Warstalker's Track

by Tom Deitz

  Losing, for one thing. The tally stood one-and-one; the outcome of their quest therefore rested on him. What would happen should he lose, no one had dared ask, but from what he recalled from hanging out with Myra’s younger pals, these Faery guys were culturally, if not genetically, Celts. And Celts took heads, especially the less urbane variations, such as this fellow, with all those tattoos, seemed to represent.

  On the other hand, no less a person than Nuada Silverhand had praised his piping. And the King of the Faeries—Lugh, he thought, though he’d never seen the man’s face that awful time ago—had asked him to play as though his life depended on it. But he’d also enjoyed that playing, else he’d have demanded it end.

  “I will!” he said abruptly. “And may God have mercy on my soul.”

  LaWanda regarded him sharply, and he knew that she knew he took this very seriously indeed, to thus invoke the Deity. He was a good Catholic boy, after all; in his heart. And good Catholic boys did such things.

  Yd lifted an eyebrow. “I have no pipes.”

  Aife raised one in turn. “Nor do you need them, if Piper will lend his. There is no way for musicians to contest at once, save by volume of noise. You will therefore have to vie separately. We will all go outside, leaving the two of you within. You will chose which of you will go first, and you will each perform a lament, a jig, and a reel. I have heard neither of you perform, not even when I was a cat, for my memories of that time already grow dim. Therefore, I alone will judge. Is this acceptable to you?”

  “I guess so,” Piper mumbled.

  “It is!” Yd boomed, with what Piper read as forced bluster.

  “We will leave you to it, then,” Aife sighed, and ushered them all from the tower.

  Piper found himself alone with Yd, who’d drifted forward to stand opposite. “I don’t like this,” Piper told him. “I want you to know that.”

  “Nor I standing guard in this lonely place,” Yd replied, his voice tinged with such genuine regret Piper felt his eyes misting.

  “How do we decide?”

  Yd flashed an alarmingly mortal grin. “We flip a coin, if you have one. After all, we are more alike than different, in our souls.”

  “Maybe,” Piper grunted, fishing in his pocket to discover a single dime, which he placed on the table beside him. “You flip, I’ll call.”

  “Do you not fear that I might charm it?”

  Piper shrugged.

  Yd flashed an even wider grin, then slapped his hand on the coin and flipped it high into the air.

  “Heads,” Piper called at the apex of that flight.

  The coin landed. The hand came down. “Heads it is. The stage is yours.”

  “Thanks,” Piper whispered, and watched silently as Yd walked to the stairs and followed them up and out of sight. And then he closed his eyes, settled his pipes in his lap, and began to fill the bellows. A lament, a jig, and a reel, was it? Okay, then, he breathed, here goes!

  And with that James Morrison Murphy, who’d been named after another James Morrison, who was also a musician, began to play.

  He faltered once, torn between two tunes, then settled into something new that simply came to him, with elements borrowed from “Brian Boru’s March,” for the martial under tone that ought to underlie what he was about, and with echoes of the two saddest songs he knew: “Willie MacBride,” which was also called “Green Fields of France,” and “Foggy Dew.” For good measure he threw in one of those tunes Fionchadd had taught him on that strange, timeless voyage to the Land of the Powersmiths.

  Would he always bargain with music? he wondered, as he began a variation. Fionchadd had bribed him then with a new song in exchange for that other one he was still so loath to play, though he’d played it often of late. Music was his one great love, older than his love of rain, and far older than his very real love for LaWanda. But would he ever be able to play again, without recalling these two weeks? It was sad, is what it was: sad enough to deserve its own lament. And so, without conscious volition, he wove that sadness into his tune.

  He had no idea how long he played, save that he did four variations. As he began a fifth and final, he heard footsteps approaching. Fear gripped his heart, and more than fear, for though he played with both eyes shut, his practiced ear recognized Yd’s tread.

  “Open your eyes, James Morrison Murphy,” Yd said gently. Then, more forcefully: “Open your eyes!”

