by C. E. Murphy
A startled silence met her and she blinked her eyes open again to find Dafydd examining her with consternation. “Occasionally. How did you know?”
“It’s just that peaceful here. A little like a hospice, as much as holy ground. It seems like the kind of place people might come to die.” Unexpected truth sang through the last words, finally wakening her thoroughly. “Where would they go?” she asked, but not of the men.
Of the music, which flared in trumpets, then lay down a path through the garden, zipping forward. Suddenly reinvigorated, she ran after it, chasing it through doorways and down paths that extended through a far greater area than she’d imagined possible. Ioan and Dafydd came after her, catching up as her bright truthseeking path plunged into the earth and Lara stopped, frowning at it.
“No one said we’d need a shovel. The remembrance gardens in the Drowned Lands had a door, not a …”
“Barrow,” Dafydd said softly.
Lara covered her mouth with one hand, cool shock splashing over her. It stood to reason, and yet she hadn’t expected it. “Is digging the only way into a barrow?”
“There are often cairns atop them, which might be moved to reveal a door, but here …” Ioan trailed off, shaking his head, and Lara turned in a full circle, examining the garden segment for anything that might be a door.
“Truth will find the hardest path. Well, going through the dirt is hardest, all right. I should have been looking for … the key?” Warbling music played, the concept neither wrong nor right. Lara kept it in mind, sour notes dancing as she studied the garden a second time. “There must be something.”
“Must there be?” Dafydd sounded interested and amused. “Why?”
“Because I have a hard time imagining any Seelie digging up six feet of dirt to get into a stasis chamber, and if you were hiding people there, you wouldn’t want to call in servants to do the job. Secrets only stay secret if you keep them.”
An amused voice said, “A truth very few people ever fully appreciate,” as an old man tottered into the garden, a wry smile on his aged features.
“Oisín!” Lara ran to hug him, unsurprised that he caught her confidently for all that his eyes were filmed over, signal to the world that he couldn’t see. She had never made friends quickly or easily, but the ancient poet had found a place in her heart the first and only time they’d met. “You’re still here!”
“I’m too old and fragile to run, even from a war that comes within the citadel walls. The lands have watched over me,” he said genially.
Lara released him and stepped back, smiling. “Emyr said the Barrow-lands liked you.”
“Only he sounded it a curse when he said it,” Oisín guessed. “My long years here have never enamored him of me.”
“Unlikely,” Dafydd murmured, “when my mother was so fond of you. I’m glad to see you’re well, Oisín. Do you remember my brother Ioan?”
“Better than he remembers me, I dare say.” Oisín turned an unerring blind gaze on Ioan. “Changed in body but not in heart, I think. Welcome home, Ioan ap Caerwyn.”
“Ap Annwn,” Ioan murmured. “My dreams are for this land as a whole, not the white citadel alone.”
“As you will.” Oisín looked back at Lara, putting a hand out for her to take. “And you have grown greatly in power since we first spoke. Have you met another prophet?”
Lara breathed a laugh. “A human one. It started out the same way, ‘truth will seek the hardest path, measures that must mend the past,’ but then she said ‘breaker who restores the land, keeps the world gates well in hand.’ I don’t know what it means. I don’t like prophecies, Oisín.”
“Nor fairy tales,” he agreed, and Lara ducked her head to mutter the already-familiar refrain: “And yet here I am, in one.” More clearly, she said, “This was always going to happen, wasn’t it? You sent Dafydd to Earth looking for a truthseeker who would break the world. If he found me, or any truthseeker, I was always going to be a catalyst for change here. Oisín, my power is strengthening, but I just don’t know if it’s going to mature fast enough for me to do what’s necessary.”
Oisín, serenely confident, said, “It will. Begin by locating the key for the door, Wayfinder. I’m far too old to be digging in the dirt, and these two, as you surmised, are far too elfin.”
Vague insult crossed Dafydd’s face, though not Ioan’s. Lara laughed as she closed her eyes again, this time trusting her power over the garden’s lullaby. “Truthseeker, wayfinder, worldbreaker. I don’t think I like titles very much either, but since I don’t even know if we can get in there without the right key, I think this is the only way. Maybe it just takes a little more delicacy than laying down a true path.”
