Landslayer's Law

by Tom Deitz

  “We would still be drawn back to Faerie. If we did not return, we would go mad. And I doubt you want a host of insane Danaans dwelling in your midst!”

  “Oh well,” David conceded. “It’s something to think about, anyway.”

  “Aye,” Fionchadd sighed, “and though you have not noticed it, we are almost there.”

  David started, not realizing how all that thought—all that internalization—had caused him to lose track of the external world entirely. He focused on it now, and focused hard. There were trees beyond the briars—when had they appeared?—and occasionally, beyond them, he glimpsed meadows or flat plains or deserts of odd-colored sand, from which strange glassy forms erupted like dancers frozen into crystal or stone.

  “Play faster!” Fionchadd demanded. “Play twice as fast again—and see what we shall see.”

  Piper did. With the utter seamlessness of a master musician, he picked up the tune as it came around and began to increase the tempo. LaWanda co-opted Calvin’s drum, and with it, she contrived an ever-faster cadence, which Piper never failed to match perfectly. And suddenly all the world became fast music and the slow, steady tread of the horse beneath David’s seat. And then the music waxed faster yet, and the motes of the Track began to rise higher, and higher still; first to the horses’ hocks, then to their withers, and finally over their heads. As the cloud reached his chin, David had the awful sense he was about to drown, and found himself taking deep ragged breaths, straining to keep his head above what felt most like a blood-warm sea that was at once effervescent and charged with electricity.

  “Relax,” Fionchadd urged. “Do not resist. Let it become, instead, a pleasure.”

  David started to reply that such was easy for him to say, but then Liz leaned toward him. “Close your eyes,” she advised. “It makes it easier.”

  A final deep breath—and David found himself in the most profoundly peaceful state he’d ever experienced. He could stay this way forever, wafting along as though he truly had no body. It was like his lone encounter with a sensory deprivation tank—save that there was still Piper’s music, and the light beyond his closed eyelids was golden.

  “Halt!” Fionchadd commanded abruptly, his voice oddly thin and distant, as though the mist sucked away its very volume.

  David hated to hear that word—indeed, he did not immediately recognize it.

  But there was no more music; that had ended in mid-note.

  And with it, like water running from a sieve, the drifting golden motes ebbed away, so that a moment later David found himself between a pair of rough granite trilithons twice as high as his head, gazing down a grassy, sunlit slope across no more than a mile of open plains to a perilously steep-sided mountain girt with walls and terraces and gardens, atop which glimmered what he recalled from more than one sighting: the twelve-towered palace of Lugh Samildinach.

  “Wow!” Brock gasped, riding up beside David, mouth agape. “I’m sorry I keep saying that,” the boy added. “But sometimes—well, sometimes the right word really is ‘wow.’”

  “I know,” David acknowledged. “I remember the first time I saw it. It was dusk, and Alec and I were campin’ up on Lookout Rock back in my home county, and I’d just got the Sight the night before, only I didn’t know it, and I saw what I thought was just plain old Bloody Bald—that’s what it’s called in our World. And then I saw that mountain rise higher, and show—well, I don’t have to describe it, you can see it for yourself.”

  “Wow!” Brock repeated, and grinned. And for a moment David too surrendered himself to the view.

  A thousand feet—two thousand—who knew how tall those towers rose? And how far around were those walls? Geometry might tell, in theory; but David suspected that anyone assaying them with ruler or tape would find his efforts thwarted. Yet the place was not insubstantial, not ethereal, not ever-shifting. Rather, it was far too real, yet impossible in its intricacy. The overall impression was of relentless verticality, determined straining for height, so that the towers sported flutes and subsidiary turrets and buttresses and arches and ornate crenelations and rank upon rank of tall, narrow stained glass windows.

  It was Gothic, yet it was not, for it was too spontaneous and organic. It was Celtic in its whorling complexity and the fluidity of its shapes, yet without that culture’s pervasive earthiness. It was Moorish in the delicate intricacy of its ornament, yet almost Art Nouveau where those ornaments were allowed to meld and merge and flow free.

  “And you say you have no artists,” Myra snorted, joining them. “I could spend a year studying a square yard of that—and we’re still miles away.”

  “Miles to go before you sleep, too,” Fionchadd reminded her, “and I did not say we were the builders.”

