and all,” he continued. “But this is for real, folks. You may be risking your lives—has that really sunk into you? Even your good Baptist soul, Liz.”
“We’ve just been over this,” said Alec, reaching out to grasp his friend’s arm so that David turned to look at him. Alec looked him straight in the eyes. “If you go, Liz and I go. Is that clear?”
David didn’t say anything, but he studied Alec’s face for a long, long time, and then he looked at Liz.
“You don’t know what you’re getting into, kids,” he said softly.
“I doubt you do, either, David Sullivan,” Liz shot back. “Besides, the fortuneteller told me and Alec to keep an eye on you—and you wouldn’t want to disappoint a lady, would you?”
David snorted. “I’ve already disappointed a lot of ladies, Liz. Now you go get the changeling dressed. Alec, go in the living room and get Liz’s runestaff—you didn’t happen to bring yours, did you?”
“Matter of fact, I did. Liz asked me to, for some reason. It’s in her truck.”
“Better go get it, and when you get back, check in that drawer for some string. Ought to be a big roll in there.”
It was not an imposing group who assembled in the Sullivans’ backyard a short while later. Though they had no notion what they would be facing, they had tried to anticipate a variety of conditions and had dressed and equipped themselves accordingly. It was not so much a problem for Alec and David, for they were close enough to a size that they could wear each other’s clothes; thus they both wore jeans and hiking boots (Alec in David’s second best pair), and sweaters under nylon parkas. It was August, and by rights hot in Georgia, but they had no idea what sort of weather they would meet on their way to Tir-Nan-Og, and they didn’t want to freeze before they’d gone two miles.
Equipping Liz had proved more of a problem, but a quick raid on David’s mother’s closet had produced a pair of high boots that were more or less her size, and a leather coat that looked sturdy. A slightly more purposeful image was provided by their armament: hunting knives pilfered from Big Billy’s hoard, and the make-do spears Alec and Liz carried, which they had contrived by lashing butcher knives to their runestaffs. Neither of them had any notion how to use such weapons, but . . . well, it felt better. Not once had any of them considered taking any of the numerous guns with which the house was filled. Somehow, they knew, such weapons would do them no good at all.
Alec and Liz wore their backpacks, hastily stuffed with food from the Sullivans’ kitchen. David carried the changeling. Though he wore a sheathed knife at his hip and another in his boot top, David was otherwise devoid of protection, for he had chosen to rely on his own Power and whatever dubious protection the ring—wherever it was—yet afforded him. He doubted seriously that weapons of any kind would be needed in the Trial.
They hesitated a moment, uncertain how or where to proceed, but an instant later the Faery woman strode out of the shadows between the barn and the car shed. Alec and Liz squinted, aware of something there yet unable to make their eyes focus clearly on anything. To David, however, the image was sharp.
“Have you decided, then?” the woman asked.
“I have decided,” David said grimly.
The woman nodded. “By the look of things, I know your choice.”
David cleared his throat awkwardly and felt the changeling twist slightly in his arms.
“I have set the Rites in motion,” the woman said. “You are to go immediately to the Straight Track and there await what transpires.”
A thought struck David, and he cursed himself for not thinking of it sooner. “Dammit, what about Uncle Dale? We can’t leave him there alone; one of us will have to go back.”
The Faery woman spoke then. “If you will permit it, I will look after the old man in your absence, and my child as well.”
“I don’t know,” David said hesitantly. “Can I trust you?”
“Your success in this means as much to me as it does to you,” the woman replied. “Remember that.”
“But don’t we need to take the changeling with us?”
“If you are victorious in the Trial of Heroes, that will not be necessary.”
“I will know,” the woman said as she lifted the changeling from David’s uncertain arms. “Of that you may be very sure indeed.”
“So we’ve got to go to this Straight Track?” Alec asked a moment later as they trudged up the hill behind the house.
