by Terry Madden
“He sent me to feel your muscle, girl.”
He squeezed her arm and she shook him off.
“A queen without a king,” he proclaimed, “is worthless as teats on a bull.”
“I may have no cock to measure against yours, thegn, but I am the king no less. My father doesn’t count the green gods among his slaves, and it was they who made me king. In this land, I need no man. Nor cock.”
“The Bear’s reach is quite as long, my queen.” He drew out the word ‘queen,’ dróttning in high Skvalan. “Your green gods favor you, and the Bear is in their debt. But he wills that you rule this land as our gods command, with a man in your bed.”
Anger throbbed behind her eyes. “The only men I need serve me. My chieftains.”
Rua sniffed and sucked at his scarred lips. “Some of your chieftains would prefer to hack at you with their swords, I’m told. And they’ve raised a dead king to lead them. It would seem you have a… problem. If you accept this proposal, this ghostly king who haunts you will die for good.”
“If I do not accept?”
“The Bear will take what he wants and offer you no protection.”
“Two thousand men outside this tent could make certain you bring back no answer to my loving father.”
“Do you threaten me, little queen?”
He drew a dagger and, with a rhythmic jangle, ran the tip over the mail between her breasts.
“After all, who’ll plow your field and plant it well, eh?”
Laughing, he gave his crotch a clutch.
Ava had forgotten the disgust she felt for her own. “Tell the Bear he’ll have to kill me for this land.”
“As you wish.”
This time Rua bent the knee, before he and the stench of home vanished into the greenwood.
Chapter 32
With eight hundred warriors snaking through the woods behind her, Lyleth could just make out the figure of Nechtan riding ahead. Snow fell with purpose, dimming the moonlight and forcing them to feel their way through the woods.
Talan rode between her and Nechtan, for his safety was the price she’d paid for the bloodletting to come. She would likely regret it as she regretted so many bargains made for the sake of this covetous land.
Before they rode from Caer Cedewain, Kyndra had tied a garland of autumn leaves and holly to her son’s helm. She had kissed him, not as a mother would kiss a son, but as she would a lordling, softly on each cheek. But her eyes had met Lyleth’s, saying she was resigned to her son’s fate, for they were dry and distant as the eyes of one who’s lost everything.
The forests of Pendynas were dark even during midday, but tonight the moon reflected feebly from the growing drifts of snow. Without torch or rushlight, Nechtan led the way, following huntsmen west and south from Caer Cedewain. The game track they followed required archers and dogmasters to move single file, and those who were mounted slowed them even more. Nechtan had split the northern forces in two, with him leading Pyrs and Maddoc and the bulk of archers and dogs along the southern edge of Glen Rannoch while Marchlew, Desmund and Griff took the mounted men north of the river called the Hag’s Gossip. Once they reached the bridge at the narrows, they would await Nechtan’s signal.
The barest defenses were left behind to guard Caer Cedewain and the towers of Maiden Pass. Lyleth knew as well as Nechtan that their number was insufficient if the ice-born came, but there was no other way. They must win the field first before they could defend the fortress from the ice-born.
They had travelled a league at best when the first scout returned.
“They’re burning people out,” he told Nechtan. “Killing women and children.”
“Fiach wants us to come to him,” Nechtan told Lyleth.
“Surprise is not to be ours,” Lyleth said.
“No. Not entirely.”
They rode as fast as possible in darkness. The fall of snow grew so heavy that Nechtan’s dark figure would momentarily vanish in the flurries. But his touch lingered on Lyleth’s skin, his voice still sounded in the deepest part of her. They had drowned in each other, and nothing could come to pass this day that could change it.
She shifted the weight of four full quivers on her back. The fletchers at Caer Cedewain knew how to craft triple bodkin points with perfect balance, good spine, and fletched with the tail feathers of barnacle geese. She had taken all she could carry.
