Warstalker's Track

by Tom Deitz

  And he knew where that weakness lay.

  Aife!

  A thought that was not thought acknowledged it; a cluster of images explained. The Power alive in the pool had to come from somewhere, and in practice it came from life, since Power was the active aspect of spirit as energy was to matter. But once the pool began to draw it evidently couldn’t be stopped. And Aife had been wounded, then fallen into the hungry water. It had sucked at her wound at once, never stopping, even when she stood, but continuing to reach up from its surface through her clothes to the skin of water that sheathed her wound. In effect, she was bleeding to death. Her only hope was that they would finish their task before she succumbed.

  David felt her terror, as he felt the strength of her resolve. The movement was well along now; indeed, the Land itself was all but relocated, there only remained the sealing-off to conclude. Already she’d begun: finding the heart of Tir-Nan-Og and withdrawing the Tracks from that center, feeding those farther out, making them larger, thicker, deeper; pouring them into a moat of time/space/matter that could never be forded by anyone approaching from the Lands of Men, even to drowning the Tracks that led there from that World.

  It would still be accessible from the rest of Faerie, he/she/they knew, as a bridge could span a river. But the river itself would never reach up to the bridge.

  Which was interesting but hardly helpful, and the worst thing was there was absolutely nothing he could do. Oh, he had blood, but the pool was already sucking at that the way it sucked at her: through wet clothes and skin to his various open wounds.

  Which might soon be a problem, but not yet.

  But what else could he give? Desire? Passion? Strength of will?

  “Things have Power because you give them Power,” Oisin—bless his name—had said. And he suspected that a decade’s worth of love, enjoyment, and passion had empowered what had until then been an ordinary pool. Or added to it, since David-the-Elder had felt the same about it, and probably two centuries of kin before that.

  But if he’d had Power to manage that, perhaps some remained to contribute now.

  But how?

  Like Alec said: by simply worrying at it? Or—

  Think, that which was Calvin broke in, that you’re doing it for Brock.

  David hesitated, fearing to go there again. But then he recalled the things he’d liked about the boy, and then not those things, but simply the liking itself. And suddenly Power was rushing out of himself in a rising flood as he freed emotions he’d never dared expose.

  Liz felt it, too, and in that odd dispassionate analytical way she had, likewise found the method to his act and followed. An instant later, so did Alec.

  All at once they were the driving force, freeing Aife to focus purely on shaping her working to its final form. She was still weakening, though; David felt her slipping as his Power surged into places hers instants before had been, even as she withdrew further.

  But they were almost done. The “moat” was complete. There only remained their own retreat and tying off the “loose end” with one final cauterization of Power.

  …decided…

  …doing…

  …done!

  It was over. They’d done it! Tir-Nan-Og had indeed been moved. He could feel their Power receding; see it, even; for as it slid from around the Tracks and Pillars, each one sparked as that Power touched it and whirled on by, leaving Tir-Nan-Og alone, an island in an ocean of formless dark.

  But the drawing had not abated, so that he felt himself starting to gasp, in that flimsy shell that was his body. Seriously alarmed, he tried to retreat but couldn’t! He was no longer feeding Aife; rather, she was draining him—and everyone else besides.

  Not my fault! she cried. My self seeks to survive.

  What? From Alec.

  David’s heart fluttered. He felt sick, what part of him could feel at all.

  My life! Aife repeated. To end this all, the spell must have a life.

  David felt her desire even as he felt Alec deny it. No! Alec screamed, there in that not-place. No! No! No!

  I would never make you happy, my Alec. If you would make me happy, slay me now!

  NO!

  YES!

  NO!

  I will, came another presence. And may Alec’s wrath fall on my soul!

  No! David had no idea who that had been.

  But he knew when it was finished. He gasped as Aife’s final pain flashed out to fill the world. His heart stopped, then restarted, faster. His lungs went numb. His brain froze back to a soup of chemicals.