David nodded. “Yes, that’s the only part I’m clear about. This is apparently a very ancient and serious ritual—come to think of it, in fact, the Sidhe seem to have a fairly ritualistic approach to life as a whole—I guess when you’re immortal you need structure or everything goes to chaos . . . especially when you consider that some folks think they used to be gods or angels or something. They may be petty and malicious occasionally, but I think they’re just remote and indifferent—most of the time anyway. Just a little too removed from us to really understand us, or care about us one way or the other. Concerned mostly with their own affairs.”
Alec stared at him, amazed at the sudden gush of words.
David saw the look his friend gave him, and smiled wryly. He was scared to death, and so was Alec, and so was Liz. And Alec, at least, knew he was talking to keep his mind off what was fast approaching.
“Just consider,” David went on rapidly. “Immortality might sound good to us mortals, but it has to be complicated if you’re living it. Think, for instance: You could go crazy simply trying to divide your property among your offspring, or trying to get some property to divide, for that matter—there’s only so much, after all, and more and more Sidhe all the time. And if you made an enemy, it could be for eternity. Think about that! Or what about marriage? You could get bored with the best of mates in a thousand years or so.”
David let out a sigh; Alec and Liz could see him composing himself, trying to relax.
A moment later they came to the first of the thorns. David strode determinedly in among them.
Liz and Alec hung back, uncertain.
“You’re not going into that!” came the nervous voice of Liz.
David turned and studied them. “Into what? There’s some briars here, but nothing major, nothing to worry about.”
“Are you crazy?” Alec nearly shouted. “There’s a wall of thorns ten feet high and thick as . . . as a hedge, not two feet in front of you.”
David glanced over his shoulder. The briars were there all right, but only waist high, and though there was an abundance of them between the trees, they were hardly impassable.
Illusion, he thought.
“Close your eyes,” David said. “Walk straight ahead until I tell you to stop. They’re not there, not like you see them. It’s a Sidhe trick.”
“If you say so,” Alec muttered doubtfully.
“I don’t see that we’ve got any choice but to believe him,” said Liz. “We’re on his ground now.”
“Thanks, Liz,” David replied. “Let’s get going.” He turned and marched forward into the thicket, glancing frequently behind him to see how Alec and Liz progressed.
They had closed their eyes as David had instructed and were fumbling their way slowly along, Alec swearing uncharacteristically as the thorns caught at his unprotected hands. Liz had worn leather gloves.
“Only about another twenty feet to the trail,” David called.
And a moment later they were clear of the barrier.
David was struck anew by the otherness of the place—so different from the rest of the forest, as if the alien glamour it wore on certain nights never entirely left it, and flared again to life when the Faerie moon shone full among the trees and the Sidhe walked the earth.
“I wish I’d brought a Coke, or something,” groaned Liz.
“Too late for that now,” Alec replied. “I’ve got half a Hershey bar, if that’ll help.”
“You just wait,” David said. “Soon as things start happening, you’ll forget all about being hungry. You may never be hungry again.”
Liz frowned. “What do you mean by that?”
“This is serious business, Liz; haven’t I got that through to you yet? You might not come back. Some Faery lord might take a fancy to you and . . .”
“Oh, hush.”
“They tended to like blondes, though . . .” David teased.
Alec and Liz both looked at David’s fair hair.
“How will we know what to do?” asked Alec.
David shrugged. “I was told to come here and wait. So we wait. Last time I heard bells and saw light . . .” He hesitated, glancing around the surrounding woods. “But I don’t know what you folks might see. It could be anything at all—or nothing at all. The Sidhe themselves control who sees them; the only people who can see the things of Faerie of their own free will are apparently people with Second Sight, like me, and it doesn’t always work the same, even for me. Sometimes I can control it, sometimes I can’t. I sure hope you see something, though, ’cause I’m gonna feel real stupid if you don’t. Little Billy just whimpered and kept asking who I was talking to, so he didn’t see anything, evidently, but he did hear the bells and the singing—that’s what started it all, in fact—and maybe you’ll do the same, assuming they don’t just send a dragon or something.”
“Wish they’d hurry, whatever they’re gonna do,” Alec whispered nervously.
David glanced over his shoulder. Far away he could make out the familiar glow of the mercury vapor light by his house, its lonesome point of blue light somehow fighting its way among the trunks of pine and maple. It represented reality to him: his world by birth, if not by choice.
