Unfallen Dead

by Mark Del Franco

  His body undulated and the roar of crashing waves broke through the mist. “You do not know what you risk.”

  I had to crane my neck to see his face. “I never do, buddy. Are we done? Because I don’t have time for this.”

  His enormous hand reached for me. I instinctively held up the spear. He paused, shuddered, and the wild man was back. “You dare much. The living disturb this place to no good end.”

  I tilted the tip of the spear away from him. He was enormous. No need to provoke him any more than I had. “I’m here to take the living back with me.”

  Again, the disconcerting shudder, and the blue-robed man reappeared. “In this, then, we are aligned. I will be obliged to you if you succeed.”

  “Can you point me in the right direction?” I asked.

  The golden-cloaked king shuddered into view. “The Wheel of the World turns as It will. It is not mine to lead even a sliver of It.”

  The wild man returned. “The wielder wheels and is wheeled but chooses his own path. We are the Wheel and Its instrument.”

  The robed man towered up. “The Ways seal and unseal. A needle binds even as it pierces.”

  A great wind rose. The figure pulsated as its forms sought to dominate each other, then spun outward in a flash of white. It vanished. He vanished. They. Whatever the hell it was. The mist wall wavered and dissipated.

  The dagger in my right boot twisted in its sheath, digging into my ankle. A spell maintained it as a short fighting knife most of the time, but it changed shape through some means I didn’t understand. Heat emanated from the hilt as I withdrew it. It squirmed in my hand and stretched into the full length of a sword. The last time it did that, I was in a fight for my life.

  I faced an opening in a wall of standing stones. A brief glimpse of Nigel leaning over Ceridwen flashed by. The scene slid to a vision of the Civil War monument on the Common, then another of the townhouses on Beacon Hill. The perspective never remained for long, as if the opening itself was in constant motion. My stomach did a little flip. I was looking at Boston through the perspective of the fairy ring. I was in the hazy column of essence, really and truly beyond the veil. I had entered TirNaNog.

  31

  An enormous circle of standing stones surrounded me, enclosing several acres of beaten grass. Granite lintels ran along the tops of the standing stones except for a single break in the circle opposite my position. In the center, nine trilithons stood, arches formed of two standing stones with a lintel across their tops. They made a crescent around a towering pillar stone tapering to a height of several meters. I had seen paintings of such places, fantasies I thought, of what an active stone circle would look like. It was Stonehenge on steroids.

  A woman in an ancient druidic robe brushed past me and approached the portal to Boston. When she stepped between the standing stones, gray spots of essence materialized like a barrier. She pressed forward, muttering, and melted through to the other side. A perplexed look came over her face as she stared at a Boston police officer, and her body shield activated as the scene swept away from me. However she made it through, it looked a lot less painful than when I had done it.

  Around the circle, the other portals between the standing stones showed a steep grass embankment outside the circle. A few standing stones framed an opalescent haze of essence that resonated the same way as the fairy ring back on Boston Common. Across the inner field, the Dead of TirNaNog moved from portal to portal, attempting to walk through, but except for a few with powerful body essences, they met the same resistance I had earlier. Two portals framed visions of rioting on the other side, and another showed a huge bonfire. Around me, fey of all kinds gravitated to the portals, pushing at them like the druidess had done.

  I paused by a trilithon in the center. The lone breach in the outer circle of lintel stones aligned with the back of the crescent-shaped arrangement of center stones. A long line of standing stones marched off into the wide field beyond the stone circle. Stone circles have a causeway approach and an entry portal, and this one was no different. Bigger by a factor of ten, but classic.

  The place resonated essence in a pale shadow of what I knew, except for two things. The pillar stone at the center shone stark blue-white, an intense concentration of Power. And a trailing streak of two body signatures—Powell’s and Meryl’s. Their trail led from the Boston portal, around the center of the henge, and out the entrance portal. Powell had come to find one of the Dead and taken Meryl with her outside the circle. I followed them to the gap in the circle.