  It was like a rubber band stretched to breaking, then released. One moment he was part of everyone, Aife in particular. The next, he was himself: rain-soaked and shivering in a pool of cold mountain water.

  Gazing at Aife standing there with closed eyes and Fionchadd’s dagger in her heart. She balanced briefly, in a tunic of black silk that had become her pall, then slowly slumped backwards into the water, where she floated amid a cloud of drapery and hair: Millais’s Ophelia’s dark twin. Her face looked very peaceful.

  David closed his eyes to blot out the image. And because he still clutched Alec’s hand, and Alec still held Aife’s, he caught her final thought. Farewell, my Alec: I truly did love you—and truly, truly I am sorry!

  And then, like one of those Christmas lights winking out, all that made her real was gone.

  Alec’s hand tightened so hard David felt bones start to grind. He had no choice but to free his other from Liz’s to lay it on his best friend’s shoulder. “Gotta let go, man. Me and her. She’s gone.”

  “Gone,” Alec echoed numbly. “Gone.”

  “I am sorry,” Fionchadd offered. “Hate me if you will, but her life was her own to give or keep.”

  “I know,” Alec acknowledged shakily, releasing David’s hand. “But eventually she’ll return. I just won’t be there to see it.” He paused for a deep breath. “Not that I won’t be around to see it; I just won’t make the effort.”

  “Can’t make the effort,” Aikin corrected roughly.

  Alec stared woodenly. “That hasn’t stopped us—any of us—before. No,” he added, “I mean won’t.”

  “If you can make yourself believe that,” Myra murmured, reaching over to hug him, “you’ve already started healing.”

  “I never really had her,” Alec choked. “She was like a painting. Never real. It’s easy to let go of that. Once you know it only was a painting.”

  David swallowed hard, reminded too forcefully of Brock. “Am I right, or did we really and truly get this thing done?”

  Fionchadd closed his eyes, looking sick, tired, and very, very pale. When he opened them again, those eyes looked centuries older. “Tir-Nan-Og no longer touches this World. It is as if…as if it had once been the second level of a building of which this World is first, and is now a thousand levels higher. The Tracks still reach there, but are tenuous. As for the rest of Faerie—since Tir-Nan-Og is the strongest of the realms, I think the rest will feel its call and…follow.”

  “Which means,” David said bleakly, “we just drove magic out of the World.”

  “Nothing is without cost,” Fionchadd countered. And without further word, he slogged toward the shallows.

  “I wonder,” Aikin mused as he joined David, Alec, and Liz on a boulder, “what’s goin’ on with Lugh?”

  “It’s not raining,” Alec chuckled edgily. “That should tell you something.”

  “Aye,” Fionchadd agreed. “It says the drowning spell weakens with distance.”

  “So what now?” Liz asked, to nobody.

  “Deal with these bodies, for one thing,” Scott said, looking hard at Fionchadd. “Any ideas?”

  Fionchadd shook his head absently. “At the moment I am pondering what I am going to do with…me.”

  Interlude X: Claims

  I

  (Tir-Nan-Og—high summer)

  …more doors, but these were the final set before the ones Lugh sought. He was angry now and impatient a
t all this blood, all this carnage, all these not-so-loyal subjects slain in vain. The palace was littered with them, in all shapes, races, and sizes, not all of them even vaguely human. One could trace his progress through the halls by wet, red horseshoe prints; sprawled, often headless, bodies; and sundered body parts.

  And weapons. Faery weapons he kept; mortal ones—swords, guns, or whatever—he ordered thrust into a bag of wyvern hide for disposal later—into a Hole.

  But all that was behind him, as a word sent another barrier crashing down, this one a massive slab of heavy hammered bronze. Six armspans high, those doors had been, and they crushed a dozen defenders beneath them as they fell. The rest cowered back or were swept there by the force of Lugh’s spell.

  And then he confronted the final portals. These were solid gold and twenty armspans high, and had been made by an Italian craftsman whose death in the Lands of Men had been a fabrication. Lugh considered dismounting but changed his mind and eased Sunstorm up beside the juncture. No word opened these doors, and no spell; only the merest touch of a finger. His finger. An army of muscular mortals could not have budged them otherwise.

