Sunshaker's War

by Tom Deitz

  “Oh, Lord, yes!” David cried. “It might just work—but you need the blood of a sorcerer, don’t you?”

  “And what do you suppose I am? Or yourself, for that matter.”

  “Right!” David exclaimed. “Oh Jesus, I think you’ve got something.” He hesitated then, frozen by a sudden misgiving. “But wait a minute,” he added, disappointment weighting his voice. “We’ve still got a problem. There’s only one scale, there’s two of us.” He shook his head. “No, maybe that’s okay. You can go, and then send somebody back here when you can.”

  “No,” Fionchadd chuckled. “We both go.”

  “But how…?”

  “Shapechange. I become a flea or a louse. I ride in your mouth, in your ear. Thus, when you go, I go; for I am a part of you.”

  David stared at him doubtfully, then laughed loudly and slapped him on the back. “Oh, hell, Finno, why not. I mean what’s one more impossible thing?”

  Fionchadd peered at the pulsating sun. “One impossible thing is to stop the sun from moving—unless,” he added ruefully, “one is Lugh, or has control of his spear.”

  “Yeah,” David sighed. “As Alec’s fond of sayin’, we’re burnin’ daylight.”

  “Right. You lay out the Power Wheel, I will seek for the ingredients and review my memory.”

  David nodded, then found himself still at a bit of a loss for how to proceed. He considered simply incising the cross-in-circle in the sand with a stick, but something stopped him. Finally he decided. The tide was going out, leaving a wide flat shelf of sand that was still damp and therefore darker than that on which they sat. He thus simply marked the pattern by filling his hands with the dry white sand from higher up and letting it sift through his fingers. It took several trips, and the Wheel was a small one, but he thought it would suffice, even if it was white against gray. As an afterthought, he found shells in the colors of the cardinal directions and set them in the appropriate places. The sun was down when he finished, and both sea and sand had turned the color of blood. He was beginning to sunburn, he noticed absently.

  Fionchadd returned at that moment, his hands full of various herbs and other, less obvious, items. “I will take the east, you the west, if you will,” the Faery told him. “The scale, I believe, goes between.”

  David nodded and slipped the thong from around his neck, then freed the scale from the intricate wirework that bound it. He was a little sad to see it go… They had been through so much together.

  Fionchadd took it reverently, held it in his palm, and began.

  David had seen much of the ritual before, and heard the same chants. But this time they were on the beach, this time it was Fionchadd repeating the strange phrases; and when the time came for the scale to be dipped in blood, Fionchadd suddenly reached to the sand beside him and snatched up a razor-sharp shell. Before David realized what had happened, the Faery had whipped the scale first across his own cheek, then across David’s, deftly missing nerves and major vessels, but bringing forth a great deal of blood: David could feel it trickle over his chin.

  The blood did not drip onto his bare chest, though, but onto the scale Fionchadd held below it. He stared at it in fascination, realized they had their heads close together, that blood was running down both their faces in almost equal amounts, and that the scale was greedily absorbing it.

  A touch of Fionchadd’s hand made the pain grow less. “Now,” the Faery whispered, “I think we are ready.”

  David nodded and commenced preparations for the small fire Fionchadd had told him to build—Lord knew there’d been enough dry material around. Practically all you had to do was reach down, even here on the beach of Galunlati. It blazed up quickly.

  He stood, took the scale from Fionchadd’s fingers. “That should do it,” the Faery said finally. “If not—it was a valiant effort.”

  David shrugged. “We’ll see. Now—what’re you gonna do? How’re you gonna come with me?”

  Fionchadd grinned. “I would like to surprise you.” David frowned at him. “Whatever you say.”

  A hand brushed his shoulder, and when he looked down, the Faery was nowhere in sight.

  Now! a voice echoed in his mind.

  David nodded and cast the scale in the fire. He closed his eyes and thought very hard about home, about Liz and Alec. “Alec McLean!” he shouted when the scale flared up, since Alec was Master of the Ulunsuti, and the closest to a man of Power they had in their home World; then, just to be safe, “Elizabeth Hughes”—and to keep the bases covered, Alec’s name in Cherokee: “Tsulehisanunhe!” And then flame reached out and engulfed him.