She glanced over her shoulder at Dylan riding behind her. The boy carried as many or more quivers, and his new starwood bow peeked from his back. Even beneath the shadow of his hood, she could see him grinning.
Elowen rode with the armorer, a concession Lyleth had made. The girl said she couldn’t stay back at the fortress and wait because Brixia had insisted on following Lyleth. Elowen declared it a portent of victory, and the men had festooned Brixia like a warrior, with battle braiding of ribbons and holly berries. The little horse was a sight indeed.
Tonight, Lyleth had armed Nechtan for the last time, as was her duty as his solás, yet she wondered if her words of warding could strengthen his steel as it always had. What was it they had broken and built between them? It was stronger than any steel, that she knew.
Marchlew had sent Nechtan a hauberk of scale mail. It was too heavy, Nechtan said, and went back to the rusted mail he’d taken from the dead man at the inn. It was fitting for a man such as himself, he said, who’d suckled at Death’s breast not so long ago.
“No matter what the outcome,” Nechtan told her, “you will take Talan and the remains of Marchlew’s retainers to the judges of the wild wood.”
She laced his bracers. “What if Ava lives? The druada will not name another king while one lives.”
“You brought a man back from the dead, Lyl, they’ll listen to you. Everyone will listen to you.”
He stood and held out his arms while she buckled the axe belts across his back.
“I’ll do what I can,” she said.
He took her in a firm hold. “No. You must do exactly as I ask, or the blood spilt tomorrow will be just the beginning. The Five Quarters will tear itself to pieces. Fiach and Lloyd will both move to take the throne and Marchlew and Pyrs will try to stop them.”
“I understand,” she said.
“Promise me you’ll see Talan to the throne.”
She gave him a sad smile, dragged her thumb across her lips as a pledge, then touched his lips. “I promise.”
He took her hands and kissed them, and she read in his touch a knowing that was far beyond the sight she possessed.
“I am a bird that swims,” he said softly, “a fish that flies.”
She opened a carved yew box and removed two arm rings of Finian silver, a matched pair of water horses with eyes of carnelian. She unpinned the hinges and fitted them around his upper arms.
“But today you are king of the Five Quarters.”
She finished the words of warding, her hands moving over each of his weapons, “I arm you with the light of Sun, radiance of Moon, swiftness of Wind, depth of Sea…”
Chapter 33
Connor and Iris rode back to school in a cop car, because, in spite of Aunt Merryn’s protests, Bronwyn had decided to press charges. Connor was not just a lunatic; now he was also a car thief.
Father Owens called both of their parents, but Iris’ family lived in Portland, so she would be alone in her defense.
Within the hour, Connor’s mother had arrived and they gathered in Father Owen’s office, listening to a lecture that sounded more like a Sunday sermon, something about maturity and responsibility and accepting the trials of life without lashing out at the establishment. Connor found the perpetually forgiving, painted eyes of the Virgin, and stared back. He didn’t need forgiveness anymore.
“Congratulations, Connor,” Father Owens said, “you’ve succeeded in your quest for expulsion.”
“I talked Iris into coming with me. She didn’t have anything to do with it.”
“God gave Iris free will.”
“No
t really, sir.” Connor tried not to look at Iris.
Father Owens looked up from the paperwork in front of him. “Excuse me?”
“Free will,” Connor said, “implies that the future is fluid and changeable. But that’s not really the case, except maybe on the other side.”
Father Owens rocked back in his leather executive chair and glowered. “Has Cavendish been filling your head with this existentialist garbage?”
“Dish? No. I didn’t choose the accident. Neither did Dish.”
Owens leaned back over his papers. “You’ll be better off at home, surely. I’ll consider your request regarding Miss McCreary, but now I think you have belongings to gather, farewells to say.”
Owens gathered the stack of papers and tapped them square, the cue to get out. Connor’s mom had her hand on the doorknob.
“Please let me stay,” Connor said. “Until it’s over.”
