by Tom Deitz
Shoot, a week ago all I had to worry about was a dead-end but fairly interesting job at Barnett’s Newsstand down in Athens and a PhD dissertation I had to finish this summer or start losing credits. Nothing major there—except that I knew about Faerie and all that, which played games with my head when I tried to balance it against the so-called hard science I’d been dealing with since I was a kid. Like, how do you reconcile the fact that you know there are Worlds that absolutely are not round with the fact that those Worlds also have gravity just like ours—and stratigraphy and stuff—only they’ve got the same relationship to our World that scraps of wet tissue thrown on a globe would have. Which I guess made me feel like dissertating on Geology was as phony as computing the age of the earth by adding up the ages of everyone in the Bible. It just wasn’t like that!
And now everybody’s gone off trying to play hero again, leaving Good Old Scott to mind the store and try very hard not to feel sorry for himself. I mean, if I look at it objectively, I do have an important job. All this shit hinges on preventing (optimally) or delaying (practically) the Mystic Mountain folks from driving anything iron into Bloody Bald, and otherwise stalling things here. Trouble is, the folks off in other places don’t have to be responsible for what they do there. Ain’t no extradition treaty with Faerie, and besides, the Faeries know we’re here. If I blow up a generator, I gotta worry about the Enotah County Sheriff, or worse; I can’t just say the Faeries made me do it. I gotta be careful, whereas those other folks don’t, not in the same way.
And the thing is, while the very idea of going back to Faerie scares me shitless, I still feel like I’ve been left sucking hind tit here, ’cause part of me would absolutely love to see that place—any of it—again. It’s like I’ve been told heroin is: one hit and you want it forever. And I’m a mountain boy, too, dammit, just like Sullivan. I’ve got a right to fight, not just have my head patted and be told that digging trenches is as important as shooting out of ’em.
So I guess I’m as trapped by corporate America as I was by academic America. Maybe I’ll go off and see if Dale Sullivan wants to get drunk. Or Elyyoth. I could use a good drunk right now.
Chapter IV: First Blood
(the Straight Tracks—high summer)
“We may have a problem,” Fionchadd announced from the cabin door. He hung heavily against the jamb, eyes wide, face flushed, as though he’d stood too near a fire.
David shifted around from where he and the rest of the crew had been debating battle plans belowdecks, the better to avoid continued scrutiny of a landscape that some time back had simply become too disconcerting: too much change too fast, so that Worlds flashed by with the pace and force of a strobe light. “What kind?” he sighed, rising and giving his father a pat on the shoulder as he passed on his way to the flickering rectangle in which the Faery stood. Something about that light had changed, too; likely the same thing that had produced his friend’s flush.
“Nothing you have not seen, but disturbing nonetheless,” Fionchadd murmured from the foot of the short stairway that led on deck.
David knew before he’d taken two steps what awaited him—knew because he’d seen its like before, in the Lands of Fire, which lay beside Tir-Nan-Og much as his own World lay beneath it. “Your mother took me through here,” he breathed, joining his friend topside. “She sent me through one of those, too,” he continued, for sight had confirmed what the red light flaring around the stairwell had merely implied.
“Pillar of Fire,” Brock gasped behind him.
David started, not having heard the boy approach. He wondered if his own face showed the same crimson glow that lit the boy’s features. “Pillar of Fire,” he acknowledged, at which point the dragon prow shifted and David saw indeed.
They were on a Track, the golden motes that comprised it so thick they looked solid. The landscape had stabilized, too; into the blasted white desert of the Lands of Fire. But straight ahead a vast blazing redness rose into a sky the color of dawn and sunset and midnight conflagration, and even as he gaped, the landscape blinked and they were closer. Less than a mile, perhaps, and the Pillar was a tower reaching to heaven: brilliant glowing red at its heart, but flickering with gold and yellow, orange and white—and an eerie bluish purple, as though impossible metals burned there.
“Neat!” Brock breathed.
“And perilous,” Fionchadd warned. “Not a thing to experience while on deck.”
“You said it might be a problem,” David hedged.