  It was different this time—less pain, or perhaps he was getting used to it, and there was more of a sensation of actually moving, of transiting somewhere. He was somehow aware of every cell of his body, could feel each bone and fiber, separate and distinct.

  And then his disparate parts smashed back together, and for the second time in twenty-four hours, he found himself precipitated into water.

  —Except that it was blessedly warm this time, almost warm as blood. They had arrived at night, too, and a storm seemed to be brewing, for the sky was wild with scudding black clouds sweeping unnaturally quick beneath a blue ablaze with indignant stars. The waves—black, accented with silver—were high and choppy; the sporadic rain that splattered his face felt like needles of ice.

  He ducked his head, rose, gasped, and began treading water. “Finno!” he shouted. “Hey, Lizardman, where are you?”

  A sound between a snap and a pop, a twinge of pain on his back, and then a sudden splash and a laugh.

  He turned, furious—to see a wild-eyed Fionchadd grinning at him from a few yards away.

  “So, how’d you get here?” David demanded.

  “As a tick between your shoulders. Your blood is very good—thicker than ours, but sweet…”

  David glared at him. “I oughta…”

  “Kill me? If tonight’s work goes aright, you may well be rid of me sooner than you think.”

  “Why’s that?” David felt a vast uneasiness well up inside him.

  “Have you not guessed? This is not your World, this is Faerie!”

  “Faerie!” David gasped, only to have his mouth promptly filled with salt water. “But how? We can’t teleport two Worlds away with the scale.”

  “No,” Fionchadd acknowledged, “not normally—yet we obviously have, and the only thing that was different in the ritual was that we used your blood and mine to activate the scale. Also…”

  “What…?” David interrupted, then felt his eyes go huge. “Oh no! We…we called on Alec and Liz to anchor us, and wound up here, which means…”

  “That they are also here,” Fionchadd nodded. “So I would think. And probably close by.”

  David tried to leap clear of the water but could not. One thing he did notice, though, was that there was a huge amount of storm wrack about: floating bits of wood. One nudged his back with a splintered edge, and he yipped and twisted around. It was a piece of very pale wood, polished to a high gloss, lightly gilded with silver, and with a bright metal fixture attached which he thought might once have held some rigging.

  “Boat parts!” he cried; then, as dread caught him, he shouted, “Liz! Liz—Alec—can you hear me?”

  Fionchadd added his voice then, pitching it carefully so that it pierced the night.

  No answer.

  David met Fionchadd’s gaze, fear and dread and anger warring for priority there. “This is a shipwreck, Finno.”

  “We called on them and the scale responded. Were they not still alive, I imagine we would still be in Galunlati,” the Faery replied simply.

  David brightened at that. “Good point. Come on, then, let’s see what we can find—check this drift—might be smart anyway, if a storm’s comin’ up. It’d be good to have something to hang onto.”

  “A wise suggestion. I have used much Power lately, and am very weary. I do not think I could last out a storm at sea unaided.”

 
“Not even as a fish?”

  “I have no more changes in me—not for a very long while.”

  David sighed, and struck out in the direction from which the greatest amount of debris seemed to be drifting.

  He searched until his arms were tired to the point of cramping and his breaths were coming in gasps. He barely had strength enough to yell out his friends’ names, yet he did—over and over.

  The slap of waves, the cry of night-flying birds was his only answer until, faintly: “Here!”

  “Liz?”

  “Davy? Here, over here!” The cries became a whistle, long and drawn out: Liz’s distinctive signal rising clear above the sound of waves and—increasingly—wind.

  In less than a minute, he had found them.

  They were a sorry sight, hanging from a floating shaft of what might once have been a mast. Their hair was plastered to their heads in limp, salt-laden tendrils; their eyes and lips were swollen. And there seemed to be a vast encumbrance of chains. David grabbed hold of the spar, felt it bob but keep its buoyance. Fionchadd took the other end. It was all David could do to keep from trying to hug them both, and he wanted to kiss Liz so badly he could hardly stand it, to wipe away the fear and pain from her face. To kiss her happy again.

  Instead, he asked, “What happened?”

