Warstalker's Track

by Tom Deitz

  “Ma is gonna kill me,” he said at last, to nobody. “She is gonna fucking kill me.” What had he been thinking, anyway, to drag his pa into crap like this? And what had his pa been thinking?

  “I knew the risk,” Big Billy rasped through a sleepy cough. And with that, his body went limp.

  For a moment—far too long, as though time itself held its breath—David thought his pa had died. But then he caught the swell of his ribs, the pulse of a vein where his surprisingly small ear met the rough auburn thatch of hair. Abruptly he was on his knees, weapons thrust roughly aside, oblivious to the confusion of voices around him: questions, answers, groans, and cries of jubilation—his companions trying to sort out the battle they had just, somehow, survived. A second only it took to locate his cloak and roll it into a pad to slip beneath his father’s head. Barely longer was required to rip away the tatters of his surcoat and, very gently, use it to wipe away the blood (What kind of blood? Human? Or Faery?) that ensanguined his father’s face. Aikin joined him, silent, face a screwy mixture of elation and concern; and with the aid of his friend’s trusty Gerber, David managed to cut the heavy khaki work shirt away from the wound. A strip from the surcoat made a makeshift dike against the steady seep of blood. Only when they’d finished did Aikin speak. “If that was war, I don’t like it.”

  David merely nodded—and didn’t look up until a shadow fell upon him. “You have done what you can,” came Nuada’s voice: a veil of silk across polished metal. “Now come; the sooner we complete our mission, the sooner we can attend his healing.”

  “No,” David mumbled. “I don’t have any fight left in me right now. No ideas. No feelings. Nothin’. Just…go away.”

  A hand brushed his shoulder: Nuada’s living one. He flinched, tensed to fling it away, then felt the reality of it, and a sense of—not love, but honest concern that leapt the gap between their selves and their races alike. The Faery’s anger, it seemed, had been short-lived.

  Even so, David started to protest, but Big Billy opened his eyes. Funny how David had never noticed how startlingly blue they were. “Go on,” his father whispered. “I can hang on. And if I don’t…well, at least I’ve seen some things most folks ain’t.”

  David nodded mutely, patted his father on the shoulder, and rose to join the others sprawling in a rough semicircle around Fionchadd, who, minus his tunic, was sitting up, looking very pale. David sought automatically for the wound in his side, but saw no more than a patch of red-stained skin surrounding an angry pucker that even as he watched grew smaller. “Would that all wounds were of such like,” the Faery volunteered.

  “Would,” Aife agreed in a hard voice. “I—”

  “So where’s this Iron Dungeon?” Aikin broke in, already breaking down his shotgun. “Second question: how long have we got to find it?”

  Aife puffed her cheeks. “Look around you and recall what you know about the substance of Faerie, the nature of iron, and reaction between the two.”

  Aikin frowned, but Brock spoke up at once. “Iron’s hot—in this World. And this water’s boiling, which means—”

  “That the Iron Dungeon is within the water,” Aife finished for him. “Very good.”

  David’s heart sank. “So we have to go…underwater?”

  Aife shook her head. “The Iron Dungeon is the heart of this cavern, at once within it and not, as the Pillar is here and elsewhere. And the cavern is equal parts air and water, as its shell is earth, and fire pierces it, top to bottom. The Dungeon is exactly in the center of it all.”

  David craned his neck to peer over the gunwale toward the Pillar of Fire that had delivered them here, more than ever convinced it was not entirely present.

  “It is not,” Aife confirmed, as though she’d read his thought. “That is how we were able to pass through the Dungeon itself, before we were spat out here.”

  Brock shook his head in utter confusion. “I don’t get it.”

  “You’re not supposed to,” David muttered. “I don’t either.”

  Aikin, too, regarded the flame uneasily. “You said that the folks guardin’ this place had sent out a call for help? So when’ll they get here? More to the point, can we assume they’ll also come through the Pillar?”

  Aife shrugged. “Soon, probably, to the first. As to the latter, I would suppose so.” She glanced at Fionchadd. “Do you think…?”

  “It would be my best guess.”

  “What about the Dungeon itself?” LaWanda wondered. “What, exactly, is it?”

