"Are there beings like this in either of the faerie Courts?" Kate asked her companions as she held the trembling woman with the pig's head against her shoulder. The creature burrowed its face in the folds of Kate's torn clothing.
Eilian shook his head. "She's been enchanted – evilly enchanted."
"By a gruagagh?" Kate asked.
"Or a witch."
Kate put her head close to the woman's. "Can you speak?" she asked. "Who did this to you? Who are you? Please don't be afraid. We won't hurt you."
"Ugly." The one word came out, muffled and low.
Kate forced a smile into her voice. "You think you're ugly? Haven't you seen that monstrosity lording it over his Court out there? Now that's ugly! Not you."
There was a long pause before the muffled voice said, "I saw … your face. I saw my ugliness reflected in your eyes."
Kate stroked the dry pig skin of the woman's head. "I was scared then, that's all." She looked over at Arkan. "Give us your jacket, would you? The poor thing's got nothing on. No wonder she's scared. Bunch of jocks like you gawking at her."
Arkan passed her his jacket and she wrapped it around her charge. "We want to help you," she said. "We're all in here together, you know, so we might as well try to get along. My name's Kate Hazel. What's yours?"
The pig's head lifted to look Kate in the eye. Kate steeled her features and refused to let any repugnance show. In fact, it wasn't so hard. She felt so bad for the poor woman that she didn't see her as ugly anymore, even though it was still a pig's head. She schooled herself not to show pity, either. Strangely enough, feeling protective for this poor creature she'd ended up losing her own fears about being trapped here in the Giants' Keep.
"Make up a name," she said, "if you don't want to tell us your real one. Just so we can call you something."
The creature swallowed nervously. Its gaze darted to the others in the cell, then back to Kate.
"I … I'm Gyre the Elder's daughter," she said finally.
Eighteen
Clinging to the back of what might be either her rescuer or captor, with the rough texture of his twig and leaf coat against her and the wind rushing by her ears with a gale-like force, all Jacky could do was hold on for dear life. They were going too fast for her to dare jumping off. But as the ambush fell farther and farther behind them, and with it her captured, maybe hurt – please, God, not dead – friends, her fear for her own safety got buried under a wave of anger. When the Harley began to slow down about a half-mile past the gravel pit, she dared to let go of a hand and whacked the stranger on the back.
"Let me go!" she shouted in his ear.
The motorcycle came to a skidding halt so abruptly that they almost both toppled off. Jacky hopped from her seat and ran a few steps away from the machine. She wanted to take off, but after what had happened back at the bridge, and with this new, as-yet-undefined being facing her, she wasn't quite sure what she should do. The stranger, for his part, merely smiled and pushed the Harley into the ditch. Jacky swallowed nervously when she spotted his cloven feet.
"Who … who are you?" she asked.
"I have a pocket full of names," he replied, grinning.
Like most of the faerie Jacky had met so far, there was something indefinable in his eyes, something that she was never sure she could trust.
"I wonder which you'd like to hear?" the stranger added, thrusting one hand into a deep pocket. "A Jackish one won't do – you having a Jackish name yourself – but perhaps Tom Coof?"
He pulled something from his pocket and tossed it into the air too quickly for Jacky to see what it was. A fine dust sprinkled down, covering him, and then he appeared like a village simpleton to her.
"Or maybe Cappy Rag would please you better?" he asked. "A bit of a Gypsy, you know, but more kindly than some I could be."
Again the hand went into the pocket, out again and up into the air. When the new dust settled he was wearing a wild coat covered with multi-coloured, many-lengthed ribbons, all tattery and bright. He did a quick spin, ribbons flying in a whirl of colour, dizzying Jacky.
"Or perhaps –"
But Jacky cut him off. When he'd done his little spin, she'd seen the bag hanging from his shoulder, recognized the shape of the thing it held.
"Or perhaps your name is Kerevan," she said, "and you play the fiddle as well as the fool. What do you want with me?"
Kerevan shrugged, showing no surprise that she knew his name. The ribbon coat became a coat of heather, twigs and leaves once more.