  “Finvarra’s guys captured us in our World,” Alec began. “And—”

  “And Lugh ambushed them as soon as we wound up here,” Liz finished. “I don’t think he knew we were aboard, and he didn’t stay to investigate. His fleet went east very quickly—on water, and above it.”

  “That would make sense,” Fionchadd mused, “if the rumors I heard are true and Finvarra truly wishes to engage him far at sea.”

  “But what about the spear?” Alec asked. “I thought he was going to use it on Erenn on Midsummer’s…”

  “Fuck the friggin’ spear,” David gritted. “We’ve gotta get you guys outta here.”

  Fionchadd nodded in David’s direction. “There is land that way, not far. The tide will take us there if we drift. It is coming in.”

  “Yeah, but we can get there faster if we all paddle.”

  And so they did.

  It was still not midnight in Faerie (so Fionchadd informed them, having read the positions of the stars between the ever larger banks of tattered clouds) when David felt his kicking feet finally brush bottom. They dragged themselves ashore, and David and his mortal friends lay there grasping while Fionchadd made short work of the chains that still linked Alec and Liz. As soon as she was freed, Liz rolled into David’s arms, and they clung together for a moment, then found each other’s lips…

  Eventually Alec cleared his throat. “Uh, I hate to tell you folks this, but I think a storm’s brewing.”

  David disentangled himself and looked up. Sure enough, the sky was solid black now, and the wind was whipping through the trees nearby with a new fury. He gazed at those trees a moment, decided they were little different from the native Georgia live oaks, except that they were taller, thicker, and more extravagantly knobbed and whorled. Far to the right he could see a gleam of light on the shore and make out what might be white buildings.

  “Lugh’s southern fastness,” Fionchadd observed, “where all the Tracks eastward converge. We cannot get there now, for it is further than it looks—at least, not and weather this storm.”

  Even as he spoke, there was a single crash of lightning, and the World went white. One instant the air felt quick and hesitant and smelled faintly of ozone; the next rain was pouring down.

  As one they ran for the shelter of the trees, crouched there, huddled together and watching the storm.

  It was not natural, they knew. And never had they seen such fury loose in the skies. The storm that had lashed around Uncle Dale’s farm was as nothing to this, for here the whole World was involved. Clouds fought and shattered, waves rose and smashed the shore. Trees moaned and snapped and disintegrated, and lightning was everywhere, increasingly vying with a stab of yellow light far out to sea.

  “The Spear,” Fionchadd gasped. “Lugh uses the Spear of the Sun—and at night. Mighty indeed he must be!”

  “Why’s that?”

  “Because it draws on the Power of the sun, or on the Power of the sun stored in something—in this case, Lugh himself, I would suppose. The Lord of Tir-Nan-Og must truly be hard pressed.”

  “I thought the plan was for him to attack Erenn.”

  “Not necessarily,” Fionchadd informed them. “That could well have been a feint: send their attention that way, attack the smaller fleet instead, and so clear the southern sea of Finvarra’s forces, then assail the north both from land and sea. And…”

  But thunder overruled further conversation.

  For roughly the next hour they lay on the sopping ground while the storm got worse and worse. Waves rose higher, taller than three men, and were slapping the shore closer and closer. Many of the trees beneath which they had sheltered had snapped, and once they had to relocate quickly to avoid being crushed when a limb splintered off above them.

  “It’s like a friggin’ hurricane!” David shouted, and heard his voice taken away by the howling wind.

  “No, it’s worse,” Alec yelled back. “Much worse. Look!”

  He pointed seaward, and for a moment David saw only silver-lit darkness. But then he noticed it too, and felt the hair rise up on his body, in spite of being waterlogged. For he was no longer seeing one reality.

  One moment it was the lightning-limned seas of Faerie; the next it was a morning sea in Galunlati, but with the sun glaring so hot the very waves were steaming. The one after that, it was coastal marshes of Georgia, bright beneath a glimmering moon, but with a fey wind stirring the cattails and reeds.