  Myra’s eyes widened, her brows shot almost to her hairline. But Fionchadd preempted any reply. “Nuada told me that,” the Faery explained. “The line about sleeping, I mean. A line from one of your poets he liked very much—because it said exactly what it ought. It means something different, too, when one is immortal.”

  “Someone’s coming!” Alec announced—precisely as Gary, LaWanda, and Sandy shouted the same. They no longer rode in file, but had fanned out across the fringe of the stone-crowned hill atop which they had emerged; yet now they crowded closer, gazes probing the landscape anxiously. By following Alec’s pointing finger, David could barely make out a cloud of pale dust emerging from the eaves of a dark-leaved forest halfway between the palace and their party. Even as he watched, the dust clarified into riders: a whole host of mounted men, with the glint of armor about them and long gold-and-white banners snapping above them in no obvious wind.

  “We must meet them!” Fionchadd called—and set heel to his steed and galloped down the hill. David had no choice but to follow, not when he noted his more foolhardy friends (notably Darrell and Brock) getting so far ahead of him. “Hold, guys!” he hollered. “These folks probably know Finno, but if they know any of the rest of us, it’s—uh—probably gonna be me, so I guess I oughta take the lead—if nobody minds.”

  Alec grimaced sourly. “My friend the hero.”

  “Reluctant hero,” David shot back. “A man’s gotta do what a man’s gotta do.” And with that, he kicked his own mount in the ribs and raced Fionchadd mac Ailill down the hill.

  They met on a road of golden stone inset with interlaced spirals one shade darker, surrounded by a plain of knee-high grass that could have been waving strands of silver. “Lugh honors you indeed,” Fionchadd confided as they approached the other party, who had halted in double rows a short way ahead, naked swords set crossways across their saddles, silken banners waving. “He has sent his personal guard.”

  David tried to look grim and noble as the parties paced toward each other. They were identical, those Faery knights, and like a dream from another age. White horses carried them, with white velvet barding dripping golden fringe almost to the ground; and silver armor clad them: rings of fine-wrought mail casing arms and legs and throats beneath white velvet surcoats. High-crowned helms covered their heads like caps, the long ear pieces and nasals all worked with impossible swirls and spirals. Shields they bore, too, though set at rest, each bearing Lugh’s device: argent, a sun in splendor, Or—so a human herald would blazon it. And that device was repeated on the breast of their surcoats and on the long cloaks that fell from their shoulders on either side, to merge their own fringes with those of the horses’ accouterments.

  Fionchadd leaned toward David and grinned. “Come with me—my friend,” he said, then twisted further around. “The rest of you form into file in the order you first trod other Worlds.”

  A few mumbled comments followed, and more than a few uncertain glances flitted about, but Liz quickly took charge and got things sorted out—the main problem being what to do about Myra, Piper, and LaWanda, who, though they’d clearly been to at least one other World, weren’t sure how certain events qualified. In the end, they decided that if they’d wound up in a place that weirded them an
d later discovered that place was connected to some other reality, that counted. The upshot was that Alec came right after David, and that Aikin brought up the rear.

  That accomplished, Fionchadd began to walk his horse forward, with David right behind. When the two groups were within maybe ten yards of each other, the two closest knights separated from their ranks and moved out to meet them. They alone wore visored helms, and not until the nearer was directly opposite him, did David note the subtle difference in the armor along that man’s right arm. And then he recognized the glitter of those cold, dark blue eyes. He was gazing not on a mere Faery captain, Lugh’s household guard or no, but on Nuada Airgetlam himself: Lugh’s warlord, counselor, and—no pun intended—right hand man.

  Nuada did not remove his visor, but David thought he saw the corners of that one’s eyes crinkle, as though, beneath all that complexity of metal, he were smiling.

  As for the other…David didn’t know him, though Fionchadd obviously did. They stared at each other a moment, and Fionchadd actually looked nervous—anxious, anyway. “Have you brought the ones Lugh summoned?” that one demanded.

  “I have,” Fionchadd replied. “I have brought them all.”

  “All you were sent for,” that one corrected. “And long enough it took you! Now follow me…and quickly!”

  And with that, the Faery jerked his steed around and galloped off down the golden stone road between the long file of mounted knights.

  Nuada—if that indeed were he—did likewise. Fionchadd mirrored them. David came next, and heard the rest of his companions fall in behind, then a louder clatter as the knights closed ranks in their wake.

