Sunshaker's War

by Tom Deitz

  “I doubt not that he does. He certainly knows of the flying ships.”

  “All?”

  “He knows that you have none that can best him.”

  “Ah,” Lugh cried, his voice growing steadily stronger. “But I do not need to best Finvarra; at the moment, I only need to best you!”

  “A boast, but in vain!”

  “Is it?”

  And with that he whipped off his cloak and stood revealed in scale armor as golden as the sun. He stepped to the top of the northmost merlon and spread his arms, and only then did Macha notice the bundle he bore—a long, dark object wrapped in scarlet velvet.

  A Word, and the golden binding-ties fell away, and Macha gasped in dismay. The tales were false, then; the Spear of Lugh had not been lost in the Second Battle of Mag Tuired.

  And from his lofty perch, Lugh grinned and raised his arms, and the spear in them, and with that movement the clouds broke and sunlight streamed through and struck the spear, and at another Word, light poured forth from it.

  Macha cringed, expecting to face flaming doom, but the flames did not touch her: They struck behind, to find purchase in the shattered woods. An instant only those broken forests steamed, and then burst into flame that quickly merged with the tentative fires already set there. And in that instant Macha knew her folly. Lugh had tricked her, lured her far inland, far from her sources of supply, with a whole forest at her back. And as the flames rose higher, Macha heard the screams of her forces trapped there, and those of her men who had suddenly found themselves cut off from any hope of returning home. And then she felt the fury of the sun burn down upon her and knew fear such as she had never known.

  “You were speaking of surrender,” Lugh said mildly. “Any time you please, I will hear yours.”

  “I am ready,” Macha gritted, as the man beside her became a raven. “I already send word to my master.”

  “Is it peace, then?” Lugh demanded.

  “Aye, for a time,” Macha conceded.

  “Time is all that matters,” Lugh told her. “Go back to your master now. Tell him that what you have seen is but a shadow. Say to him that Midsummer’s Day approaches and my Power waxes day by day as it draws nigh. Tell him that if I do not have Fionchadd safely in my keeping by midnight on Midsummer’s Eve, with dawnlight I will lay waste his fleet; and if that does not suffice, at noon, when my power is at its greatest, I will set the Power of the Sun against Erenn itself.”

  Macha nodded, her beautiful face pale as sorrow. “I will relay that word,” she whispered.

  “See that you do,” Lugh replied, lowering the spear.

  And then the image faded.

  *

  “Jeeze,” Calvin gasped. “Talk about good timing!”

  “Yeah,” David exhaled his own relief. “We look in just as the war’s concluded.”

  “If it is,” said Alec, standing and reaching for his jeans. “I don’t think that’s gonna be sufficient.”

  “Why not?” David asked. “Lugh may need ships, but Finvarra needs men, and Tir-Nan-Og’s stronger than Erenn, at least that’s what Nuada once told me. What choice does Finvarra have?”

  “He evidently still has Fionchadd, for one thing,” Alec observed. “He can still blackmail Lugh. ’Course that’s apparently what he’s already been doin’.”

  “And there’s a far worse thing,” Calvin added darkly.

  “Oh?”

  “Yeah. What he just did probably further stressed out the sun.”

  “Oh, Christ, you’re right!” David groaned. “I forgot about that. I guess I figured that Lugh’s gonna take the battle to Finvarra now, so we’ll be all right. But I forgot about what Uki said. We already know that usin’ Power puts stress on the sun. And I’ll bet you dollars to donuts that that deal with the spear just then was even worse. And think about this, guys: we’re all assumin’ Finvarra’ll surrender, ’cause that’s what we’d do. But suppose he doesn’t? Shoot, he’s immortal. His whole kingdom can go and he’ll still be reborn. All of ’em will be, probably, though it might take ’em a spell.” He paused, giggled at his inadvertent joke. “But what may not make it is a World. Erenn might survive, our World too, but what about Galunlati? It’s weaker than either, more tenuous.”

  “What’re you saying?” Alec asked slowly.

  “What I’m sayin’,” Calvin replied, “is that if Lugh uses that spear on Midsummer’s Day, it could very well destroy Galunlati. And if it goes…I don’t wanta think about what might happen here.”