A memory of the lights she’d followed in the Drowned Lands came back to her, fireflies rather than beacons. They were more inquisitive than the truthseeking paths, which bolted hither and yon with great integrity but no subtlety. In some cases that was perfect, but in the green-growing gardens, more gentle means seem called for. Dozens of tiny bells rang with delighted tones as firefly lights scattered behind her eyelids, flitting from one spot to another around the gardens.
More than once, urgency came into their chimes, then faded, as if they found things of interest but not exactly what they sought. The garden seemed littered with those things, and Lara’s heart hopped with interest, wondering what treasures might lie forgotten in a place so old as this one. If all went well, she would have time to discover them later.
And if all didn’t, the Barrow-lands themselves might be lost to eternity. Lara shivered at the thought and her seeking magic redoubled its efforts, sparks of light clearly agitated at the idea of such loss. Reflecting Lara’s own emotions, she realized, which could become dangerous if not controlled. Bad enough a truthseeker could make a thing true by commanding it, but if her magic rolled over into making things true because she felt them, she could wreak havoc without ever meaning to.
The staff, largely quiet over the past few days, thumped with appreciation for the idea. Lara bared her teeth and it went silent again as glints of truthseeking magic discovered and hovered over Aerin a little while, considering her as the answer to their search. Ultimately they slipped away again, but with more purpose, as if something about the sleeping woman triggered recognition. Within a few more minutes, the dancing lights swarmed into another segment of the garden, and music fell into place in Lara’s mind, creating a symphony.
The remembrance garden was laid out in a mirror-image to itself, with the entrance at the center. Lara saw it from above, as if the sparks of her magic flew upward to show it to her. She stood with Dafydd and the others inside the whorl of one elegant pattern, and across the garden, in its opposite place, stood a small stone cairn, no more than a dozen rocks piled neatly atop one another. Lara squeaked, “Ioan!” and thrust a finger after her magic, sending him into a run led by firefly lights. Lara spun to watch the grass where her truthseeking path had ended, but even expecting it, she let go a yelp of surprise when, after a few minutes, it crumbled to reveal an earthen pathway.
Propelled by her own yell, she leapt down the path, leaving impressions in dirt as she ran into a chamber darker, earthier, and emptier than the sanctuary within the Drowned Lands.
Emptier, but not empty.
Hafgan stood over Emyr, an uplifted blade in his hand.
Thirty-two
Later she realized that her truthseeker’s voice, the one that could command things to be true, would have been the safest and most effective way to prevent regicide. But she was already in motion, rushing down the pathway like a child at play, and in the moment, it didn’t occur to her to stop.
Lara flung herself at Hafgan’s midriff, momentum carrying an impact that her slight weight otherwise could not. She hit hard enough to earn a grunt from both of them, and caught a glimpse of metal as Hafgan’s blade fell away. They crashed into the wall, soft earth indenting with the impact. Lara staggered back, astonished at herself, and spun with the brunt of a b
low she never saw coming.
Breath was knocked from her lungs as she hit the earth. The left side of her face bloomed with pain, new bursts building on the last. She couldn’t see, tears spilling from wide-open eyes to dampen the earth beneath her face. She’d thought migraines had accustomed her to head pain, but the tight bands and bright lights of those headaches were nothing like the deep throbbing ache in her cheekbone. Still blind with tears, she worked her fingers toward her face, searching for evidence that the bone was shattered. Nothing gave way, not in a manner that suggested ruined bone, though the flesh was already swelling.
Hafgan, wheezing with outrage, grabbed her hair and hauled her head back, dagger flashing in her vision as he brought it to her throat. Lara gurgled and vicious pleasure twisted the Unseelie king’s voice as he spat, “Truthseekers. Blights on the land, meant to be eradicated.”
The dagger jerked, and bewilderingly, Hafgan was abruptly no longer above her. New pain ripped over Lara’s scalp. She howled and curled herself in a ball, fingers exploring her head and coming away bloody.