  “Different things at different times,” Aife replied. “To some degree it conforms to the strengths and weaknesses of whomever it imprisons.” She paused, fished in her belt pouch, and to David’s surprise, withdrew an ordinary yellow pencil and a small pack of Post-it notes upon which she began to sketch. A sphere, divided at the equator, chains extending inward to support the body of a man spread-eagled by manacles at his extremities—all exquisitely rendered in about ten seconds, giving the lie to Faery infacility at art.

  Aikin scowled at it. “Is this accurate?”

  “An accurate guess. The chains support him so that his body does not actually touch the iron, yet its heat can—almost—destroy him.”

  The scowl deepened. “So I assume he’s got an air supply?”

  “His captors would not have him die of suffocation before they are ready for his death in truth.”

  “So why doesn’t he just shapeshift and escape that way?”

  “Because the pain of the iron makes it impossible for him to concentrate, and even one such as Lugh must exercise discipline in order to alter his form. Too, even if he did escape his manacles, he would fall to the bottom of the sphere, which would be his doom. Oh, he might hover in bird shape for a space of hours—days, maybe even years—but eventually he would tire. So, no, there is no escape from that place, for one of Faerie. Its designers knew that very well.”

  It was David’s turn to look puzzled. “Still, whoever controls the Dungeon has to have some way to get prisoners in and out. You folks can’t actually teleport, best I can tell, therefore there has to be an opening—hinges—something. The thing can’t all be in one piece.”

  “Actually, it could,” Aife countered, “but in this case, you are likely correct.”

  Brock squinted toward the fire. “It can’t be very big or we could see it.”

  “Maybe thrice your height across,” Aife supplied.

  “So if we could get hold of it, could we, like, tie something to it and drag it to this ship, and then open it up here?”

  “That was my thinking,” Aife acknowledged.

  “Mine as well,” Fionchadd echoed. “The problem lies in reaching it. None of you mortals can bear the touch of those flames beyond the confines of this vessel. Yet no one who is Faery can handle iron. Which leaves—”

  “Me,” Nuada finished, flourishing his silver hand—which he’d evidently “repowered” during the postbattle chaos. “Watch!” And his shape began to shimmer.

  God, I’m gettin’ jaded, David thought, as he stared at the elder Faery. He’d seen the Sidhe shapeshift before, of course, but never truly watched it. As best he could tell, it was much faster and far less bound to the limits of one’s physical body than what he and Aik and Cal had assayed with the aid of uktena scales. Heat went with it, too, which he’d never noticed before. The bottom line was that one instant he was looking at a tall, imposing, if slender-limbed, man; the next he was gazing at a glowing blur of particles, and then, abruptly, the particles solidified into another shape: low-slung, four-legged, maybe six feet long, sleek in a reptilian way, and patently not human.

  “Lizard,” he blurted, then squinted, realizing that the skin was smooth, the nose blunt, the joints more splayed, and that a filigree of gills erupted from the juncture of head and neck. And that it was red and faintly glowing.

  “Salamander,” Brock corrected. “Saw ’em in a heraldry book.”

  “Salamander, fuck!” Aikin snorted. “No salamander’s that b
ig.”

  “Heraldry,” Brock repeated. `Most of the critters I’ve seen or heard of here exist in heraldry books, though not always exactly the same.”

  “This one is,” Aife informed him as the beast waddled toward the rail. “And if you, young badger, know enough to recognize such a creature, you also know why that shape serves us now.”

  Brock’s brow furrowed briefly, but then his face lit up. “Fire!” he exclaimed. “Folks used to believe salamanders lived in fire.”

  “Bullshit!” Aikin huffed again.

  David elbowed him. “Not our World. Not our laws. Benefit of the doubt.”

  Aikin elbowed him back. “Christ, he’s goin’ over!”

  And so he was: the beast had reared up on its stubby hind legs, laid its forelegs—one of which did not quite match the others, and not merely because it was made of silver—on the gunwale, and in one fluid movement thrust itself overboard. Aife was behind it instantly, releasing the many-hooked anchor with its long coil of gleaming, gold-toned chain. David joined the other ambulatory members of the company at the rail, trying to pierce the incessant sweeps and veils of vapors to view the seething water. At first he couldn’t find it, but then he saw: the salamander swimming strongly, the chain clutched between triangular jaws.