  “Like, you got a worst-case scenario in mind?” Alec wondered.

  “Maybe,” Calvin said. “I think—”

  He got no further because a heavy knock suddenly shook the door.

  As one, they started, neither of them having heard anyone open the front door, much less come up the stairs.

  Alec had already opened his mouth to speak when a voice reached them from the landing outside. “Hey, come on, guys; it’s me, Gary!”

  “Christ,” David cried. And then suddenly realizing he was still in his skivvies, he grabbed for his pants.

  Alec grabbed for the ulunsuti.

  Calvin simply sat and waited.

  And Gary turned the knob and walked in.

  “I thought you locked it,” Calvin said to Alec.

  “I thought you did,” came Alec’s startled reply.

  “Glad you didn’t though,” Gary chortled. “Is this a séance or a circle-jerk?”

  Chapter XI: Dark Days Ahead

  “What does it look like we’re doin’?” David replied archly, hoping to distract Gary so that Alec could finish secreting the ulunsuti.

  Gary was too quick for him, though, and stared first at Alec, then straight at David. “I don’t know, Sullivan. What does it look like?”

  Alec grimaced sourly, and David heard the soft thunk of the crystal striking the bottom of the protective jar the paranoid Mr. McLean had tried to conceal behind his back. He could tell Alec was about to say something really snotty and had just started to warn him when Calvin interrupted from where he’d been hidden between David and the door.

  “G-man!” he bellowed happily, leaping to his feet. “Hey, guy—it’s good to see you!”

  Gary’s eyes pirouetted back-and-forth in brief confusion, to be replaced an instant later by a twinkle of joyful recognition. “Tonto, my man! What’re you doin’ back there!” Then, as another sort of realization dawned on him, “Hey, that your bike outside? The G/S 80?”

  “Sorta.” Calvin grinned, and David, who had finally found a chance to slip on his jeans, hoped he’d take the hint and direct the conversation that way—or any way except toward what they’d been discussing. It occurred to him that the bike was probably what had brought Gary inside in the first place.

  “Oh wow!” Gary continued enthusiastically. “Those things won the Paris-to-Dakar half a dozen times! Sharp, man, really sharp!”

  “Yeah, right,” Calvin affirmed, trying to sound modest, but beaming like a fool. “And thanks.” His eyes slid toward the blue-and-white BMW patch on Gary’s coverall, and David realized, for the first time, that though it was Saturday afternoon, Gary was wearing Hudson Motors livery and had black grime under his nails. Not for the first time he considered the incongruity: a bright Atlanta-born boy who shared the MacTyrie gang’s love of gaming and general weirdness, but at the same time didn’t hesitate to get his hands dirty under the hood of a car. It all worked, actually, G-man had been planning to study automotive electronics at Georgia Tech before news of Tracy’s pregnancy had made him reassess his future. He was still going—but had decided to attend MacTyrie Junior for a year before making the leap.

  “It’s what I do, too,” Gary said, in confirmation. “I—” He broke off suddenly and blinked at Calvin, who still had not put on his pants. “But hey, man, mama didn’t raise but one fool and it ain’t me. You guys’re hidin’ something, ain’t you? Or do you always sit around in your drawers?”

  David tried to look guileless, while
Alec simply tried not to look at all, though he had managed to ease the ulunsuti back into the night stand.

  “I repeat,” Gary went on, “you’re obviously up to something, and I doubt this was a circle jerk—which leaves me with my other suggestion. So why don’t you guys just level with me, or do I have to invoke the M-gang oath? There’s no Ban of Lugh cookin’ now, remember?

  “David nodded reluctantly. “Yeah, well—you’re right, we were kinda foolin’ around with some stuff.”

  “What kinda stuff?” Then, “Damn! You were playing with that magic rock Alec’s got, weren’t you? The one he won’t ever let me look at.”

  Alec’s expression clouded, but David rolled his eyes and nodded again, while Calvin looked on, scowling.

  “Well, jeeze, boys,” Gary went on. “Don’t let me stop you. I mean just ’cause we’re best friends and all…!”

  “Cut it, G-man!”

  “Cut what, Sullivan? What I want cut is about ten feet of crap.”