  Piper did, from the reflex of command. And missed a pair of beats, for Yd was kneeling at his feet, sword extended before him. “There is no way in any World, were I to practice a thousand years,” Yd whispered, “that I would ever be able to best you.”

  “You mean—?” Piper gaped.

  “Aye,” Yd acknowledged. “I am conceding.”

  “Well,” Piper said with a wry, sad smile. “I guess somebody ought to tell the others.”

  Yd rose and resheathed his sword. “I will walk through that door and relay my intent to those without, and then I will keep on walking, for I am no fit guardian of this place or any other.” He turned at that, swept his dagged cloak off the floor, but did not don it, nor any of his armor. Instead, barefoot and bare-chested, he strode toward the heavy oak panel. Almost there, he twisted ’round and pointed up the stairs. “The library lies there—what remains of it. I hope you find what you need.”

  Piper’s final glimpse of him stayed with him forever: a black man-shape cut out against an arch of light.

  “Well, lads,” he informed his pipes, “we did it.”

  Interlude III: Candlelight Afternoon

  (near Clayton, Georgia—Sunday, June 29—mid-afternoon)

  Adventure, Brock decided, midway through the afternoon, wasn’t all it was cracked up to be. Nor was magic. Certainly neither was anything to write home about when you weren’t actively involved in ’em. Except that wasn’t true either, because the one time lately he had been actively involved, namely the attack on the ship, hadn’t been fun at all, because he’d been scared absolutely shitless.

  True, he’d been pumped, right up to the point Nuada yelled “Go!” But somehow that neat tableau had gone all to hell, and all of sudden it was all heat and noise and pain and stench and yelling and chaos; and when that dagger had ripped through his jacket inches from his side (which he’d not bothered to mention, and hoped no one had noticed)—well, he’d basically gone catatonic and spent the rest of the fight crouching behind the gunwale on the pretext of awaiting a clear shot he’d never intended to make.

  And then there’d been the daring escape, which really had been neat, until the crash landing, whereupon he’d found himself as useful as last year’s calendar, without even a pinup to justify saving him.

  Which brought him to here and now: sitting on the hard wooden floor of John Devlin’s “secret room” watching four candles slowly burn down to nothing, and trying to be alert for any unusual flicker or flare. Which on the one hand was worthwhile because it freed the big guns to do…big gun things, but still pissed him because it wasn’t like he was a complete novice with this stuff either. Shoot, hadn’t Cal suggested he go to Faerie to start with because he thought that crew needed somebody learned in another magic tradition? And in spite of what he’d said, Cal could’ve accomplished most of what he’d done by telephone, and gone himself.

  But however young and naive he was, he was old enough to know how fruitless such speculations could be, and that playing “what if” mainly served to frustrate you if it didn’t simply piss you off. So here he was, trying to be cool and conscientious, and to maybe pick up something about this mysterious “tradition” John was supposed to be party to or practitioner of. And maybe what his mysterious “other protection” might be.

  He thought he’d figured that out, though, from a half-finished poem he’d noticed on John’s desk during one of his off-duty phases. “To the Family Banshee” had been the title, and he knew from talking to Cal that at least one family banshee was real, namely David’s. But John’s clan was Irish, too, so it
made sense for him to have one of those…whatever they were hanging around as well.

  At which point footsteps sounded outside, rousing him from what had become a dangerous reverie. He sat up straighter, twisted his neck to hear it crack, snapped every knuckle in turn. And tried to determine who’d just passed by his tread. John, most likely; the shoes had sounded heavier than those soft boots Silverhand wore, though the two probably massed about the same. But then he heard the toilet flush and that decided him. Try as he would, he couldn’t imagine a lord of the Sidhe using a porcelain loo, or excreting at all, for that matter. They did have fairly efficient metabolisms, and that was a fact.

  So maybe good old Johnny D. was gonna ease in and relieve him, though he still had thirty minutes (by the timer rings on yet another candle) on his shift.