Dafydd crashed to his knees and lifted her against his chest. “I’m sorry, I’m so terribly sorry, you’re all right now, you’re safe. You’re safe, Lara. I have you now. It’s all right.”
Astonishingly, impossibly, every word sang with truth, their music quiet but determined, like the opening strains to a marching song. Nothing would stand in their way, as if Dafydd were determined to make them true if they weren’t already. As if he commanded her power, which he had named a curse as much as a gift. “Your poor hair. I’m so sorry, Lara. I’m so sorry.”
The apology made sense of her bloody fingers, of her skull’s thick raging pain. A handful of hair had been pulled out, leaving a messy oozing patch of skin and broken roots. Lara blinked again, trying to clear tears away, and raised her head to see Hafgan slumped against Emyr’s bier, a shining sword jammed through his shoulder.
Lara’s sword, the one she’d been given to ride into battle with, and had inadvertently brought to her own world weeks ago. She gaped at it, comprehension beyond her, and finally transferred the stare to Dafydd, who smiled fragily. “It was at Kelly’s apartment. I took it when we left the bedroom. It needed only a very light glamour to hide it, when no one expected me to have it at all, and I thought we might be well-off with a hidden weapon. I’m so sorry I wasn’t quicker, Lara. I’m so very sorry.”
“You were quick enough.” Her voice sounded like someone else’s, strained with pain and tears. “I don’t like this, Dafydd. I hate this. I’m a tailor. I’m not supposed to get beaten up and almost killed and …” Lara strangled the protest before it turned to convulsive sobs, but Dafydd gathered her close, mouth careful against her hair, and pain-laden fear drove her to tears after all.
“I wouldn’t have asked you to join me if I’d known it would come to this.” Weary regret, but no lies, were in the confession. “Before we went to war, before Ioan asked you to find the truth of a long-dead land, yes, I would have still asked, but not this, Lara. This is more than I would ever have asked, even if it meant my eternal exile in your world.”
Lara gulped air, trying to steady herself. “Somehow that makes me feel better. And makes me more determined to see this all through.”
The words were stronger than she was: Lara remained curled against Dafydd’s side. Most of her head throbbed, the stickiness in her hair increasing with each pulse, and her cheek felt like it had doubled in size while she wept. There were other biers scattered around the small earthen room, and for a few long moments she considered simply climbing onto one of them and sleeping until she was well again. That was nominally the chamber’s purpose, though Hafgan had been uninjured when he entered the similar room in the Drowned Lands. It seemed they could simply be used for rest and stasis as well.
“Is he dead?” Ioan’s voice interrupted her musings before she mustered the energy to approach the biers.
“Hafgan?” Dafydd shook his head above Lara’s. “No. After all this trouble, it seemed foolish to strike him down, though the temptation still remains. If he’s conscious, he may even have cauterized the wound by now, and be waiting on us to make some small error upon which he can capitalize.”
“How did he even get in here? The cairn wasn’t opened, or knocked over, or whatever you had to do to trigger the chamber opening.” Lara craned her head toward Ioan, surprised she could move that much.
“There’s a magic built into the cairn, something old and strong. Rhiannon’s, maybe. I stood and watched as, once taken apart, the stones rolled together again and rebuilt themselves.”
Lara put her forehead against Dafydd’s chest carefully and mumbled, “That sounds like something out of a fairy tale. Oh, my head hurts. You know, we’re lucky he tried to kill me instead of just grabbing the staff. It might be all over now if he’d done that.”
“An oversight I will not make again.” Hafgan, pale with pain, lifted his head and reached for the hilt of the sword pinning him to Emyr’s bier.
His features contorted as he tried to free the blade, but he lacked the leverage and the strength to pull it out. Lara almost admired that he even tried. She hurt badly enough herself that moving much was still nearly inconceivable, without having a length of metal still jammed through her body.