  And then it was all a jumble, as the Walls between the Worlds, for brief instants, dissolved. One moment they were in sunlight, one moment back beneath the tree, a third they were lying up to their necks in stinking mud and marshgrass, and hearing the buzz of a seaplane. David wondered, suddenly, how the folk of the other Worlds were experiencing this. But then his attention was drawn to something nearby. Two ships had appeared, as if spun from the very substance of the storm. They were locked together, one a silver vessel floating in the air, the other a water-ship, both linked by grappling hooks and chains. David could not tell whether one was trying to draw the other up, or pull the other down. But then the yellow light flashed that way, and the lower ship erupted into flames.

  “This has to stop,” David announced suddenly. “This has gone on long enough!”

  “Stop?” Liz cried. “And how do you stop something like this?”

  “Like you said,” he smiled, kissing her forehead, “one person at a time, and one side.”

  “You really mean that?”

  “Absolutely. We’re here; we have to do what we came for.”

  “You still think you can end this by giving Finno to his people?’

  “No,” David whispered. “But it’s all I’ve got.”

  “Yes,” Fionchadd spoke up. “He is right. It might succeed. If my folk were to regain me, Finvarra would have nothing with which to bargain.”

  “And how’re we gonna do this?” Alec asked archly.

  “Simple,” David replied. “If we can just get out there. Have you still got the ulunsuti?”

  Alec patted the pocket of his camos where he’d stashed it. “Sure thing, why?”

  “I was thinkin’ ’bout doing one final piece of magic—if we can get a fire goin’.”

  “Oh no,” Liz protested, eyes wide. “You’re not gonna try to build a gate again!”

  “Sorry,” David replied slowly, “but yeah, I am. I’m gonna try to get us to the Powersmiths—or Finno anyway. Since they won’t come to us, we’ll have to go to them.”

  “And how’re you gonna build a fire in this mess, and do the rest of the ritual?”

  “If Finno’ll handle the fire, I’ll handle the rest. Even I can’t make fire in this.”

/>   “I can do the fire,” Fionchadd volunteered.

  “Good,” David replied, then struck himself in the head with the heel of his hand. “Damn! I forgot one thing—we don’t have the blood of a large animal.”

  “Oh yes we do,” Alec whispered.

  Chapter XXVII: Blood Talks

  (Faerie—high summer—night)

  “What’re you talkin’ about?” David practically shouted at Alec. “There aren’t any large animals here!”

  “Except us,” Alec replied calmly. “If Finno can heal me, I think I can spare enough blood.”

  “Alec, no!” Liz cried in turn. Her eyes reflected the pervasive lightning, but added their own intensity. “You’re crazy! I mean, you’re half dead already. You can’t risk it!”

  “Yes I can,” Alec repeated, still in the same calm tones, but with an undercurrent of resolution that indicated further argument would do no good.

  “No!” David and Liz protested as one.

  “Maybe,” Fionchadd chimed in. “No, actually, it might succeed. If Alec can provide enough blood, I believe I can heal the wound. I still have sufficient Power for that.”

  “It won’t take much,” Alec went on quickly. “I think there was maybe a quart in the thermos, but we didn’t use nearly all of it to empower the ulunsuti—maybe just a pint or so. Shoot, I drop that much every time I give blood at school. No problem.”

  “I don’t like this,” David persisted. “You’d have to cut yourself really deeply to get enough. What if you hit a vein?”

  “I’d be through quicker,” Alec shot back almost giddily. “But seriously, we’ve never dealt with it, but…what happens if you just let the thing have all the blood it wants? I mean, it seems to sense what’s demanded of it and absorb accordingly. So suppose I simply cut myself on the hand—not badly, you know; just enough to insure a steady flow, then slap that on. Wouldn’t that do it?”

  David shook his head, and Liz looked equally doubtful. “It’s not your fight, bro.”

  “Yes it is,” Alec maintained. And with that, he withdrew the scrap of ragged metal he’d been secreting in his pocket and very neatly slit the heel of his palm. Liz gasped, and David felt his balls make a twitch, but Alec simply sat there in the lee of the tree, face white with pain, hair and clothing plastered to his body. He looked awful—tired, sick, maybe a little crazy. But the gleam in his eyes was absolutely sane. He held the hand out into the wind and rain. Already blood was pooling there. “I can turn it over,” he threatened. “I can waste this—or I can use it. What’s it gonna be? Do I risk a little and maybe we end this thing, or do we risk nothing, and regret it forever?”