Bound into the Blood

by Myers, Karen

  “There’s a spring here, thought I’d show you,” he muttered to the surprised Benitoe. He opened the car door and just sat there, looking down, until his breathing settled, then he got out of the car without looking at his passenger and walked over to the spring.

  “What’s the matter?” Benitoe said, coming up to stand next to him at the stone wall that framed the thin stream pouring out at a convenient angle for filling jugs.

  George cupped his hands to the outflow and drank without answering. It was cool and very smooth. What could he tell him? He hardly knew himself what was wrong. He saw a path to a picnic area behind the spring’s outlet.

  “Come with me. We’ll be out of the way if anyone else pulls in.”

  The picnic area was deserted and well-screened from the road by the lush summer growth. A soft breeze helped keep the temperatures moderated for a July afternoon. It was a lovely spot, but George couldn’t relax and paced restlessly. Benitoe perched up on one table and waited patiently, but George noticed the flicker of alarm on his face.

  “You know about Cernunnos, that he doesn’t like my looking into this fellow who might be my father?”

  “You told me that,” Benitoe agreed.

  “Well, he really doesn’t like it. I can’t talk to him, it’s as though he isn’t there. I’d kind of gotten used to him, but now…”

  He swallowed and wouldn’t look at Benitoe. “I don’t like it. I didn’t know how much I’d come to count on him being there. I’ve been trying to make him talk to me, but it isn’t working, not even when I bring up his forms.”

  He called up the horned man, and it was empty, again. He invoked the deer-headed man, Cernunnos’s full form, and stamped his foot in frustration. Come on, he thought, talk to me. We can talk about this.

  The form was stripped from him and he stumbled from the unexpected weight shift and fell to one knee, in his human form. That had never happened before, and he picked himself up and tried to bring the forms back, either of them. They were gone, taken away, as if they’d never been.

  His skin chilled and he sat abruptly on the nearest bench, hunched over and shaking.

  “No,” he muttered. “No, don’t do that.” He wiped a hand over his face.

  He felt a grip on his forearm, and turned his head to find Benitoe sitting beside him, sympathy on his face.

  “I guess he’s there, after all,” George said, bleakly. “He took back his forms.”

  He looked down again. “This is punishment, you know, he wants me to stop looking for my father.”

  He stubbed the toe of his hiking boot in the dirt and twisted it. “We’re separate, you understand, and I’ve learned to make a shelter in here,” he tapped his forehead, “for when he rages. I’ve built a sort of one-room stone cabin that he can’t get in, or that he won’t violate, whichever, and I hunker down there if I have to. Morien showed me how, in Gaul, when I needed it.”

  He kept his gaze down. “Now it’s like I stand in the doorway and call out, and no one answers back.”

  He paused. “It’s lonely in there. I don’t like it.”

  Benitoe maintained a companionable silence.

  “Damn it, it’s not fair,” George said, lifting his head and staring off into the woods. “I came here when he called, I ran his damn hunt for him. I thought we were friends, more or less.”

  He looked at Benitoe. “I won’t be his puppet. This is my old family I’m trying to find, so I can build my new one in peace. That’s what a man does, stands by his family. Finding my father will be worth it.”

  I hope, he added silently. The bold words sounded hollow to him. Nos Galan Gaeaf isn’t that far off. Am I still fit to be huntsman? That wasn’t the burden he’d thought it originally. No, it was an honor to mete out justice, that’s how he thought of it now. He didn’t want to give it up, and what would Gwyn do if he had to?

  What will happen if I persist in my search? Not just silence, but death?

  He stood up abruptly. “Let’s go,” he told Benitoe, and strode off toward the car.

  Well, if he kills me, at least Angharad will have some roses to remember me by. And a child.

  Benitoe glanced over at George in the car. He didn’t much care for that grim stubbornness he’d seen before, when George got the bit between his teeth and went forward, no matter what. He sighed. It was clearly in his nature and wasn’t going to change.