But up ahead things were different: The trees were the same, the sparse undergrowth exactly as it should be, the slope of the land itself comfortingly familiar—but close to the ground a faint golden glimmer overlaid a narrow strip of ground maybe ten feet wide, that stretched out of sight to their left and right. The Straight Track: The road to Tir-Nan-Og.
“See anything?” David asked tentatively.
Alec squinted uncertainly. “I’m not sure—maybe a little glow or something out there between those two pine trees.”
“Liz?”
“Yeah, maybe a kind of goldish glitter sorta overlaying the ground—not like it was really touching it.”
“Well,” David sighed, “at least you can see something.”
David stepped into the center of the strip. His friends joined him there, their makeshift spears towering above them like pikes, giving the whole scene a vaguely martial air. Wordlessly they clasped hands with each other. Impulsively David reached over and planted a firm, wet kiss on Liz’s cheek. “Take care, whatever happens. I couldn’t stand to lose you.”
“I think it’s happening,” Alec whispered as his gaze followed the Track up the mountainside.
David and Liz looked up.
An armored man sat on horseback a short way up the glowing trail.
He was tall—taller even than Nuada or Ailill, dressed from head to foot in close-fitting mail that faintly reflected the golden glimmer of the Track. Over his shoulders hung an open-sided tabard of deep blue and gray velvet. A boar-crested helm crowned his head, its long, intricately worked cheekpieces and nasal obscuring his face—all but the eyes and the drooping sweeps of black mustache that protruded below it. What little mouth was visible above a clean-shaven chin looked full—and very, very grim. The man was mounted on a huge, long-limbed horse whose flanks shone like blued steel. A naked sword lay crossways on the saddle before him, a burning white flame in the light of the witchmoon.
The man glared at the company as he rode forward, and David flinched under that gaze but stood his ground. Suddenly his mouth felt very dry.
“Who has come to dare the Trial of Heroes?” the man cried, his already deep voice made deeper by some acoustical trick of the Straight Track.
David swallowed, straightened, tried to look taller than he was, not so much a half-grown teenager. “I have . . . sir.”
The man nodded, almost imperceptibly. “Do you dare it alone, or with companions?”
David’s br
eath hissed, and he heard Alec and Liz inhale sharply. He had been afraid it would come to this. He had hoped—seriously hoped—that he would have to go alone, that his friends would be excluded. Not that he didn’t want them along, no. But he didn’t dare risk them.
“Alone,” he said.
“Together,” came his friends’ voices behind him.
“No!” David cried.
“Three are mightier than one!” Liz whispered hoarsely.
“One is mightiest of the three,” Alec added.
“Do you go alone, or with companions?” the man thundered.
David grimaced. There was no time for argument, no time for delay. “With companions,” he answered reluctantly, gritting his teeth.
“Then you had best not travel blind,” the Lord of the Trial said, “for not all those you meet may wish to be seen.” He leveled his sword at them then, and a burst of light blazed from its point to strike full in their faces.
David cried out—not so much from fear for himself as for his friends. He heard Liz scream, Alec call out something unintelligible. And then the light was gone. He could tell by the way his friends blinked and stared that they now saw with more than human sight.
“The Trial of Heroes has begun,” the man said. “The Trial is for David, but if any one of you completes the test and comes before Lugh Samildinach, King for this time in Tir-Nan-Og, it will be as if David himself had won. But know you, Alec McLean and Liz Hughes, that this is David’s trial. He is the leader, his decisions are the ones that must stand. You may offer advice, help where it is needed, but neither of you must act without David’s permission, for it is his knowledge, his courage, his strength that are being tested, not your own. Let the Trial of Heroes now begin. When you can no longer see me, follow the Track uphill.”
Abruptly he was gone.
Chapter XV: Of Knowledge And Courage
Alec shrugged his shoulders. “After you.”
David sighed, planted his runestaff on the leafy mould ahead of him, and strode forward on the Straight Track, Alec and Liz flanking him a little behind on either side.