  Silently they swung back, and very slowly. Lugh used that time to position himself for maximum effect, as the panels parted enough for him to steer Sunstorm through. And though he’d entered what lay beyond countless times before, beholding his throne hall from the entrance always took his breath away.

  He had no idea how long it was or how wide. And no notion whatever of how high, though the doors he’d just passed had always seemed too small to be in scale. He had merely drawn it like he wanted, shown that sketch to his builders, and they had raised his dream: a fantasy of pure white pillars soaring to a distant, marble filigree sky. Paving stretched ahead: mosaics in subtle pale colors but impossibly intricate designs; and beyond the pillars gleamed windows that could also be murals or mirrors, but which let in whatever light he desired, for those panes could store such things. Turinne had anticipated him, too, and commanded them to twilight.

  Which suited Lugh fine. This was twilight, of a kind; though more as the Sidhe reckoned that hour: the beginning of the day, not the languid end mortals ordained.

  Something would end today, that was for certain. Or someone.

  In spite of the eagerness that surged within him, Lugh held back, deliberately letting his shape be cut out against the brighter light behind him. It gave his eyes a chance to adjust, too; the room was that big and that much englamoured. Indeed, it took a moment to locate his adversary, though he’d never doubted he would find him here.

  Turinne entered on foot from between two pillars to the right of the distant throne, which was the route that led to Lugh’s quarters, which surely meant he’d found an important something Lugh kept hidden there. A chill raced over the High King, born alike of dread and anticipation, for he’d counted on the absence of that something to validate his cause.

  Turinne had it in his hand: the plain, white-bladed knife through which King and Land were joined. He made sure Lugh saw it, too: that shard of white fire against all that fine green fabric he wore beneath an amazing heraldic cloak.

  But Lugh had a fine cloak as well: feathers from the birds of Galunlati. A wind he summoned made that plumage flutter, even as it sang through the mouths of the heads bouncing before his knees to either side. And then he set heels to his horse and paced slowly and steadily down the center of the hall toward the throne.

  Lugh was playing for effect, but Turinne knew its value as well, though who either of them was trying to impress, Lugh had no idea. He had his scraggly army at his back; Turinne had brought his partisans, who spread out behind the throne in a solid wall of dazed-looking mortals spaced every third one with grimly competent Sidhe. The vast echoing space between the two was empty, save for an unclaimed throne.

  Three things could happen now. Turinne could bond with the throne and let the Land choose its own master. He could command his mortal guardsmen to open fire on Lugh and his ragtag army, but that was the coward’s way, the dishonorable way, and a way of which the Land would not approve. Or he could face Lugh in combat, which was likely the choice he favored; for now Lugh was close enough to see what he suspected he was intended to see: the glitter of mail beneath all that finery. Lugh had to admire him for that; standing aground to meet an armored king on horseback spoke of courage, competence, or simply chivalry that carried its own impact.

  And then they were close enough to speak.

  “Yield to me, Turinne mac Angus mac Offai!” Lugh thundered. “Throw down that which you hold, which you surely know is no mere weapon, and surrender to me. I will let you live.”

  Turinne eased around to block access to the throne. “Aye!” he shouted back. “But there is living and there is being alive. Are you certain you mean not the latter? The fate I gave you, perhaps? Ten thousand years in the Iron Dungeon, with iron dust blown in? Ten thousand years devoted purely to pain.”

  Lugh grinned wickedly. “That had occurred to me, and anticipating such subterfuge proves you do think somewhat like a King.”

  “A King cares for the Land,” Turinne challenged. “So do I.”

  Lugh’s breath caught, for Turinne had just stated his strongest case. He had been lax, too caught up in the complexities of human history (at the time) to pay proper heed to his realm. “We can settle this easily enough,” he replied, as his army crowded ’round. Turinne’s troops fairly twitched in alarm.