"I made a bargain," he said, "to see you to the Giants' Keep."
"A bargain? With whom? And what about my friends?"
"The bargain didn't include anyone else."
"And who did you make this bargain with?"
"Can't say."
Bhruic, perhaps? Jacky thought. Only why would he? Why had he disappeared from the Tower? None of this made sense. And who, if it hadn't been Bhruic? It was so hard to think, but she was sure of one thing. She didn't want anything to do with this Kerevan – she glanced at the hooves again – whatever he was.
She looked back down the road they'd travelled, but they'd gone too far for her to see what had become of her friends and the attacking Host. Then, before Kerevan could stop her, she slipped on her hob-stitched coat and disappeared from sight.
"Then think about this," her bodiless voice called out to him. "You didn't see me to the Giants' Keep and I'm not going with you, so your side of this bargain will never be completed."
Hob-stitched shoes helped her slip swiftly up the pavement from where she'd been standing.
"You can't do this!" Kerevan cried. "You mustn't!"
He tossed a powder toward where she'd been standing, but it fluttered uselessly to the ground, revealing nothing because she wasn't there.
"Who did you bargain with?" Jacky called, moving with magical quickness as she spoke. "And what was the bargain?"
By the time Kerevan reached the spot she'd been, she was away down the road again. She looked back, expecting him to at least be trying to pursue her, but instead he took his fiddle from its bag, then the bow. He tightened the hairs of the bow, but before he could draw it across the strings, Jacky had her fingers in her ears. She could hear what he was playing, not loudly, but audible all the same.
There was a spell in the music. It said, Take off your coat. Lie down and sleep. What a weary day it's been. That coat will make a fine pillow, now, won't it just?
If she hadn't had her fingers in her ears, the spell would have worked. But she'd been prepared, cutting down the potency of the spell by cutting down the volume, as well as being mentally prepared for, if not exactly this, then at least something.
She moved silently closer, soft-stepping like a cat, watching the growing consternation on the fiddler's face. She was close to him now. Very close. Taking a deep breath, she reached forward suddenly, snatching the fiddle from his grasp, and took off again, with a hob's stealth and speed.
"This is a stupid game!" she called to him, changing position after every few words. "Why don't you go home and leave me alone? Go back and tell Bhruic that I am going to the Giants' Keep and I don't need fools like you getting in the way. And I don't need him, either."
"But –"
"Go on, or I'll break this thing."
"Please, oh, please don't!"
"Why shouldn't I? You've stolen me away from my friends. They could be captured or dead or God knows what, and all you do is stand around playing stupid word games when I ask you a civil question. Thank you for helping me escape. Now get out of my life or I'll smash this fiddle of yours – I swear I will!"
Kerevan sat down on the side of the road. He laid his bow on the gravel in front of him and emptied his pockets. What grew in a pile beside the bow looked like a heap of pebbles, but they were all soft and a hundred different colours. There was magic in them, in each one, Jacky knew. She moved closer, still silent.
"A bargain," Kerevan said. "My fiddle for the answers to wh
atever you want." When there was no reply, he pointed to the pile. "These are wally-stanes," he said. "Not quartz or stone, and not playthings, but magics – my magics. They're filled with dusts that can catch an invisible Jack, or change a shape, or even a name. They're yours – just give me the fiddle and let me see you safe to the Giants' Keep."
"Why?"
"Why, why, why! What does it matter why? The bargain's a good one. The fiddle's no use to you without the kenning, and I doubt you know the kenning, now, do you? But these wally-stanes any fool can use, even a Jack, and there's a power in them, power you'll need before the night's through!"
Again there was a silence. Then Jacky spoke once more, this time a dozen feet away from where her voice had come when it had asked why.
"This is the bargain I'll offer," she said. "Your fiddle, for my safety from you, for the wally-stanes, and for the knowledge of who you had your first bargain with – the bargain to see me safely to the Keep," she amended quickly.