“I expected its like, but not one so…huge. This vessel may not withstand it.”
David looked at the Faery askance. “But we rode one out before in a boat like this.”
“But not a Pillar this size. A boat may navigate rapids, yet come to pieces on a waterfall.”
“I have faith,” David managed weakly.
“So do I,” Fionchadd acknowledged. “But faith is not always sufficient.”
“I’m going below,” Brock announced, not bothering to hide the tremor in his voice.
“Right behind you,” David called.
Fionchadd said nothing at all, but his eyes spoke eloquently.
*
“If this don’t stop real soon,” LaWanda grumbled through a choking gasp, “I’m gonna puke out my guts all over this fancy rug.” As if to punctuate her remark, she slapped a hand across her mouth and turned to face the cabin’s corner. Its back corner, David noted, the one farthest from the door and what transpired without. He wouldn’t have minded joining her, and would have had his father not been firmly ensconced in the opposite corner—facing outward but with his eyes closed and his hand gripping the stock of his old Stevens shotgun so hard his knuckles had turned stark white.
This wasn’t fun at all—not this screwy sensation in his head, his gut, and his soul alike. Had it been this bad the other time he’d assayed a Pillar in one of these absurd ships? David didn’t think so. At least that time both inner ears had agreed on the signals they received, even if they hadn’t liked them; and his stomach had stayed fairly level—possibly a result of something Morwyn had fed him before departure. He wished he had something now—and had asked first Fionchadd then Aife for advice, but they’d merely shaken their heads and informed him that they had enough to do keeping the vessel together. God knew that was troubling, too: the way the vessel creaked and groaned, bucked and snapped as it navigated the inside of that monumental inferno.
As for Nuada—the second most Powerful man in Faerie this side of the Seas Between: he did nothing at all. “There are things I can do that Fionchadd and Aife cannot,” he’d said, “but Power is finite, the same as strength of limb. Were I to spend it now, it might not be there later. Too, I have come to rely on the Power of my friend Lugh to sustain me. I did not know how much his strength was merged with mine.” And that was all.
David tried to distract himself by once again inspecting his weapons. The Beretta 9mm automatic was fine, oiled and gleaming; but a year spent in his closet had not been as kind to his Winchester pump shotgun. In spite of his mother’s efforts, rust showed there, not enough to impair function but irritating nonetheless. Scowling, he retrieved his cleaning kit and set to work.
Tried to, anyway, for the queasy spinning in ears and gut alike would not leave him alone, and he’d finally concluded that LaWanda was right, he might have to empty his stomach, when, with absolutely no warning, the flames’ pervasive roar, which had become like white noise, ceased abruptly. The boat popped, snapped, then went quiet, as its joints and seams settled back to their familiar stresses. Fionchadd and Aife exhaled as one, and he could see tension flow out of their bodies. Fionchadd blinked like one newly awakened, paused for a moment as though listening, then cautiously opened the door.
Air flowed in: moist, if very far from cold. And with that first sharp inhale, the sickness that assailed David dispersed, save a dull throbbing in his skull that could well be an ordinary headache.
“Are we—?” he began, but a frown from Fionchadd sh
ushed him, as David rose from yet another inventory of his gear: mail, surcoat, boots, sword; shotgun, ammo pouch, and automatic. All there. Of course.
The Faery turned full to face him. “Yes,” he mouthed, even as David heard the word echoed in his mind: a means of speech Fionchadd rarely employed, which meant something serious was up. Whereupon a flash of pure raw thought arced through his head, and he caught fleeting images of a vast boiling lake beneath a dome of rock. And, unmistakably, as though he shared not only Fionchadd’s thoughts but his very soul and essence, what could only be the hard adrenaline thrill that presaged battle.
Silence! came that silent command. Prepare for combat, came another hard on its heels.
“What?” someone asked aloud: his father or Aikin, it sounded like.
On deck now, and see, came the Faery’s voiceless whisper.
