Bound into the Blood

by Myers, Karen

  As he came around the corner, he saw the two men Frank had told him about, one of them jockey-short. The tall one nagged at his memory, something familiar about him. He reached out to him with his beast-sense and almost recoiled. He’d known that mind, somewhere. Frank’s introduction did rock him back—Traherne, his own name once, for fifteen years.

  It’s finally happened, he thought. He found me. Too late to stop this. Does he know? He must know, but how?

  Hearing himself called “father” roiled his stomach and removed all doubts.

  “Not here,” he made himself say, buying a little time, and he agreed to a meeting for tomorrow. A glance at the other man’s mind confirmed what his eyes told him—a lutin, here. How did that come about? Where has my son been?

  Has he bred? A moment’s regret for the quarter-century of evasion touched him. Would he have to leave it all behind again? He pushed that thought away. This changes everything. There mustn’t be any more of us, whatever it takes.

  CHAPTER 24

  Seething Magma couldn’t shake a certain feeling of guilt as her companions filled her in on the latest events, back behind the motel. Benitoe and George were visible in the dusk, to anyone who cared to look, but she was hidden inside her way-entrance and her participation in the conversation was masked. She tracked the presence of the other sentient creatures nearby just in case, to preserve their privacy.

  She’d been so focused on her own research into human geological findings that she’d neglected the needs of her friends. The marvels Benitoe had seen had barely registered for her, and she’d left that to George to handle, since he was so much more familiar with the doings of trade among the short-lived.

  But now she tasted some of Benitoe’s alarm at the behavior of this man George had found, the one he was sure was his father, and she looked at George’s thoughts herself.

  “Maybe he was just unwilling to jeopardize his job,” George said. “After all, he could hardly claim me in front of a stranger. We look more like brothers, now, not father and son.”

  She saw the image of three people when he said that, one a youngling, not his child-to-be, but a boy.

  *Who is that you think of, when you think of a brother?*

  Sorrow, she felt from him. My mother was pregnant when she died, he thought to her. A boy. I named him Gil, Gil the ghost.

  She tasted the concept behind the word “ghost” and found it very strange. A sibling that might have been. Someone he wanted to protect who wasn’t even real.

  Aloud, he said, “At least we’ll find out the whole story tomorrow.”

  Seething Magma could taste that he didn’t even convince himself, that he was hurt at the lack of warmth he’d found, and Benitoe clearly distrusted the man entirely.

  “If he’s still there,” Benitoe said, “and hasn’t just taken off again. There’s something wrong. You know there is, huntsman.”

  “Yes, I know,” George admitted.

  He rubbed his mouth. “Let’s set it up as a picnic out here. He only wanted to talk to me, I’m afraid,” he said, looking at Benitoe.

  “I’ll leave you alone for your talk,” Benitoe said, “but I’m not letting you out of my sight. I’m going to sit right over there in plain view.”

  Seething Magma tasted his determination. She saw George’s mental image of Benitoe as a small warrior facing a much larger foe, but she noticed he approved of it, reluctantly, too.

  “Alright,” George said aloud. She heard his internal mutter—but I don’t know what you think you’re going to do without weapons.

  She saw the war in his thoughts. He trusted the notion of “father” implicitly, couldn’t conceive of doing otherwise, but he was beginning to be wary of this man.

  Abruptly, she decided. In her quietest rumble, she said to them both, “I will be here as well, hidden in a way-entrance.”

  “What if he can see the ways like I do?” George said. “Anything I can do, most of it probably came from him.”

  She felt him probe for Cernunnos, but the god did not respond.

  “It makes no difference,” she said. “I am not his for the claiming, and if he senses me, then we will know.”

  She continued privately for George, *I want to taste him for myself, this puzzle of yours.*

  “This will do,” George said, as he looked over the secluded spot back behind the inn. He could hear the road traffic, but not see it. There was an empty fire pit at one end with a blackened grill suspended over it in brickwork, and a few scattered picnic tables.