  “And what might that way be?”

  “We could do as I know you have considered, and let the Land itself choose.”

  Turinne’s eyes shifted to the knife in his hand, a gesture which Lugh of course noted.

  “I would rather fight,” he countered. “That way lies more honor.”

  “The Land honors life more than death,” Lugh retorted. “Did you know her as well as I, you would know that as well.”

  Turinne folded his arms. “Explain yourself; I will listen.”

  Lugh paced his horse two steps closer. “I will dismount. We will each march up and kneel before the throne. And then we will proceed with the dagger.”

  Turinne’s brown eyes narrowed. “No tricks?”

  “You ask it? I have said it.”

  “Very well,” Turinne conceded. “So be it.”

  Slowly, deliberately, Lugh dismounted, tossing his reins to a troubled-looking Nuada. He caught his friend’s eye and grinned the most subtle and sly of grins. And then his feet were on cold, slick marble and he was striding toward the throne. Turinne met him there, looking young and fit and confident—and pleasantly troubled as well.

  “What is it you will?” the younger man demanded.

  Lugh took a breath. “You know the rite: this throne is part of the Land beneath it, by unbroken linkage: stone-to-stone. To be King is to join with the Land. To join with the Land, one rests one’s hand on the Throne’s right arm and stabs that dagger through it. The rest is decoration.”

  “And how are we to choose which of us makes first claim?”

  “We go together,” Lugh informed him. “You place your palm on the arm, I place mine atop it—or beneath, if you so say; it matters not to me. We then place our other hands on the dagger and stab through flesh into stone.”

  “And that is all?”

  “That is how it was done for me.”

  “Well, then,” Turinne agreed, “let us do it.”

  II

  For the second time since arriving in Tir-Nan-Og, Arawn of Annwyn was late. That business in the Mortal World was troubling, too; and he’d spent most of the voyage hence cursing himself for not investigating those events more thoroughly. But he could already smell the sweet scent of the kingdom on which he planned to feast, and that, as much as that…being’s taunts, had urged him here in haste.

  Nearly too late at that, because somewhere between their arrival at what was surely the mortal boy’s private Place of Power and their reemergence in Tir-Nan-Og, some fundamental change had wracked the Land. It spok
e of Power applied subtly but in profligate amounts, and of a heretofore unknown brand of sorcery. Terms didn’t matter, though, when the end was the same. Tir-Nan-Og had moved.

  So it was that he’d almost watched too long, then had to use Dana’s own skill to enter into the palace unopposed and unaccompanied save for Finvarra (and damn his hide for that: to wait until they were beneath Lugh’s roof—and therefore his protection—to acknowledge his presence here). But that was for later—a diversion perhaps, now, given that Lugh looked to be gaining ground fast. And if Lugh commanded the Powers Arawn suspected he did, this might not be a good time for confrontation after all.

  They reached the hall from the door opposite that through which Turinne had entered, and were just in time to see both men kneel before that empty chair of earth-dark stone. A pause for breath, and Turinne placed his hand flat on the throne’s right arm. Lugh laid his atop it.

  Another breath, and Turinne raised the dagger, high enough to reveal it to all who gathered there. Two of his guard, two loyal Sons of Ailill, applauded spontaneously, but Turinne silenced them with a glare. “At your will,” Arawn heard him whisper, the words still audible, courtesy of the room’s perfect air.

  “Aye,” Lugh murmured back, and wrapped his hand around Turinne’s.

  “At sunset precisely, a gong will sound,” Lugh advised his adversary. “When that stroke sounds, we stab.”

  For five heartbeats they waited: the claimants to the crown; their friends, warriors, and seconds; and two rival kings who had come to claim the bones.

  Another pair of heartbeats. Then, so deep it was as though the palace itself resounded: a muffled, earth-deep bong.

  Lugh’s hand tightened; Arawn saw the tendons stand out there. Clutched in two fists, the dagger swung down…closer…closer…almost touching the flesh of the topmost hand…