Dafydd, less admiring, rose and crossed to crouch before the Unseelie king, his hand just above Hafgan’s on the short hilt. “An oversight you won’t have the opportunity to make again. Don’t be a fool, Hafgan. Try to escape and I may not be inclined to let you wake a second time. I have the Truthseeker here, and I doubt your state of consciousness will matter to her ability to gather answers from you. Ioan, help me.”
Ioan took a handful of quick steps across the room before fully realizing he’d obeyed without question. He slowed, obviously annoyed, then hunched his shoulders and went to Dafydd’s side. Lara laughed, sparking a new wash of dull pain through her, but humor gave her the strength to stand. She would do no one any good huddled on the floor, and had an idea of what Dafydd intended.
He nodded once as if in warning, then withdrew the blade from Hafgan’s shoulder and dropped it on the floor. The Unseelie king went white, making a sound so sharp it couldn’t reach the volume of a roar. He retained a hold on consciousness, but barely, and when the princes heaved together to lift him from the earth, his head fell back, somnolence claiming him again.
They put him on the bier closest to Emyr’s, dark king and fair lying head to head. Lara took a few unsteady steps toward the unconscious kings, digging into herself for resolve and for magic.
“A step closer,” Merrick ap Annwn murmured, “and she dies.”
She dies seemed an unlikely way to phrase it, though the Unseelie prince’s voice was silken with truth. You die, Lara thought; that would make more sense, and that was what made her turn toward Merrick in puzzlement, despite the threat to her life.
Not hers, she understood an instant later. Not hers at all.
Merrick stood on the earthen rampway with Aerin wedged in his arms. Her eyes were glazed, more than just the exhaustion of extended magic use. Merrick had one arm around her throat and the other under one of her arms so he could grasp his own wrist, giving her no room to maneuver. The muscle playing in his arms said he put pressure on her throat, rendering her into a state of semiconsciousness.
She didn’t so much as claw at him, suggesting he’d caught her entirely by surprise. Had caught her sleeping, no doubt, and recognized her as the valuable hostage she was. Lara took a breath to whisper “Let her go,” and Merrick’s grip on the Seelie woman tightened. Lara raised her hands, placating, and pressed her lips together to seal off any threat of using her voice against him.
“Of all of us in this room,” Dafydd murmured, “Aerin is the one you least want dead, Merrick. My brother,” he said even more softly, an ache in the words. “Merrick, how can this have come to be?”
“How else could it have come to be? Sons are nothing to immortal fathers. Wha
t power is there but that which we seize ourselves? Step away from them,” Merrick ordered. “I thought keeping Emyr alive would draw my father here, but I had no idea I would find all the royal blood of Annwn gathered in one room. I was meant to be long-since rid of you. The human world should have destroyed all of you by now.”
“And it might well have, had we not had a truthseeker at our side.” Dafydd took a few steps forward, his hands spread wide and empty. “Let Aerin go. Pitch your battle with me instead. I think you owe me that much, for having me branded a murderer and traitor among my own people.”
“I owe you nothing. I owe none of you anything at all.” Merrick’s grip on Aerin’s throat tightened and what little support she’d been able to offer herself slipped away as she went boneless.
Lara whispered, “May I speak?”
Merrick’s gaze sharpened on her. “If you watch your words.”
Lara nodded once, a promise as binding as language, and breathed a silent prayer that her conjecture would prove right. “You have almost everything you want. You kept Emyr alive to draw Hafgan here, maybe, but there’s more to it, isn’t there? Emyr was Rhiannon’s husband and that might make him first heir to this land. You can’t be sure what happens if he dies, so he has to be kept alive, here in a stasis room. You must have known it was here from stories of the Drowned Lands, and knowing how closely twinned they were with the Barrow-lands. That was clever. More clever than anyone else has been.”
A flash of smug pride lit Merrick’s face, and for a moment she could see his father in his narrow features. He was handsome, as they all were, though anger and pride marred the lines of his face, and the breadth of shoulder that so suited Ioan and Hafgan was less filled out in the Unseelie prince. He wore that like a wound itself, his physicality a little less than those around him, and therefore, she suspected, his need to be praised all the greater.