  Benitoe chose a spot in plain sight, far from the grill, and perched cross-legged on top of the table there, stubbornly. George was put in mind of Maelgwn, but he didn’t think Benitoe was carrying much in the way of weapons, and there the comparison stopped. He was glad he had his own gun holstered at the small of his back under his shirt.

  After Seething Magma parked herself in a hidden way off to the side, in the woods, he killed her way from State College. Then he extended his senses as far as he could, searching for any other ways, and found none. Mag would stay hidden and keep a watch for anyone intruding into their privacy.

  George went back out to the main parking lot and leaned against a tree to wait. A few minutes after the appointed time, long enough to wonder if his father was actually coming, he saw a battered dark blue pickup truck pull in, and pushed himself away from the tree to greet the driver.

  This was a different man from yesterday, one who more nearly resembled the persona George remembered as a child.

  “I’m sorry we couldn’t speak yesterday,” Corniad said, warmly. “I was so surprised, I didn’t know what to do.”

  George wasn’t sure if this was sincere—it was such a change—but he wanted it to be. “That’s alright, I understand,” he said. “I’ve picked us up some sandwiches. We can eat over here, where no one will disturb us.”

  He pointed to the picnic area, out of sight behind the parking lot, and led him over there. A paper bag with grilled ham sandwiches and assorted sodas sat on the table nearest the grill, and they spent a few moments sorting out something to eat.

  Corniad took a couple of bites, then paused, laying his sandwich down on the paper plate. He glanced over at Benitoe who glowered at him, out of earshot, then ignored him. “It’s wonderful to see you, son. Tell me about your life.”

  In spite of himself, a frisson ran over George’s spine when he was addressed as “son.” He couldn’t remember when someone had last said that to him.

  He obliged his father by telling him briefly of his teenage years with his grandparents and his adult life, but stopped before he got to the most recent year past, his introduction to Annwn, to Gwyn’s domain. He didn’t want to speak of Cernunnos, not yet.

  Corniad asked, “Are you married? Children?”

  George ignored the question. He’d been patient long enough. “What happened to you? Why didn’t you come get me?”

  Corniad’s face, still smiling, gradually became more guarded. “Well, lad, that’s a long story.”

  George persisted. “And what were you, before you met my mother?”

  “I see you know something of this already,” Corniad said. He nodded his head at Benitoe. “You didn’t find him in Virginia, now did you?”

  *He is not what he appears to be.*

  George tried not to react to Mag’s intrusion. He sent her a question—what, not my father?

  *No, not human. Not fae. His thoughts are opaque to me.*

  Corniad’s eyes shifted as though he’d heard the conversation. He surreptitiously glanced around.

  What else can he read from me, George wondered. Or did he hear her directly?

  Corniad looked across the table at his son and smiled. “Whoever that was is right. I imagine you know who the beast-master is. The horned one.”

  After a moment’s hesitation, George nodded. “Cernunnos.”

  “Aye, that’s him,” Corniad said. “He had the making of our line, in the beginning.”

  �
��How do you mean?”

  “On a hind, of course.”

  Involuntarily, George pictured a red deer breeding.

  “But how…” he said, gesturing at his father’s human form.

  “Oh, we have the man shape when we want it, the rest of the time. It’s much more useful.” He chuckled. “What would I do here in the other form, with all those hunters looking for a trophy?”

  A line of god-engendered red deer, George thought. How strange. He remembered the red deer form he’d been forced into, in Gaul.

  “Does this happen a lot? Cernunnos, I mean.”

  “Just the once,” Corniad said, with a crooked smile.

  “Why did he do it?”

  The smile vanished from Corniad’s face as it hardened. “We’re useful to him.”

  George swallowed. “How, exactly?”

  For a moment, he thought his father would refuse to answer. “He rides us, when he wishes.” He pointed at his forehead.

  George barely refrained from responding. Me, too, he thought.