The cabin filled with grunts, gasps, and troubled glances as his comrades scrambled to their feet. Lord Silverhand, came Fionchadd’s thought again, you are Lugh’s Warlord. We are in Lugh’s service. It is your right to lead us.
For now, Nuada agreed. But I am not well versed in iron as an ally.
The new plan, then? Until we have cause to change it? Nuada nodded.
It was a flimsy ploy, David knew, as they filed toward the stairs; wouldn’t stand any kind of scrutiny, but perhaps it would be enough.
Nuada, Aife, Fionchadd, and David himself wore Faery armor and clothing—and the glamour-wrought visages of known members of the rebels. Big Billy, Brock, Aikin, and LaWanda wore mundane togs and went bowed and stooped, with their well-armed hands held close behind them, as though they were prisoners to those Faery warriors, retrieved at last after the postcouncil attack from which Nuada had helped them escape. The Sons didn’t necessarily know the particulars of that, after all, nor could they recognize every face among their sympathizers. If challenged, Aife would claim to be who she was: a former member of their ranks, newly freed from Lugh’s glamour-wrapped imprisonment and eager to rejoin their ranks; with captives brought as proof of her commitment and competence.
It wouldn’t stand long or close scrutiny, of course; iron made its presence known through smell, to the keen-nosed among the Sidhe—like metal newly forged, Aife had told them—and anyone with Power could sense a glamour. Still, the plan was for the Sons to see what they expected and relax their guard until it was too late. After that—who knew? It depended on too many things: surprise, Power, the effectiveness of mortal weapons in this World, Faery fear of iron, the sheer number of foes they would face, and the circumstances under which that battle was waged.
That last, at least, was answered when David finally got a clear view of the place into which the Pillar had delivered them.
True to the image he’d caught from Fionchadd’s mind, they were inside a huge stone chamber, easily half a mile across. A perfect sphere, it appeared, the ceiling (limestone or granite?) smoothed to a uniform bowl but unpolished and lit by a quivering reddish glow that hinted at once of unseen external flame and those rocks’ own inner heat, as though they’d stood long and long beside a forge. The air was hot, too, and vapors seethed across the decks to wrap them—vapors that rose from what David saw, as they eased into formation on the foredeck, was a solid sheet of boiling, frothing water that evidently filled the lower half of that cavern. The air smelled hot, too, and the vapors were foul-scented steam such as issued from hot springs back in his own World. Droplets of condensation fell like hot, sticky rain.
But there was no sign of anything manmade—nothing iron or even ironlike—nothing but that dripping ceiling, the steaming lake, and their own ship that had somehow been spat out of the Pillar of Fire that rose from the center of all that frothing turmoil to pierce the dome above with a spear of bloody light.
Which was strange in its own right, for though the Pillar glowed, it did not illuminate; as though it was not entirely present, or existed at one remove, like a perfect hologram of a flame.
But something else was certainly present, for David’s eyes were burning, as they did in the presence of Power in active use. And by straining them in the wavering light, he was able to make out another vessel, near twin to this, but directly across the center of the bubbling lake and thereby masked by the eerie glare of the Pillar between.
Yet even as he watched, the vessel moved, its strange, limp sails filling with the force of some impossible wind as it glided slowly around the Pillar toward them.
“What?” LaWanda spat, then rounded on Fionchadd. “This ain’t what you expected, is it, Faery boy?”
Fionchadd shook his head, and David caught a wash of confusion and anger aimed at once at the approaching vessel and at LaWanda—the latter clearly accompanying a warning that she had to appear submissive and that he and Aife would try to cloak all their thoughts, but it would be difficult if those thoughts were also spoken, fueled as they were by strong emotion.
“No,” Nuada countered—aloud. “Perhaps tongue speech is best now, for the Sons dislike that mode—the province of mortals, they say—and so may not be attuned to it. In any event, this is not what we expected. Do you have any ideas, Fionchadd?”
“Only that this place is not precisely in Tir-Nan-Og. Indeed, I believe that may be a function of Lugh’s imprisonment. He was the Land, and the Land cleaved to him. If he is cut off from the Land, his Power will not hold it—not those parts already tending to rebellion, such as this place, or that in which we found you.”