  “He’s right,” Calvin interrupted quickly, once more exchanging glances with David. “He’s got a right to know.” He faced Gary. “You guessed it, man. We were messin’ with the ulunsuti, tryin’ to get it to prophesy. Alec’s not had much experience with it, and I have, so we thought we’d try out its prophetic function. Thought we’d start on something easy, so we checked out next week’s weather.”

  David breathed a mental sigh of relief. That had been a close one. Calvin hadn’t lied, but he hadn’t told anything like all the truth either.

  “And did it work?” Gary wondered suspiciously.

  Calvin smiled cryptically. “We’ll have to wait to find out, won’t we?”

  Gary shrugged and flopped down on the window seat, and David had to consciously repress a sigh. That meant G-man was prepared to stay for a while.

  Gary turned his gaze toward Alec, looking very brighteyed and prim. “So, McLean, how ’bout cluein’ me in on the procedure, then. Show me the future, and all?”

  Alec stiffened. His lips were already shaping a no, but David shook his head at him, hoping Gary wouldn’t notice—and that Alec would take the hint.

  He succeeded on both counts, but it made little difference because Gary suddenly stood up (narrowly missing the low ceiling in the dormer). “The weather!” he cried.” Shit! Hey, could you, like, show me the weather for the wedding? That way I’ll know how to plan!” His grin widened, and David knew he was on a roll now. “Oh, Christ, folks! Hey, could you show me the whole thing? Kind of a sneak preview? It’d be a real trip to spy on your own wedding!” He turned and grinned at David. “That way we can be sure ole Darrell don’t forget the ring.”

  David could not help grinning back, but by then Gary had grabbed Alec by both shoulders and was shaking him energetically—something like a cross between an overly friendly beagle and Hulk Hogan. “So how ’bout it, Mach-One? Come on, get that ole’ rock out and show yer buddy what’s up. You can do that much, can’t you? I mean, think of it as a wedding present or something.”

  Alec looked mightily uncomfortable, but David and Calvin caught his eye over Gary’s shoulder and signed consent. “Up to you,” David mouthed, where Gary couldn’t see.

  “Oh, crap, G-man,” Alec groaned at last, as he extracted himself from his brawny friend’s clutches. “I reckon I owe you that much—but I can’t guarantee anything.” He turned and began fumbling in the drawer.

  A disturbing thought struck David, then; and he glanced down at his hands—and was relieved to see that the bloodstains were gone. Evidently the ulunsuti had absorbed every drop. He wondered what would happen if it contacted a really deep wound. Nothing, probably, since Alec had cut himself badly on a windshield wiper blade back in the fall and used the crystal immediately thereafter. But, he suspected, it was a thing better not tested too carelessly.

  Alec produced the ulunsuti and simply stood hesitantly for a moment, looking doubtfully at Calvin.

  The Indian caught the signal and sank to the floor.

  Gary hesitated in turn, hands on the zipper of his coverall. “But don’t I have to strip or something?”

  Calvin shook his head. “Not for this. We were doin’ something a little harder earlier, and that meant usin’ more skin-to-skin contact to enhance the power. This won’t be any big deal.”

  Gary frowned uncertainly. “But you said you were checkin’ on the weather…”

  “We were,” Calvin replied quickly, “but on a more theoretic level, kinda. We were sorta trying to find out what was causin’ these everlastin’ downpours.”

  Gary’s eyebrows lifted in curiosity. “And did you?”

  Calvin nodded vigorously. “The sun—which means we can’t do much about it.”

  “What the hell?” Gary grunted, and took a place between David and Calvin.

  The ritual was familiar enough this time, requiring only a pinprick of blood as primer. Once more they sat in a circle, hands joined, knees touching, staring at the ulunsuti.

  “Just think about the wedding,” Calvin whispered. “Let’s all concentrate on that.”

  David took a deep breath, and did.

  *

  Gary had never experienced the ulunsuti’s power before, though he had encountered something similar when Liz had scryed in his presence the previous summer—the night David had been kidnapped by Morwyn. Still, he hardly knew what to expect, so there was an instant of blind panic at the beginning as he felt something gently take hold of his mind. He fought it briefly, then heard a voice inside his head telling him to relax, to think only of his object of desire. A long, shuddering breath, and he forced himself to zero-in on the line of red—and on his wedding. He had pictured it a hundred times already; was as romantically obsessed with it as Tracy, though he doubted she knew that. And somehow the image in his head slewed and shifted, as dream became concrete reality.