  Shouldn’t he yield to Cernunnos? After all, who could stand against a god? And besides, as he understood it, maybe Cernunnos was family, too. There was probably a very good reason why Cernunnos didn’t want him poking into the tangle around his father.

  Well, nothing he could say was likely to have any effect, he knew that much. He and Mag might be the cause of this expedition, but he could see they were only along for the ride, until George worked this obsession out of his system. He’d just have to make the most of it, for the Kuzul.

  The road passed along a wide plateau at the gap with deep woods on either side and few dwellings. In a particularly wooded section, George slowed down by a dirt road that headed south into the trees and turned left onto it. He parked the car there.

  “I’ve been looking for the road that goes in to Broch’s barn,” he said. “I was steering by the presence of the way there, and this must be it. It’s due south of here, and not far—maybe a mile or so. If you ever have to find it by yourself, you can get to Woodward and then come east along this road. I thought we should mark it. Then I can tell you how far it is from Woodward once we get there.”

  They stepped out and looked for something that would make a landmark. Finally they settled on building a small cairn of a dozen rocks, visible from the road but inconspicuous.

  When they got back in the car, George pushed a button in front of the wheel he used to guide the vehicle and showed Benitoe how it would count the distance until he reset it. It all seemed like magic to Benitoe, though he knew it was just a machine, He’d seen how an engine operated in his last visit to Bellemore, when George’s grandfather showed him, but he couldn’t envision how this counter would work and had to trust George’s tale of what would happen. When the numbers rolled off two miles, they left the woods and passed into a small village.

  “Woodward,” George said. He gestured before him. “And this, all the way to State College, is Penns Valley.”

  The landscape opened up all around and there were farms as far as Benitoe could see, with long ridges to the north and south. The crops were well-grown in mid-summer, and both machines and horses worked in them. The mix of familiar and strange made his head ache.

  George held a folded-back map in one hand as he drove, and named the towns to Benitoe as they went by—Aaronsburg, Millheim, Spring Mills. The speed of their travel was dazzling, but so was the comfort of this vehicle. And so quiet it was, both the car itself and the smoothness of the road. How did they build these roads? How long did it take them?

  He dozed off for a little while only to be woken by George calling out, “Centre Hall. You were wanting to see a farm supply place, which is different from a garden nursery. There’s one here.”

  George turned right into the town, and pulled up in front of a large plain building. There was a peculiar smell in the air, and Benitoe wrinkled his nose at it and sneezed as he got out of the car.

  “Fertilizer,” George said, laughing at the expression on his face.

  “When you’ve seen enough inside, just say so. We’ll pick up a catalog for you to take with you to look at later.”

  Steeling himself for another excursion into a human wonderland, Benitoe nodded and walked on in.

  Benitoe’s looking a bit worn out, George thought, as they got back on the road. No wonder. There was no easy way to prepare him for the human world—one little drive through Rowanton just didn’t do it.

  No more stops until the hotel, he thought, and we’ll eat dinner there to keep it simple. That’s probably the best place to meet up with Mag, too.

  Two miles down the r
oad, he forgot his resolution when he saw the sign for another nursery. He glanced at the dozing Benitoe and let the impulse compel him into the turnoff. He parked in the lot and left the engine on for air conditioning. As Benitoe woke up, he told him, “Stay here. I’ll be back in a moment.”

  He got out without waiting for a response and walked determinedly inside.

  What am I doing, he scolded himself. This is irrational. Is Angharad going to remember me better for two roses than for one?

  Well, it’s harmless, anyway. What the hell, why not?

  He found the rosebushes easily enough, and this time he was charmed by a climbing rose in a deep apricot yellow. The ruffled blossoms smelled sweet and fruity, not spicy like the last one he got her. Autumn Sunset, the label said. I’ll get two of them, he thought, one for each side of the veranda. He pictured it covered with roses in the summertime, and leaned down to smell them again. It crossed his mind that he might not be there to see it, himself, but he pushed the thought aside. She would be. That would do. His hand strayed to her pendant, hanging invisible beneath his shirt.