  Beyond the two large stones that flanked the entrance, an earthen embankment surrounded the entire stone circle, rising higher than my head. A ditch lay beyond that, then another embankment, not as high as the first, but still taller than I was. And another ditch beyond it, and another embankment, and on and on with each embankment becoming progressively smaller, while each ditch became shallower. The causeway itself ran straight and flat, lined with paired standing stones for nearly a quarter mile. As the embankments to either side became low enough to see over, a green field came into view and spread for miles outside the standing stones of the avenue. A breeze danced over the grass, sending flowing waves over the surface that caught afternoon sunlight and tossed it back.

  At the end of the causeway, the hope that I would find Meryl and leave quickly faded. A few scattered people roamed the field. They had essence signatures with the distinct edge of TirNaNog about them like the Dead within the circle. On the edge of sight, a forest line crouched in several places, dark and motionless. Except for the Dead moving toward me, the only other movement was a dark smudge on the horizon. It was too far off to make out details, but the essence within it shone brighter than everything around it. Whoever was out there was alive.

  I hesitated. It would take me hours to reach them. If it was Powell, I could wait until she returned to the circle. One of the few things I knew about the land of the Dead was that time moved at a different pace, sometimes slower, sometimes faster. I had no idea how much time had passed there between Meryl and Powell going in and my arrival. In Boston, it was late evening and still was when scenes from the Common flashed by the portal. In TirNaNog, it felt like late afternoon. Maybe Meryl didn’t have hours. Maybe she didn’t have minutes. My chest hurt at the thought that I might be too late.

  The spear flickered with essence. The landscape blurred, and I had a strange falling sensation. The feeling passed as quickly as it came. I didn’t know what caused it, unless the mass in my head had started causing physical damage to my brain. A faint sound of thunder rolled toward me. I didn’t have time to worry about it. I started jogging, keeping my eyes on the movement along the horizon.

  Essence lit up the spear again, and the landscape blurred roughly. I stumbled, uncertain where my feet were landing, feeling light-headed. Recovering my balance, I started running again. I wasn’t going to let the thing in my head stop me, even if it meant hurting myself more. The dark line on the horizon became a distant group of riders on horseback. I stopped. They were impossibly closer. Behind me, the stone circle was farther away than I could have run in so short a time.

  Somehow I was jumping through the landscape. I froze. Disappearing from one spot and appearing in another wasn’t just jumping. It was teleporting. I was teleporting. The spear vibrated in my hand as I stared down at it.

  Joe once told me that when he teleported, he looked for the thing he wanted until he found it, thought about going to it, then he just went. It was a typical Joe explanation. It sounded too simple, so I dismissed it as pointless. When I was standing at the end of the entrance avenue, the spear had flashed when I thought of reaching the horizon. When it did, I was closer to my destination.

  Taking a deep breath, I pointed the spear and concentrated on the dark line of travelers. The spear spiked with essence. My sensing ability opened like it never had, my inner vision telescoping to the horizon. The body essences of the riders shimmered like candle flames as clearly as if they were next to me. They
materialized in my mind with an incredible clarity—elves and dwarves and solitaries. They all resonated as living beings, not the odd essence of the Dead.

  The spear bucked in my hand. Like that first time it had come to me in the hearing room, it reacted to my thoughts, responding to what I was thinking and feeling. Essence channeled up my arm, electrifying the silver mesh with cold pain. The dark mass in my head seethed, as if angry or threatened. I wasn’t calling the essence; the spear was. It touched me, felt my desire. It was the same process as doing a sending, only instead of sending my thoughts, I sent myself. The spear’s essence leaped into my head, forcing its way in. The dark mass stabbed with hot pain. Dizzy, I swayed as the land shifted beneath my feet and blurred.

  I gasped for breath. The plain became clear again. The riders were closer, riding massive horses. To the left, a lone rider, one of the Dead, rode hard away. The lead rider broke from the pack and came toward me. His essence solidified in my vision, a cool bright blue, not like the Dead, but like home. A plain black helm obscured his face. I held my sword at the ready.

  The rider closed in on me, his strange horse lit with its own eerie essence, not truly of TirNaNog, but not of home either. It moved oddly, somehow higher above the plain than it should have been. It wasn’t touching the ground. It was only riding in the smoke around it. Only one animal looked like that, a dream mare, a creature out of legend, the Teutonic talisman for riding the Ways.