  He gazed, as from a great height, upon a low, grassy hill, and his heart leaped when he recognized it, for it really was the place he and Tracy would become man and wife. It was also a piece of abandoned pasture his dad owned a ways out of town, and God knew he ought to recognize it ’cause he’d been having to mow the blessed place (or try, at any rate, given the rain) for weeks in preparation. His labor looked to have done some good, too; because there was only a short, soft stubble of grass there now—that, and cars and people. The lower slopes and the dirt road that looped around it were packed with vehicles of every description, but he thought he saw David’s battered Mustang, Alec’s Volvo, and Darrell’s VW van, his dad’s old 2002. And beyond…beyond were mountains and a gleam of lakes beneath a sky of absolute blue and a sun of purest gold/white.

  He was among the crowd now, and that was strange, until he realized that he’d always envisioned the wedding as an onlooker, probably because that was the way he had experienced every one he’d previously attended. He strained to make out faces, saw his dad, his mom—standing apart, but still beaming, Darrell’s sister Myra, David’s uncle Dale. And he saw that his last source of concern (beyond the weather) had been taken care of, for the hill was dominated by a tall archway made of furring strips but covered with the roses he’d been secretly raising in Dr. McLean’s greenhouse ever since Tracy had accepted his proposal.

  Now they ran rampant over the whole structure. That was the place, the open-air chapel where he and Tracy would become one being.

  Closer now, and he could hear music—the closing bars of “Jesu, Joy of Man’s desiring,” (Tracy’s choice), segueing into the Rolling Stones “Angie,” all rendered on synthesizer by Darrell’s sister’s friend, LaWanda, who’d come up from Athens special because she was the only person they knew who could play classical straight and still do rock gently enough to please the old folks without stripping it of the energy that fired the young.

  The scene shifted for a moment, blurring; red filled the image, and Gary blinked. When it finally clarified, he seemed to have jumped ahead to the actual ceremony. He saw himself, immaculate in white tux, Tracy beside him i
n the long dress her mother had made from her own wedding gown, its train barely enough to tickle the green Astro Turf they’d used for a walkway because she didn’t want grass stains.

  And there was the minister: Reverend John K. Seckinger from MacTyrie Methodist, who hadn’t balked much at the mixture of mainline Christianity and subtle paganism in either the ceremony or the vows.

  And to the right, also in white, but each with ties and cummerbunds in their totem color, his buddies from the Gang: Darrell, his best man; and David and Alec and Aikin—and the at-large member, Calvin. Three of the five, he observed absently, were wearing ponytails. All were grinning like idiots.

  The bridesmaids he could not see as clearly, except for Liz’s red hair, but he knew them. Two were Tracy’s sisters, another was a friend who had graduated the year before, and the final one was the Angie the song was for. (There was a song for each bridesmaid and groomsman, though he’d balked at Darrell’s suggestion of “Welcome to the Jungle” and substituted “Bad Company.” Alec’s more thoughtful choice had been R.E.M.’s “The One I Love.”)

  The processional began (“Also Sprach Zarathustra”), and the minister beckoned them forward. They processed past beaming friends, and then the music stopped, and it was as if the sun suddenly shone brighter. “Beloved friends,” Rev. Seckinger began. “Today—”

  Emotion welled up in Gary, making him choke. He blinked, eyes misting. That was enough; he didn’t want to see anymore. Some things just shouldn’t be foreseen.

  He coughed, blinked again—and returned to reality—just as his beeper sounded.

  “Shit!” he muttered. “Guess Dad’s wonderin’ why I’m not there yet. Reckon I—” He paused, staring at his friends, who were still entranced. “Ooops—sorry!”

  But the spell was broken. One by one his buddies emerged from the trance, but he was too elated by what he had just seen, too filled with anticipated joy—and too pissed off about the beeper—to notice the expressions of abject shock and fear that passed among his companions as, without waiting permission, he picked up Alec’s phone and dialed Hudson Motors.