Owens glanced at Connor’s mother, then said, “You mean until it’s over with Mr. Cavendish.”
“I’ll be too far away to get here if Bronwyn—I mean, Ms. Cavendish—decides to call me.”
Was that compassion in Father Owen’s eyes? He stated clearly, “She won’t call you.” No, it was loathing.
“You believe there’s life after death, don’t you, Father?”
Owens straightened in his chair, his pale eyes narrowed. “Of course. Everlasting life. And it will belong to Mr. Cavendish as well as you and me.”
“Let’s pack your things, Connor.” Mom’s hand was on his shoulder.
“I’ve seen the other side.” Saying it was like taking a lung full of mountain air. “It’s alive, more alive than we are. Alive with fear and love and colors so real they hurt. And choices.” He heard his voice dribble into silence.
Iris was giving him the stink eye, and his mom was dragging him by the arm toward the door.
He turned back just before the door closed behind him, calling, “No angels and harps!”
Connor’s mom daubed at her nose with a tissue, and headed past the receptionist’s desk. Connor followed.
Iris must have convinced Owens she needed to say goodbye because she ran from the office and caught Connor’s arm, saying, “See ya.” As she shook his hand, she slipped him a tiny origami star of binder paper. Her eyebrows bounced under bleached bangs.
“Are you coming?” Connor’s mom was holding the door to the courtyard.
She marched beside him and when he gave her a long, questioning look, her tears finally came.
“Why are you doing this to me, Connor?” she demanded. “Don’t you think I’ve been through enough with Dylan?”
At the sound of his brother’s name, something bitter congealed in Connor’s gut. He had no answer for that. No one did. She must really believe that everything he and Dylan had done wrong in life they had done solely to punish her.
Brother Mike met them in the dorm lobby with more paperwork for Connor’s mom.
“I’ll go pack,” Connor told her.
He went upstairs and stood in his dorm room, frozen. He was headed back to the home Dish said was no home, leaving Dish to die in a hospital bed, falling between this world and the other, like falling between a train and the platform.
He unfolded the origami star and read Iris’ note. Get your ass over to Ned’s, jerk. Bring the picture.
Iris had already started up the fire trail when Connor caught up to her. He had left through the fire escape, knowing it would take a few minutes for Brother Mike to realize he was gone. No one knew about Ned’s place but Iris.
“We’re going to get you over to the other side,” she was saying, “and you’re going to warn Dish. Maybe if he knows, he can make some kind of choice.”
“I’ve already tried to get back.”
“Then you haven’t tried hard enough. If Ned didn’t pull you out last time, what would’ve happened?”
“I suppose I would have drowned, I don’t know.”
“Then maybe you just need to drown again.”
Connor had stopped listening to Iris a half mile back. They made their way up the snaking trail into the foothills. Connor was trying to talk himself into going along with Iris’ plan. But drown? What if she didn’t pull him out? He would be as lost as Dish. Between the two worlds where the roots of trees meet.
He glanced up at the sky. Creamy clouds rolled by and he thought of the clouds in Dr. Adelman’s office. None of this was real. And all of it was real. Someone decided so. Lyla maybe, or maybe it was Connor all along, his personal universe balled up inside his head and he pulled at the string and untangled the truth he’d made.
Connor took Iris’ hand and helped her through the crumpled chain-link. It was the first time he noticed a “no trespassing” sign, and it occurred to him it was new.
“What if Ned throws us out?” Iris asked.
“If we’re lucky, he won’t be here.”
Connor knelt down beside the hot tub and peered into the water. He couldn’t see the bottom because the plaster was painted dark blue so it looked like a natural pond. But the plaster was peeling in places, leaving dull grey pock marks. He slipped his shoes off.
“Let’s do this fast.”
Iris pulled a lipstick from her hippie bag. “Let’s just do it right.”
“What do you mean?”
“You have the picture, right?”