  It was barely a hundred yards to the Pillar, which was maybe thrice that distance across. Presumably Nuada knew what he was doing: turning himself into a creature impervious to flame; locating the Dungeon, securing the chain, and then—what?

  David didn’t care. He’d caught sight of his father again, and all his angst—his raw terror—over his father’s condition returned in force. Somehow, he realized, he’d made a decision. He did not have to lead, did not have to be party to every decision made that concerned affairs between the Mortal World and the realm of the Sidhe. Others there were who could think as well as he, who knew as many of the facts. Who were more levelheaded and rational. Let them figure it out. Himself—well, his pa was lying on the deck with a good-sized stick of kindling in his back! More to the point, his pa could easily die. This might be the last time they had together this side of the veil.

  Steeling his face to as much calm as he could muster, he made his way to where he could sit down and shift his father’s head to rest in his lap.

  Aikin joined him—silent, as was his way, but his face full of concern. Funny how he’d never really appreciated Aik until now. Then again, when had the two of them weathered a crisis solo? There’d always been Alec, or Liz, or the rest of the Gang. And even when Aik had actually been present, the guy was so low-key you often forgot he was around—except when he was gaming, but that wasn’t so much Aikin as his quasi-twin: the creative persona that masked the actual him.

  “Thanks,” David whispered, reaching out to pat his friend on the knee.

  “No problem.”

  And then it returned to haunt him—another “it”—one of those dreadful things he’d experienced but not yet processed, obscured, as it was, by his father’s injury, their own precarious situation. “I killed a guy,” he choked. “One of…us. I crushed his throat. He was as alive as I am; maybe had a family or friends or huntin’ and drinkin’ buddies. People who loved him. And all that’s over—’cause of me. Somebody’s gonna hate me forever ’cause I did something I thought was right.”

  Aikin nodded solemnly. “All my life I’ve wondered about this—about war: how it’d feel. About how our uncles and fathers and brothers dealt with ’Nam and stuff. How they felt then, how they slept at night after. Whether it followed ’em.” A pause. “I know the answer now, yet I don’t. See, on one level, it’s the easiest thing in the world: twitch your finger, powder ignites, shot flies, somebody falls down dead. I did that: Faery guy. Hell, I think we were both surprised when the damned thing went off. Double whammy on me when he toppled.” He looked away, to the horizon. “I knew what to expect—imagined it pretty good, anyway—but it didn’t help. Ain’t helpin’ now, either.”

  David nodded in turn. “At least they don’t stay dead—if they’re strong. They come back—their souls do. But that guy I killed—”

  “Who knows?” Aikin grunted. “But you’re not the first guy who did something awful for a good reason—not the Cove, either, though I know that’s important. But we’re talkin’ peace between the Worlds, here. And don’t forget what Elyyoth said: the Sons recruited…not bad guys, maybe, but unconnected guys. Folks nobody would miss, whose lives were already messed up, or why didn’t they have somebody to care about ’em or to care for?”

  “Maybe,” David conceded. “But I’m gonna feel that windpipe crack for—”

  “As long as you live,” Big Billy rasped, beside him. David looked down to see his father’s eyes open again. “I did that once. I still hear it. Not much comfort there, but sometimes just knowin’ you’re not alone helps.”

  “Thanks, Pa,” David whispered, and realized he was crying.

  Aikin stirred beside him, clearly uncomfortable at his proximity to so personal a moment, yet also, David suspected, glad to have had the chance to share. A shadow fell across them; soft footsteps came to a stop behind. David caught a whiff of LaWanda’s strange herbal perfume, and wondered if she’d used any of her patented “juju” in the battle. She’d seemed to be an awfully good shot. Maybe too good. “We won,” she murmured. “Doesn’t help this, though. Sorry.”

  “What’s goin’ on?” David asked, not looking up.