Kerevan's smile faded as she caught herself. His first bargain would have been easy. That was his bargain with life, and with it he'd gotten born. Oh, this was no fool, this Jack, or the right kind of fool, depending on how you juggled your tricks.
"That's too much for an old fiddle," he said.
"Well, I'll just be going then," Jacky replied.
She was standing almost directly behind him now and startled him with her proximity. Kerevan wanted – oh, very badly – to turn around and try to nab her, but he thought better of it. She was no fool, and she was quick, too. But he remembered now, while he'd been looking for her with more than just his eyes, he had sensed something he might be able to use to sway her.
"Let me show you a thing," he said. "Let me take you to a place nearby and show you something. No tricks now, and this is a promise from one puck to another."
Oh, I'd be a fool indeed to trust you, Jacky thought. Yet she'd trusted the Gruagagh …. Standing in front of Kerevan, looking into his eyes, she knew, without knowing how, that she had to trust him.
"All right," she said finally. "But I'm keeping the fiddle. We have no bargain yet."
"Fair enough." He tossed the bag out toward her voice. "But store it in this, would you? There's a fair bit of my heart in that wee instrument, and if you chip it or bang it, you'll be chipping away bits of me."
Jacky caught the cloth and stuffed the fiddle into it. Before she slung it over her shoulder, she removed her blue jacket and stood in front of him on the road.
"What's this thing we're going to see?" she asked, worried that she was making a big mistake.
"It's a seeing one, not a talking one," Kerevan replied. "Come follow me."
He scooped up his wally-stanes and replaced them in his pockets, snatched up his bow, then took off into the woods at a brisk pace which Jacky, if she hadn't had her hob-stitched sneakers, would have been hard-pressed to follow. They darted in and out between the trees, the ground growing steadily steeper as they went.
"Quiet now," Kerevan whispered, coming to a sudden halt.
Jacky bumped into him. "What is it?"
"We're close now to bogans and gullywudes, and all the other stone-hearted bastards that make up the Unseelie Court."
He crept ahead then, moving so quietly that if Jacky hadn't known he was there, she would never have noticed him. And she, city kid though she was, found herself keeping up with him, as quiet, as sly, as secret, with no great effort on her part. Hobbery magics, she told herself. Cap and shoes and jacket on my arm. But a voice inside her murmured: Once, perhaps, but no longer just that.
This time when Kerevan stopped, Jacky was ready for it. She crept up beside him and peered through the brush to see what he was looking at. One fleeting glance was all it took before she quickly looked away. She wanted to throw up.
There was a clearing ahead, an opening in the trees where a cliff face was bared to the sky. There were bogans there, and a giant snoring against a tree, and other creatures besides, but it wasn't they who disturbed her. It was what was on the cliff face itself.
Once she might have been beautiful – perhaps she still was under the dirt and dried blood. But now, hung like an offering – like Balder from his tree, like Christ from his cross, like all those bright things sacrificed to the darkness – was a swan-armed woman bound to wooden stakes driven into the stone. She hung a half-dozen feet from the ground, her clothes in ragged tatters, but the nettle tunic, oh, it was new and tightly bound around her torso. The swan wings were a soiled white, as was the hair that hung in dirty strands to either side of her emaciated face. The flesh of her legs was broken with cuts and sores. Her face was bruised and cut as well. And she was – this was the worst – she was still alive, hanging there on the stone wall of a cliff that was stained with white bird droppings, many of which had splattered on her, surrounded by the jeering Unseelie Court, which had taken its pleasure mocking and hurting her for so long that they were now tired of the sport.
She was still alive.
Acid roiled in Jacky's stomach. Tremors shook her. In another moment she might have screamed from the sheer horror of that sight, but Kerevan touched her shoulder, soothed her with the faintest hum of a tune that he lipped directly against her ear, then soundlessly led her back, away, higher into the wilderness. She leaned against him for a long while before she could walk on her own again, and then they still moved on, travelling through progressively wilder country until they came to a gorge that cut like a blade through the mountainous slopes.