“So the Sons may have—”
“Unleashed the whirlwind,” Big Billy concluded. David wondered what his pa was thinking—he’d certainly said little enough since the shooting lesson. Then again, he wasn’t one to talk when there was work to be done, and definitely not one to admit ignorance or fear in the face of a foe.
Nuada eyed Big Billy askance. “Aye…perhaps. Perhaps, indeed, when the time comes for them to set up their new king there will be nothing left for him to rule, whether we free Lugh or not.”
“Who is their new king, anyway?” David asked abruptly.
“His name is Turinne,” Nuada muttered. “He is young and rash, but very, very canny, or I would know more of him than I do, which is almost nothing.”
David’s hands were starting to sweat on the stock of his shotgun. “Would bullets do anything at all against that?” he murmured to anyone who would listen.
Iron will wreak little harm against Powersmith vessels, came the quick flash of Fionchadd’s thought. Save your strength for living foes.
How many? David thought back at him, desperately hoping their conversation was masked.
Enough for this place—and more than we command.
And then David felt a dull, alien buzzing in his mind that was surely the approaching vessel bespeaking the Faeries that crewed their own. Other consciousnesses brushed his too, and he cringed, so full of contempt were they. “Don’t think,” he rasped to his mortal friends. “They’re tryin’ to read our minds.”
At least Aife’s ploy was working—maybe. But David’s fingers were sweating more, and the cursed, pervasive heat was a constant distraction, given how liquid was starting to pool on his forehead, run into his eyes, and make tickling forays the length of his body. He prayed nobody had an itchy trigger finger.
And then the steam cleared enough for David to glimpse the insignia emblazoned upon that approaching sail. Lugh’s device was argent, a sun-in-splendor, Or; or sometimes that sun on a field murry, sable, or gules. This was a parody of that: a golden field; a white sun impaled on a sword, the sun releasing a rain of scarlet drops across the lower half of the field—goutee de sang, in the jargon of heraldry.
Only then did he pause to wonder what device their own vessel bore. Earlier—last week—the sail had been crimson, displaying a silver American chameleon or anole, in reference to Fionchadd’s Cherokee name, Dagantu. If that still billowed above them, they were in trouble.
Unable to resist, David looked around, but the sail was mercifully furled, a bound cigar of
red fabric decorating the spar atop their mast.
But would that itself be read as a sign?
Closer now—the ship had covered half the distance between the two of them, and still no words had been spoken, though the troubling buzz half in his head, half in his ears was neither comforting nor intelligible, for it was entirely in the incredibly complex Faery ceremonial speech, which was distant kin to the most formal and highly inflected Gaelic.
Closer, and the dragon prows bobbed in the seething vapors, as though they too sought recognition.
Closer yet, and he saw their opponents clearly for the first time: tall, hard-faced men in golden surcoats ranged along the deck, with as many more of rougher shape, if not more roughly clad, among them, every other one, with a final Faery at the tiller.
David wondered if those mortals were there by choice and from what lands and places they hailed. He didn’t want to kill them, but knew he would if pressed: his death or another’s. But did these foes—the mortal ones—have family and friends who would mourn their loss with soul-wrenching regret? Or were they solos, soldiers of fortune recruited to a stranger war than any of them could ever have anticipated? Elyyoth hadn’t known, and Nuada had only ventured guesses: that they were not all men of David’s land or time. Aife had no idea at all; the utilization of mortals having come about after her departure from the Sons of Ailill.
Closer yet, and then, for the first time, David heard voices and the slow, heavy beat of some vast brazen drum.
Nuada’s warning was like lightning through David’s brain, and it took a moment to sort out the words. Should you seek to board that vessel, be very sure of your footing, for if you fall into the cauldron beneath us, mortal flesh will die!
And that was it. David’s only recourse now was waiting. A billow of steam washed between the vessels, and when it parted again, and he blinked the latest runnels of sweat from his eyes, the vessel was suddenly alongside, the shields along both gunwales not a dozen feet apart.