  The rider pulled the reins, and the horse shied sideways. He held his hand up, and the line of riders behind him stopped. As he removed his helm, long dark hair fell to his shoulders. My gut felt like it had filled with ice water.

  Bergen Vize.

  He stared with amusement and surprise. The dream mare danced on its feet in a smoke cloud that billowed like steam, thick, rippling vapors that dissolved in the air a few feet from its hooves. “This is unexpected,” he said.

  “Nice little army you have there, Vize.”

  He twisted in his saddle, looking back at his companions. “It’s a start.”

  “Where’s Meryl Dian?” I asked.

  Vize pursed his lips, appraising the company. “No one by that name is with me.”

  I gripped the spear tighter, feeling it go cold with my anger. The dream mare neighed, its fear vibrating in my gut. “A druidess. Your friend ap Hwyl brought her here.”

  Vize considered, his eyes on the retreating rider. “My business with ap Hwyl is nearly concluded, but I know nothing of this Meryl Dian.”

  I scanned the several hundred riders behind him. The spear amplified my sensing ability, allowing me to pick out the nuances of individual essence signatures. Some I vaguely recognized, associates of Vize whom I knew from the days I was tracking him. The one essence signature I cared about wasn’t there.

  I relaxed into a fighting stance. “Then we have other business to settle.”

  He arched his eyebrows as if the idea amused him. His gaze went to the spear. Recognition flickered. He knew what it was. Meryl said it had traveled to Alfheim. Vize obviously knew the spear. “I have other plans today,” he said.

  “I know. So does the Guild. They’re going to stop you if I don’t.”

  “They may. Someone else will accomplish my goals instead.”

  “You accomplish nothing but destruction and murder.”

  His amusement shifted to impatience. “How simply you view the world, Grey. Sometimes you have to destroy one thing to save another. The fey destroyed Faerie. They’re going to destroy their new world. It may cost some lives, but it will be worth it if I can stop them.”

  I shook my head. “The only one destroying the world we live in is you, Vize.”

  He saluted me with his sword. “Spoken like a true slave.”

  I held my sword level with the ground. “Where’s the ring?”

  He rotated his sword to show me the hand that gripped the hilt. On the index finger was a thick, wide ring. Last time I saw it, it had been gold. It was black now, dull and pulsing with a darkness that made my skin crawl. The dark mass in my head shot pain through my forehead.

  “I’m afraid it won’t come off,” he said.

  I smiled grimly. “I can think of a way.”

  He chuckled. “Yes, well, I’ve considered that option, but the ring had other ideas.”

  I trembled with anger. He was right there. After more than two years, he was right there in front of me. The spear reacted to my emotion, hungering to be free, wanting to fly at Vize. The distance between us wasn’t much. I could take him out. I’d have only one chance, assuming he didn’t parry the throw, or I missed. I had a feeling this spear didn’t miss. The moment I threw it, though, his army would be on me. I wouldn’t be able to cut the ring from his hand, retrieve the spear, and get away with my life.

  I didn’t care. Dying to stop Vize didn’t seem inevitable. I leveled the spear at my shoulder. The dream mare reared, and Vize flashed on his body shields. Several riders behind him broke toward us. The horse wheeled as Vize fought to control it. I caught a full view of Vize. His body shield was in fragments, patches along his back and up one side of his head, useless patches on his legs. His right side, the side he wore the ring on, had no shield at all. The damaged body shields told me all I needed to know. I lowered the spear.

  The dream mare calmed, though her eyes rolled in fear. Vize held his hand up to the oncoming riders, and they checked their advance. Curious, he looked down at me.

  “You didn’t attack me,” I said.

  His face went neutral. “Perhaps I am not the murderer you think I am.”

  “Bull. I’ve screwed your plans twice now, and you’re not even trying to take revenge here. I don’t think you can. You’ve lost your abilities, haven’t you? You lost them that day we fought.”

  He narrowed his eyes. “I see now. You’re Powerless. I have wasted enough time, then.” He thrust his hand up in a fist, then swung it forward. The riders behind him burst into motion, bearing down on us. On me.