  Alas, such was not the case, and so he sat and stared first at the candle of the north, then at its twin to the south, then to the east, then to the west, and then the whole thing backwards, and finally, at the bare floor between to rest his eyes from the glare.

  North, south, east, west…

  …east, south, north, south, east, west…

  …east…

  East!

  East had just flared, which meant Power was being brought to bear there! His hackles began to rise, for north had flared as well…and west! And finally south.

  “John!” he yelled as he bolted for the door, while chill after chill raced across his body. “You’d better look at this right now!”

  Chapter XIII: Absent Friends, Absent Foes

  (Galunlati—high summer)

  If Sandy had retained any doubts about whether Uki was in fact a weather elemental, his reaction to Fionchadd’s confirmation of Lugh’s disappearance dispelled them. From his place across the smooth soapstone slab on which Okacha had spread an excellent feast of wild game and barely tamed vegetables, Uki rose with a grim, slow steadiness so full of latent tension it was like the air before a summer thunderstorm. His eyes flashed with sparks not born of biology; every muscle on his body quivered like leaves enduring rain; his long braids seemed to stir of their own volition.

  Faster than any mortal could have moved, or any Faery she’d ever met, Uki swept both arms straight out, then over his head, pointed at the cavern’s ceiling, fifty feet above—and shouted.

  Or was it a shout? The word merged into the crack of palms impacting, which became a true blast of thunder, as lightning—the genuine, electrical article—snapped from Uki’ s hands in a blinding white pillar of raw energy that struck the roof and splattered across the ceiling and down the walls to the floor. Stones rained down, fortunately not many, though she had to duck her head and David, beside her, yipped in alarm as the air went so thick with the stench of ozone she gagged. Snakes hissed. Those near the walls writhed and died. The pool in which Calvin and Lugh had swum an hour past bubbled and steamed, while the air went hot as a forge. Every hair on her body stood absolutely straight out on end.

  “Liar!” Uki shouted, his voice barely lower than the brassy thunder that rang around the cavern as though trapped there, echoing, making her bones thrum, awakening a headache behind her eyes that would be long abating.

  “Liar!” Uki spat again, lowering his arms to glare at them. “Why should I not blast you all, who call such a liar friend?”

  Another blast cracked from his hands, scarcely less violent than the first, save that it wrought ball lightning that bounced and smashed dangerously near the company. More snakes died. The cougars spat and loped through a low arch into an adjoining chamber. Sandy closed her eyes.

  Thunder: like drums exploding.

  Another flash: more ball lightning. But that crackling died away abruptly, as though sucked into a vacuum.

  “Enough!” Calvin yelled through the echoes. Sandy blinked up to see her lover on his feet, facing his mentor across the soapstone slab, both hands gripping the atasi one of Uki’s fellow demigods had given him: upraised now, as though to block a blow aimed at his head. An atasi which had apparently just absorbed a cavern’s worth of galvanic pyrotechnics.

  “Enough,” Calvin repeated more softly, swallowing hard, lowering the atasi to waist level, though the anger in his eyes had not abated. Sandy was sorry for him. Cal hated confrontation, yet he was the obvious counter here; though she doubted he relished the role of lightning rod in a storm-god’s citadel. “Not friend so much as ally,” he managed at last. “War sometimes makes strange bedfellows. A week ago, Lugh was our enemy. He threatened my home World and David’s—Yanu-degahnehiha’s, I mean. Then someone threatened Lugh and our World, and that threat was worse than Lugh’s, and he became the lesser foe: someone who might have cause to bargain.”

  Uki’s eyes narrowed. The tension that crackled through his body diminished minutely. “I see.”

  Calvin took another breath. “Sometimes, Adewehiyu, it is best to address business before formality. We are on the edge of war, and war rarely waits for breakfast.”

  “I will hear this tale,” Uki declared coldly.

  Sandy cleared her throat into the ensuing silence. “Perhaps,” she ventured, “it would be best to find out where Lugh is first. He’s been under tremendous pressure, after all; was barely recovered, in fact. We’ve no proof he was in his right mind when he left, but whether he’s crazy or sane, he’s powerful. He’s also a rogue element.”