Connor fished in his pocket for the photocopy of the stone and spread it out on the pool deck. Iris handed him the lipstick. It was so red it was almost black. He read the name on the bottom, “Nearly There?” He had to laugh. “What am I supposed to do with this?”
“Write the runes, just as they are in the picture, around the hot tub.”
“You’re kidding, right?”
“Do you have a better idea?” Iris knelt beside him and started sweeping cigarette butts away with her hands. “Maybe the runes can open the well.”
“And if I really do drown in there, I’ll be as lost as Dish.”
Iris looked right into his eyes and said, “Connor, you’re already lost.”
She gave him a quick kiss on the cheek and went back to clearing the deck. “Start drawing,” she said.
His recreation of the stick-like runes was less than impressive, the crossing hash marks weren’t perfectly straight and some were too small. It looked like the work of a first grader.
The lipstick was just a nub when he drew the last rune. The circle of strange words fit perfectly, the last one meeting the first back at the beginning.
“Okay,” Iris said. “I’m ready.”
Connor figured he should be ready, too. He was about to dive into a shallow hot tub and possibly break his neck or drown. Death was just a slip down this waterslide to another world.
“Okay.” He stripped to his boxers and walked to the fence.
Iris was positioned just outside the ring of runes.
“Okay.” He knew there was more to existence than what he could see and smell and hear and feel. He had seen it on the other side, felt his true self quake with the longing for it.
He didn’t want to be lost any longer.
“Okay.” Dish already knew there was no land of the dead, no Fair Lands. Because everyone is dead. And all lands are fair. Iris was right. Connor was already dead.
He took off, bare feet slapping the hot flagstones, but as the surface of the water came into view, he saw it boil, just for a second, like the jets were on.
Something was in there.
He kept on running well past it, stopping before he reached the porch. He jogged back to the hot tub and knelt at the edge.
“What’s the matter?” Iris knelt beside him.
A flash of sunlight reflected from something deep and moving. “There’s something in there.”
The sunlight cut bright shards through the water and revealed the unmistakable shimmer of scales.
“Jesus… there it is.” It must be the water horse. He should jump in.
But Iris was already heading
for the shrubs. “Piranhas!” she cried. “I knew it! Fuck!”
The beast was as thick as his leg and lots longer. He watched it ripple and glide like a ribbon at the end of a stick. It spiraled toward the surface; the sun caught its dorsal fin and shimmered with every color. Crimson gills pumped at the side of its head and feelers fluttered from its snout. Its yellow eye twisted in the socket until it locked on Connor.
“Yeah, that’s not the water horse.”
Finding his feet at last, they took him at a dead run to the cover of the bushes.
He clutched Iris’ arm. “Stay still.”
“Like hell,” she demanded.
As if in answer, the thing rose from the pool, a waterfall in reverse, shrouded in a dense, shimmering, golden fog that spiraled with the creature. When the fog cleared, Ned stepped onto the pool deck. He shook water from his hair, glanced down at the runes under his wet feet, and then turned those glowing yellow eyes on the bushes.
“What the fuck, Connor?”
Chapter 34
The snowfall had slackened and the moon was overhead when Nechtan glimpsed the watchtower through the trees. Built in the time of Black Brac, Morcant’s Roost was nothing more than a square stone tower rising from an outcropping that overlooked the glen. Since the binding of the Five Quarters into one, the watchtower had been home to soothsayers and ravens. The battlements had begun to crumble and the bartizan had fallen down the cliff a long time ago.
The moon came and went behind a bank of purple clouds, and Nechtan hoped both the clouds and the snowfall would hide them long enough to take position at the edge of the woods.
He called for the snaking column behind him to stop.
Archers and hound masters had their orders. The dogs were muzzled, and they spread through the trees as silent as sand through fingers.
Nechtan dismounted.
“Fetch dry kindling and tinder,” he told Talan and Dylan. “Quickly.”
Lyl moved to follow the boys, but he called her back. “Let’s go to the top for a better look. Come.”