  “This isn’t over, Vize,” I said.

  He goaded the horse closer, but not close enough for my sword. “Give me the spear, druid, and I will guarantee your life.”

  “No deal,” I said. I closed my eyes as the first rank of oncoming riders reached Vize. I thought of Meryl. She was why I was there, she alone. A tunnel formed in my inner vision and a brilliant core of green essence blossomed in my mind. It wasn’t a memory. It was real. The spear had opened my vision to Meryl’s essence signature. I let the spear feel my desire to be there, be with her, wherever that mote of green essence was. My gut and brain twisted as the spear responded. The dark thing in my head pushed like razor blades, and I let the pain in. Everything fell away until only the green point of essence remained. Weightless, I soared through an inky darkness, the spear burning the way before me. The mass in my head strained against it, trying to pull me away, but I fought back, drawing energy from the spear. The darkness clawed at my mind, resisting the white flow of essence. I fell into nothingness. Again.

  32

  Ancient trees surrounded me, great gnarled beasts with trunks twenty feet across and deep violet moss swaying lethargically from enormous branches. As dim light filtered greenly down from high above, dark birds winged through the leaf canopy with muted calls. Brief bursts of essence flashed here and there in the deep shadows of the underbrush and faded away like spent glow bees. The air was thick with an eerie stillness broken by the occasional snap of a branch or soft insect whirr.

  I leaned on the spear. Having a sturdy stick of wood was coming in handy. Sweat ran freely along my lip and down my cheek, and I wiped my hand across my mouth. It came away red. Not sweat, blood. Blood seeped from my nose and my ears. A tickle in my throat turned into a cough, and I spat more blood on the ground.

  I picked through twisted roots and dense foliage toward a brightness winding through the trees that indicated a trail. Someone had walked it recently, kicking up a staggered path, like something had been pulled along behind. Or so
meone. Meryl’s essence hung thickly in the air. I followed it down the path, all my senses on alert. Not far off, sunlight shone more brightly where the trail broke through the trees.

  I slowed my pace to soften my footsteps. At the trail break, the trees pulled back to form a shallow clearing. In its center rose a lone standing stone. Sharp ribbon lines of a binding spell held Meryl against it. I released the breath I hadn’t realized I was holding. She was alive. Even better, she was awake and alert. Powell paced nearby, muttering under her breath.

  They wore the brooches from the Met, Powell the apple tree and Meryl the horned serpent. Powell had scored not one, but two true silver branches out of the robbery. My sensing ability picked up the fluttering of numerous sendings. Little spots of essence shot from Powell’s fingers as she made glow bees on the fly. I thought of the lone rider I saw racing away from Vize’s people. It didn’t take a rocket scientist to know who it was. I had no idea how far I had traveled, but I doubted I had much time before Viten showed. I poked my head into the trailhead to attract Meryl’s attention.

  About time, she sent immediately. I ducked. A cranky mood instead of a bad one was a good sign. I crept along the edge of the clearing until the standing stone was between me and Powell. When she faced away, I carefully broke cover from the trees and scrambled to the stone, pressing my back against it. Ribbons of essence around the stone held Meryl in place. They tingled against my back and came alive as they shifted position to loop over me. The dark mass in my head pressed pain against the backs of my eyes.

  Powell stopped her sendings. “What are you doing?”

  I froze. She had sensed the disruption in the bindings.

  “Falling asleep from boredom,” said Meryl.

  “You won’t be soon,” she replied. The sendings began again.

  I faced the standing stone. My sword felt warm in my hand as I lifted the blade to one of the ribbons. Bindings are directed essence with no will of their own. Sharp metal can disrupt them. The first ribbon literally melted as I brought the blade near. One of the rune charms glowed on the sword. The remaining bands shifted and tightened, and Meryl sucked in a breath. The damned things may be mindless, but they still hurt like hell. Cutting each successive band would cause the remaining ones to tighten. I swept the sword across the stone, the blade making a metallic shriek as it scraped. The ribbons parted, waving in the air as they lost purchase, then snuffed out.