  Uki glared at her so vehemently Sandy was certain she was about to receive her own personal thunderbolt, and was already steeling herself for whatever came when Uki uttered a terse “So be it!” and reached down to snare an enormous diamondback rattler that happened to be coiling by. One breath, and he stared the serpent straight in its beady black eyes. The next, he’d shifted his grip behind the heavy jowls of the ugly triangular head. Whether by force, magic, or the snake’s own outraged ire, its jaws popped open, revealing inch-long fangs—that pierced Uki’s impressive pecs to the bone when he slapped that head against his chest. Blood oozed from between those needle-teeth as Uki’s features knotted in pain, though he held the serpent there for a long, still moment of frozen time.

  Abruptly, Uki flung the reptile to the ground, where it lay quiescent—whether sated, stunned, or dead, Sandy had no time to determine. For Uki had crossed the two paces between them and the pool and stepped into its center. Blood dripped into that pristine water.

  It spread outward at once, sheening the surface with a film of glowing red. Uki scowled at it briefly; muttered a certain word; reached to a waist-pouch to retrieve a handful of corn, which he flung into the gleaming water; then eased back to crouch on the pool’s rim. A deeper scowl, and he clapped his hands once more, prompting a tiny bolt of lightning which flared out across the surface like flaming oil. “You may watch,” he grunted, and continued to stare.

  Sandy wasn’t sure she wanted to watch. Then again, any knowledge was better than none, so she rose gracefully and padded barefoot to squat beside Calvin, who’d claimed the place to Uki’ s right. At first she saw nothing, though the stench—ozone and burned blood—made her want to gag all over again, but then the pool began to ripple and stir and she lost herself in wonder.

  At first, all she saw was red: water dancing and swirling as though lit by sunset fire. But those ripples gradually rose and stabilized into miniature mountains, while the swirls flowed in between them and fixed themselves into streams, lakes, and rivers, and some of the shadows took on green highlights like burning copper, so that she found herself gazing down on an eerie relief map of a strange, wild country that had to be Wallala. The limits went vague at the west, drifting into a black that had nothing to do with shadows. The east seemed brighter, and a thread of red-gold beach gleamed there, edge of an unknown sea. The north was bluish, the mountains there higher, where they merged with the pool’s stone frame. A lake sparkled there, too: ruby against red velvet.

  And south: White like forge fire. Like Uki’s anger. Like his skin, or Lugh’s.

  Uki’s hands crept sideways, to where Lugh’s foot
prints were graven in the sand, and snared a fistful of grains. Another word, and he sprinkled them into the water, at the same time reciting a version of the formula for finding Sandy had heard both Cal and Brock use a score of times before.

  For a moment nothing happened, but then motes began to drift to the surface, thickest at the tiny waterfall in the northern point of the southernmost quadrant, which she was certain marked this very cave. A hard clot of golden light formed there, moved infinitesimally toward the minute cataract, then pulsed bright and vanished, but not before a strip of gold had blazed across the miniature landscape like a meteor. And then the light winked out.

  “Gone,” Uki grunted, rising with what seemed like genuine weariness, or perhaps that was some aftereffect of all that rattlesnake poison.

  “He called a Track, I think,” Fionchadd dared, barely breathing. “Or rent the World Walls themselves and went elsewhere.”

  “But why?” Sandy ventured in turn. “And where’d he go in such an all-fired hurry?”

  Fionchadd cleared his throat. “The haste is likely due to the way time runs between the Worlds. The rest—who can say? Lugh came here and the Power of this Land awoke his own Power enough to restore his thought and memory, and to enable him to take on that form which would most easily free him from the iron that tormented him. That accomplished, he…left. He has lost a kingdom, do not forget. He would surely seek to reclaim it, which is not easily done from here. Still, he would have had to enter your World first; there would have been no alternative to that. Given that, he would likely seek out Nuada, whom he would know at once was there.”