  Corniad glanced away from him and stared off into space, remembering. “I wouldn’t be his slave. He needs us willing.”

  George heard the pride in his voice.

  Corniad returned his gaze to his son. “And so, he was stymied.”

  “What, couldn’t he, um, breed another?”

  Corniad’s head shook slowly. “No. He embodies himself through us.”

  “What about siblings? Uncles, cousins?”

  Corniad shook his head again. This time, George noticed a sort of twist upward as he did it which put him in mind of a deer.

  “There’s only one of us at a time,” his father said. “When the new one is born and grows to adulthood, the old one dies. We may grow rapidly in the man form, but we live the years of the red deer, no longer.”

  A short life but a glorious, I suppose, George thought. Achilles’ choice. But why didn’t my father want to comply, if all his ancestors did? It’s not so bad, after all, I’ve been doing it.

  Aloud, he pointed out, “But I’m alive, and so are you.”

  “I refused to serve,” Corniad said, with pride. “I bred no hinds, and so had no son.”

  George refrained from the obvious question and waited.

  “The beast-master insisted, but I found a way to the human world and took it, and left him behind.”

  So, he can see the ways, George thought. And that would work—Cernunnos wasn’t able to see his hounds when they were in the human world. He found a way to avoid service. I can understand the appeal—is this why Cernunnos didn’t want me to talk to him? But what did Cernunnos want him to do that was so terrible? What does he want my father for? Or me?

  And is he fae, or something like it, recalling Mag’s warning? He’s lived longer than any red deer. If he has the long life in human form, does that pass on to me? A rush of blood flushed his face. I may be able to stay with Angharad for a long time. He smiled in gratitude. If nothing else comes of this, maybe there’s that.

  He returned his attention to his father and caught a fleeting sly expression on his face, as if were trying to judge George’s reception of the tale he’d been telling. What does my father really want, he thought. What happened to my mother? A momentary image of his unborn brother struck him. Gil the ghost.

  “You see,” Corniad said, “I wanted to stay alive. As long as I bred no successor, Cernunnos couldn’t kill me without ending the bloodline. And without us, he had nothing to ride. There were never any children from the man form.”

  George nodded, and waited.

  “Then I met your mother,” Corniad said. “I don’t know how he knew…”

  “Who?” George asked.

  “Cernunnos, of course. It can’t have been coincidence. For the first time, with a human woman, the rut came upon me, at least in part, as if Cernunnos still took me, and you were born.”

  George felt the chill of shock and revulsion, but Corniad continued as if he didn’t notice.

  “I didn’t dwell on it, and I don’t think she remembered the engendering. I didn’t think the progeny of a human woman could matter. That was a mistake. And then it happened again.”

  George tried to control himself enough to ask. “Did you ever tell my mother?”

  “No, of course not.”

  “She must have asked,” George persisted.

  Corniad said, indifferently, “I turned her questions aside when they became troublesome.”

  George’s blood ran cold. He remembered, suddenly, what it was like to be curious about his father, and to have his questions… suppressed. Corniad had no compunction about that.

  He shuddered in dismay. Mag can’t read him. What constrains him from doing anything he wants to?

  Corniad continued without pause, “I didn’t hear her grandfather’s full name until the second time, when we were thinking of names.”

  “For my unborn brother,” George supplied. Gil, he thought, saddened unreasonably for what might have been.

  Corniad glanced at him. “That’s right. When she said ‘Gwyn Annan,’ then I knew. Prince of Annwn, grandson of Beli Mawr.”

  He looked down. “It was over. I’d been tricked into continuing the line. Decades of hiding, to no avail.”

  George steeled himself. “What happened then? How did my mother die, and what happened to you?”

  And how is it that I am grown but you have also survived, he wondered, but kept it to himself for now.

  Corniad rose from the picnic bench. “All in good time, son.” He walked around the table and stood over George.

  This time, the ‘son’ made George’s skin crawl, but he tried to hide his reaction.