  Benitoe got out when he saw him wheeling his purchases back to the car. “Don’t ask,” George said. “It’s little enough I bring Angharad from the human world. I’ll get Mag to deliver them in a day or two.”

  Benitoe gave him a skeptical look, but helped him cram the two bushes in their pots behind the passenger seat, since they were too tall to sit on the back seat directly.

  At least it’s no hardship for someone his size to move his seat forward, George thought. I’ll make it up to him—I bet he’d like a driving lesson. I’ll find somewhere we can do that before we return.

  When they got back in the car, the sweet scent filled the air.

  George felt like a secret agent, sneaking to the back of the hotel parking lot after dinner with Benitoe, his darkened flashlight in his hand and his papers in the mostly empty pack slung over his shoulder. He’d decided the surest way to talk with Seething Magma privately was to do it inside one of her own ways, closed from outside view, but the dim gray light of the passage would make reading difficult. Hence the flashlight.

  He found a spot with few cars, and let Mag know he was ready. The glow of the way opening made him wince, but he knew that other people couldn’t see it and held himself still until she was done.

  Please back up to give us a little room, he thought to her, and she did so.

  *Welcome. It has been a most interesting day.*

  Indeed it has, he thought, and a long one. He showed Benitoe where to go, in the reflected light from the parking lot, then he closed the way-opening behind them and clicked his flashlight on.

  “If I’d thought about this ahead of time, I’d have brought an electric lantern,” he told them.

  He sat down cross-legged on the passage floor, and Benitoe joined him. “So, Mag, why don’t you go first?” George asked. “What have you been doing?”

  “Besides delivering flowers?” she rumbled, and Benitoe laughed out loud, then clapped a hand over his mouth.

  George grinned at Mag unrepentant. “Did she like it?”

  To Benitoe, he said as an aside, “Don’t worry, sound doesn’t carry out of a closed way any more than light does.”

  “Angharad was pleased with your gift. Gwyn’s response was more… complex.”

  Mag’s reply sobered him for a moment, but she didn’t elaborate.

  She continued, “We agreed the garden was a good location for me to use for reporting. Angharad will keep that spot clear of traffic.”

  “Well, I’m glad that worked, ’cause I’ve got two more bushes for your next delivery, if you’ll oblige me.” He said it quickly as if that would make it less embarrassing. She had no discrete eyes to stare at him, but he could feel her regard nonetheless.

  *Why this sudden interest in roses?*

  I don’t know, he thought to her privately. It’s something I need to do.

  He tried to hide his fatalistic thoughts from the afternoon confrontation with Cernunnos, but suspected she had no difficulty picking them out.

  *What are you trying to accomplish?*

  Let them just be gifts to my wife, he thought to her. That’s enough by itself, surely.

  Mag picked up the public conversation where she’d left off. “I will visit again tomorrow. If you’ll give them to me tonight, I’ll take them along with me.”

  She showed George an image of two cavities on her upper side, with a yellow rose bush in each, held in place by pseudopods. She’d plucked the proper color from his mind. He blinked and tried to hide a smile.

  “Thank you, that would be very kind,” he said. “I’ll fetch them when we’re done with our meeting.”

  He couldn’t stop himself from adding slyly, “Careful of the thorns.”

  At the notion of thorns having any effect on her stony surface, she chuckled, a credible demonstration of mastery over the vocal mechanisms her daughter Cavern Wind had taught her months ago.

  “Alright,” George said, “What about tomorrow, Mag? Do you want to come with us or explore on your own?”

  She showed him an image of a hound left behind in kennels when the rest of the pack was out hunting.

  “You want your freedom,” he interpreted. “I thought so.”