  “Can’t see the Lizard-man no more—too much steam. Cat-woman’s watchin’. Elf-boy is too—like he wasn’t even stuck in the side. Kid’s about to go crazy. I—”

  Her words were cut off by an exultant shout from Brock. “I see ’im!” he yelped. “He’s coming back.”

  David grimaced, and carefully removed his father’s head from his lap before crossing to the rail. At first he saw nothing save the swirling steam, backlit by the Pillar of Fire. He searched the bubbling waters vainly. Then, bright red against the blood-dark hues around it, as though the heat had brightened his natural hue: Nuada, still in salamander form, swimming strongly back toward them.

  Without the chain—which meant, David hoped, that he’d been successful.

  Steam obscured his vision, almost scalding hot, forcing him to wipe his eyes and face, and when he could see again, Nuada was alongside and Aife was reaching down to help him aboard. David joined them, but had to retreat when he glimpsed what floated thick in the water around them: ship wrack, mostly, but also a spiraling eddy of what could only be intestines. Not until he heard the slick thump of Nuada slithering over the gunwale did he look that way again, to see the Faery lord already shifting shape.

  David caught a fleeting glimpse of sleek bare flesh and silver metal before Nuada resumed his former form—clothes and all. “It was as we thought,” the Faery announced, so quickly his words were slurred by his still-changing mouth and lips. “There were hooks all around—evidently it was made to be moved, which I did not know. I was able to attach the anchor securely and to determine that Lugh is within—and well, if not happy.”

  “But wait,” Brock began, “if you’re Faery, and the Dungeon’s iron—”

  Aikin elbowed him. “His hand’s not iron though. Right?” he added, to Nuada.

  “Yes and no. Iron devours everything of Faerie, but not at the same rate. My silver arm withstood it longer than my fleshly one might—and can be replaced. Still, much longer and I would have sported a melted stump.” He flexed his fingers before them for emphasis. The metal joints of palm and finger were bubbled and distorted, as though a hand wrought of wax had been set too near a flame.

  “Hopefully,” Nuada went on, “when next we deal with it, it will be mortal hands that perform the labor.”

  “Speaking of which,” Aife sighed, “do we free Lugh here, or flee first and release him at our leisure?”

  “We secure his prison, then decide.”

  Aife returned to where Fionchadd was resting on the deck; in spite of the lack of outward sign, he
was clearly not entirely recovered from his wound. Which made David wonder how functional any of the Faeries were. They had endurance in spades, but evidently didn’t bounce back quickly. And Fionchadd had managed scant rest the last several days. Still, the Faery youth rose—stiffly—and joined Aife at the slot in the railing from which the anchor depended. A word—be-cause it was his personal ship—and the chain began to retract. David watched it briefly, then turned back to the Pillar. For a moment, he saw nothing, but eventually he made out a humping darkness inside the burning shaft, that clarified as the flame washed around it (turning whatever fires touched it purple), then became much clearer as it pierced that veil and entered the boiling sea. It was fifty yards away, at a guess, but another word hastened its approach dramatically. A pair of breaths and it had covered half the distance. A dozen more and it was beside them, no more than ten feet out: a dark orb of rusty metal maybe twenty feet across, crusted with hooks and excrescences; it looked like nothing so much as an old-style water mine, save for the yard-wide strip of grating that circled its equator like the rings of Saturn. David wondered where the metal had come from. The makers of the Dungeon had used human wrights—among others. Had they pilfered wrecked vessels from his World as well? Or was the Dungeon too old for that?

  “Perhaps I could open it,” Nuada admitted. “But I have not the strength I once had, and have just spent much of what remained. It would better if you mortals—”

  LaWanda’s curt nod cut him off. “Any locks?”

  Nuada stared at Aife pensively. “I noted none, but it makes no sense to imprison one such as Lugh without them—and spells to secure them, and more spells to bind those spells.”

  Aife’s brow furrowed in turn. “But they imprisoned him in haste—in iron, which they can no more manipulate than can we, and against which spells bind but scantily. The way water will not adhere to some materials in your World,” she added to a puzzled Brock. “Nor would wyvern skin have been sufficient; they must have used their human minions.”

  “And whatever spells were employed must be simple ones, if the Sons could set them in haste,” Fionchadd observed.