  His father looked over at Benitoe, then cocked his head in the direction of Mag. “I want to hear more about you. I can see you’ve met Gwyn. How did that happen, I wonder?”

  He looked his son over speculatively. “I thought you would sink into a quiet human life, and the longer I stayed alive, the more I believed it. All the sires die soon after their bucks were grown, but I did not, so I thought little of the risk—you were clearly not really of the blood. But Cernunnos found you.”

  That last statement was not a question, and George nodded. “It’s a long story, too. I’d like to tell it to you.”

  Corniad looked at him silently, then said, “I must be getting back. I have some things of your mother’s I want to give you. Come pick me up at the stable tomorrow, at 10:00. I’ve put them in a special place, and I’ll take you there.”

  George reached out and gripped his arm. “Can’t you tell me what happened now?”

  Corniad looked at him. “No,” he said, firmly.

  George heard an echo in his mind—no, no, no… It ran through him and he dropped his hand. He’s using the beast-sense on me, he thought, pushing me away. I’d forgotten about this. I remember him doing it, when I was a child, whenever he thought I was meddling. His stomach churned in revulsion.

  He felt the compulsion to stay seated while his father walked away and he forced himself to stand up anyway. It surprised his father, who gave him a considering look.

  Benitoe came to his feet in obvious alarm at their subdued struggle.

  Corniad tried to push at George with the beast-sense, but George could feel him hesitate when he realized his son could see what he was doing.

  Corniad stopped and stepped away. “I’ll tell you everything tomorrow. Just you.” He gave him a commanding look, but stopped short of attempting a compulsion.

  “You’ll be safe enough, but I don’t want your friends there. This isn’t for their eyes.”

  “You can’t be serious. You’re not going there alone.”

  George listened to Benitoe’s repeated objections that evening in the privacy of George’s room.

  “He won’t do anything to me,” he said, for the tenth time.

  *He tried to force you.* Seething Magma was outside, in her hidden way.

  He replied aloud for Benitoe’s hearing. “Mag, he
wasn’t able to. He can’t use the beast-sense to compel me, not any more. I can see how used to that he must be, but he learned differently today.”

  He sighed. “Look, something is very wrong with this story. I can’t really be just like him, or presumably he’d be dead, like all of his ancestors when their sons were grown.”

  He rubbed the back of his neck. “I wish I knew just why my mother was different, able to give him a child, and how Cernunnos even knew I existed.”

  He didn’t want to dwell on it, but he had a theory. His father had said, almost wistfully, as if he missed it, that “Cernunnos took him,” when he spoke of his conception. Was there a hybrid form for his father, like the horned man, he wondered. That would make better sense of his mother’s cryptic notes. Maybe his mother’s fae blood drew the rut, and the rut drew Cernunnos, and so Corniad was found.

  However it came about, Cernunnos clearly knew everything now. I should have listened to him, George thought.

  “Mag, is there any trace of Cernunnos left in my father?” he asked.

  *I could not sense it, but I cannot be sure.*

  “And me?” He saw Benitoe’s look of concern, but he couldn’t help asking. “He’s been quiet a long time,” he told him, his voice deadened, even to his own ears.

  *He is still there. He will not speak to me.*

  Lord Cernunnos, he thought, to him, please understand why I had to pursue this. I had to know. I am no deer, indifferent to my sire. I am what I am, and he is family.

  There was no response, but this time he accepted that without panic. I must prove myself to him again, he thought, with the counterexample of my father before him. I understand.

  “Mag,” he said, coming to a decision, “will you take that rosebush to Angharad tomorrow? By the time you return, we’ll probably be close to done here.”

  She heard his speech via his thoughts. *I do not like leaving you.*

  He replied aloud, “I can reach you wherever you are, you know that. How dangerous can it really be? Benitoe will stay here, and if I’m not back when you return, you can both come find me together.”

  At Benitoe’s look of disapproval, he told him what he’d told Cernunnos. “I have to know about my mother’s death.”