  He pulled some papers out of his pack and spread them on the passage floor, tilting the flashlight to illuminate them.

  “I did some prep for this. Here’s the Dieke building on campus, where all the Geology Department offices seem to be.” He circled it on the Penn State campus map. “I don’t know which of your professors will be around in the middle of the summer, but some of them must be. I think your best bet would be to hide near the building and sift through the people there until you find the ones you want.”

  He looked up at her. “Can you do that? Can you find specific individuals?”

  Mag rumbled, “I have never tried with so many people around. I will make the attempt.”

  George shook his head. “You think this is bad, you should see it when school’s in session in the fall. Many more people will be there then.”

  A look of alarm crossed Benitoe’s face. “Don’t say that. How can there be more people here? Where would they fit?”

  “You have no idea,” George said. “I hear when there’s a home football game, you can’t get a hotel room within sixty miles.”

  Benitoe stared at him blankly and George waved a hand in dismissal. “Never mind.”

  He twisted his body to face Mag directly. “What you should do is make a way, someplace where the opening can’t be found. Underground, maybe, close to the building. You don’t need air, do you?”

  “No,” she said.

  “Then you can lurk there all day.” He shrugged. “It will either work or it won’t. If not, we’ll fall back on Plan B.”

  He folded up the campus map. “Benitoe and I will go there in the morning so you can home in on me. Then we’ll go exploring in the area all day, so we won’t be far away. Call me if you get into trouble. Whatever you do, don’t let anyone see you.”

  Alone in his hotel room, Benitoe picked up the plastic device and tapped the big red button. The bewildering lighted screen across from his bed winked out, and he pushed the switch on the bedside lamp to turn it off, too, reducing the room to dimness. Not quite to darkness, however. The curtains across the windows blocked the illumination from outside except where the lights of the parking lot crept in around the edges, but there were also little lights twinkling in the room. Almost everything seemed to have electricity, and little power lights to go with it. There was a red one at the base of the… what did George call it, television? Another one glowed in the bathroom by the sink.

  He’d stood at the window earlier before closing the curtains and marveled at the brightness outside, at night. He couldn’t even see the stars. Why did they need all that light? He could understand the lights on the cars or the streets, if they had to travel after sunset, but why the signs for the buildin
gs? Didn’t they know where all the businesses were? Didn’t they sleep? He thought in terms of lamp oil, though he knew it was different, and it seemed very extravagant to him.

  The smells were wholly unfamiliar, and the materials in the rooms. The blankets didn’t feel quite like wool, and the slick bedspread was repellent. He was so tired, though, after the adventures of the day, that he was sure he wouldn’t have any trouble sleeping.

  George was in the adjoining room, and he heard the creak of his bed as he rolled over, through the open doorway. The noises were muffled by the low hiss of the fan that cooled the room, but the chill air smelt of nothing, certainly not of the outside summer greenery. His skin was pleased not to be overheated, but his nose was offended. He snorted, amused by his warring senses.

  People walked through the corridor outside his door and talked to each other, their voices muffled by the walls and the fan. That, at least, seemed normal to him. It reminded him of the cozy warrens he’d seen that some of the old clans maintained, where generations of lutins had lived.

  Were all the inns like this? What would his auntie Maëlys think of it?

  George had ordered dinner for them in their rooms, to let Benitoe relax in peace and not have to worry about braving another meal with the humans in public. The food was good, if bland. Dessert, on the other hand… He smiled in the dark. He’d liked all three flavors of the ice cream that George had provided for them. Everyone would like that, he considered, thinking of the Kuzul. Could they make it themselves? How would they keep it cold? Electricity, or wizard-work? What about other flavors? He drifted off to the remembered taste of chocolate.

  CHAPTER 18

  George rousted Benitoe up in the morning by the crude but effective expedient of yanking the curtains open in his room. This hotel had a breakfast buffet and he wanted to see Benitoe’s reaction.