It was heavily treed with birch and cedar and pine, and Kerevan led her into it. The fiddler sat her down on some grass by a stone that she could lean against. He came back with water cupped in his hands, made her drink, went for more, returned. Three times he made her drink. At any time he could have retrieved his bagged fiddle and been gone, but there were bargains to uphold, and now a shared horror that bound them, not to each other, but to something that was almost the same.
"My bargain," Kerevan said suddenly, "is with the Gruagagh of Kinrowan. Did you know he meant to be a poet before he took on the cloak of spells he wears now? No other would wear it and it had to be one of Kinrowan blood, so he took it. He kept Kinrowan alive, shared the ceremonies with Lorana. Between the two of them, they kept a light shining in the dark.
"But the time for light is gone, Jacky Rowan. That was Lorana we saw there, and that will be Bhruic, too. That will be the Laird of Kinrowan; that will be every being with Lairdsblood, and probably that will be Jacky Rowan, too. There is no stopping it."
Jacky couldn't drive the terrible vision from her. "But if we freed her …"
"It would only prolong what will be. The time of darkness has come to our world – to Faerie. They moved here from the crowded moors and highlands of their old homeland when the mortals came to this open land. But the Host followed too, and here – here the Unseelie Court grows stronger than ever before."
He touched her gently under her chin. "Would you know why? Because your kind will always believe in evil before it believes in good. There are so many of you in this land, so many feeding the darkness …. The time for the Seelie Court can almost be measured in days now."
"I don't understand," Jacky said. "I know what you mean about the evil feeding on belief, but if Lorana was freed …"
"They have the Horn. They rule the Wild Hunt. Nothing can withstand the Hunt. For a while a power like Bhruic wields could, or my fiddle might, but when they are set upon the trail of some being, mortal or faerie, that being is dead. They never fail."
"So we have to steal the Horn," Jacky said.
"Listening to Bhruic, I once thought so, Jacky Rowan. But the Horn is too great a power. It corrupts any being who wields it. It corrupts any being who even holds it for safekeeping."
"But Bhruic …"
"Wanted the Horn to find Lorana. She was his charge; he was responsible for her."
Jacky frowned. "And you've known where she's been all this time and said nothing to him. How could you? She
's been suffering for months! My God, what kind of a thing are you?"
"I don't know what I am, Jacky Rowan, but I never knew she was there until we stood on the road, you and I, and I strained all my senses to find you. Instead, I caught a glimmer that was her. They hide her well, with glamours and bindings."
"But now we know," Jacky said. "Now we can help her."
"You and I? Are we an army, then?"
"What about your fiddle? And your wally-stanes?"
"They're tricks, nothing more. Mending magics, making magics, not greatspells used for war."
Jacky stared away into the trees, still seeing the tormented face of the Laird of Kinrowan's daughter no matter where she looked, and knew that she'd do anything to help her.
"If I had the Horn," she asked, "could I use it to command the Hunt to free her?"
"You could. And then what would you command? That all the Unseelie Court be slain? That any who disagree with you be slain? You may call me a coward, Jacky Rowan, but I wouldn't touch that Horn for any bargain. Use it once and it will burn your soul forevermore."
"Bargain …" She looked at him. "Tell me about your bargain with Bhruic."
"In exchange for what?"
"Tell me!"
Kerevan regarded her steadily. The fierceness in her gaze gave him true pause. Here was gruagagh material … or another wasted poet turned to war. But that was always the way with Jacks, wasn't it? They were clever and fools all at once. But the image of Lorana's torment had stayed with him, as well, and so he made no bargains, only replied.
"I was to bring you safe to the Keep and then he was to come with me."
"Where to?"
"To where I am when I'm not here – and that's not a question I'll answer nor even bargain to answer, Jacky Rowan, so save your breath."
She nodded. "This is my bargain, then: I'll return your fiddle for safety from you and for some of your wally-stanes."
"That's all?"
"That's all."
Jack the Giant-Killer (Jack of Kinrowan Book 1) Page 16