  It was a wild ride that ensued, in contrast to the stately pace they had maintained along the Track or the confused jumble of their cross-country gallop to the road. This was simply speed. A mad race down arrow-straight pavement that led through forests and fields and across at least one river, until, very suddenly, they emerged from one final (and very dark) wood comprised of what seemed to be giant sequoias, and found themselves confronting a shining white wall twice as high as any of those trees. At first glimpse that wall seemed unadorned, as it swept off into unguessable distance to either side, but a closer inspection showed that it was in fact thick with patterns: more of the ubiquitous spirals set in wide bands of inlaid stone at man height as far as David could see—except for straight ahead, where the pattern rose in higher relief and stronger color to frame a slender, arched recess ten times as high as the nearest banner pole.

  David’s breath caught—as, by the sound, did most of his companions’. He gazed at Fionchadd expectantly, seeking some cue as to how to proceed.

  “Watch,” the Faery murmured. “Wait.”

  David did, scarcely breathing as lights awoke on the panel framed by that arch; lights that became a pattern of a thousand colors, like stained glass lit from within, save that these patterns moved.

  The captain—or perhaps it was Nuada, David couldn’t tell from the rear—rode forward, to halt directly before the center of that vast glowing portal. Dead silence came with him. And then suddenly that one uttered a—well, maybe it was an actual word, but it was more like the sound of command itself: absolute desire made manifest, whereupon the panel slowly split down the middle and folded outward to either side.

  “Dismount,” that one ordered, in what David was still not certain was either heard with the ear or in English.

  Another glance at Fionchadd showed him already down from his saddle, and David took the hint and also dismounted. Someone was there beside him as soon as his feet touched the ground: one of the guard—and not Nuada. “Follow,” the knight said, and before David could so much as blink, another had joined the first on the other side, and he was being escorted into the palace of Lugh Samildinach. Fionchadd was up ahead, he saw with relief, as his eyes adjusted to the surprising gloom of what proved to be a hallway barely wide enough for three grown men—or Faeries—to march abreast, but with vaults too high for light-dazed eyes to discern. The dominant impression was of piers of silver-toned marble marching endlessly away, the spaces between filled with wide stone panels carved with yet more whorls and spirals.

  For a long time they trooped along—so long David actually began to tire—but just as he was about to voice that complaint, their hallway suddenly teed into a far wider one at least as tall. For a wonder, this one was carpeted—in burgundy, red, and black—and even better, it was brightly lit, with what looked amazingly like Georgia sunlight, save that this gleamed from complex gilded globes set at ten-step intervals twice their height along both walls.

  Another door loomed ahead, with two more guards flanking it, and as Fionchadd walked toward it, the two knights who had accompanied David fell back to either side. “After you,” Fionchadd offered, with a sad smile. “And welcome to Tir-Nan-Og.”

  David could only grunt and roll his eyes. Impulsively, he spun around—protocol be damned—and located Liz and Alec. Their faces were unreadable, so much emotion registered there: fear and awe most obviously. Without further ado, he slid between them and threw his arms across their shoulders.

  So it was then, that with his best friend on his left and his girlfriend on his right, David Kevin Sullivan, of rural Enotah County in the wilds of extreme north Georgia, squared his shoulders, took a deep breath, and strode through that final portal.

  Chapter X: Revelations

  (Tir-Nan-Og—high summer)

  David’s first impression as the massive doorjamb fell away behind him and he stepped into the space beyond was of surprising intimacy, almost—dared he think it?—homey disarray.

  Certainly the room he entered, that the rest of his comrades were now crowding into, forcing him further forward, was not the vast chamber he’d have expected from such an imposing portal. Though high-vaulted, with simple round arches of rough-cut stone, the space itself was small when compared to the scale of the rest of the palace: thirty feet wide, perhaps, and no more than half again as long: the size of a small house, say.

  And filled with light. For the walls between the piers opposite were almost entirely glazed: panes of honey-toned glass interspersed with white or clear, all frosted with more of those interlace designs; while the plain granite blocks of the other walls were brightened by tapestries depicting wildly romantic landscapes and vivid hunting scenes that would not have been out of place in a French Renaissance chateau. The pale limestone floor was piled thick with oriental rugs—human work, by the look of them, and priceless. A fireplace dominated the right hand end, carved of ruddy stone in the shape of a slightly whimsical hell-mouth. Real flame reddened that rocky gullet, while ranks of metal goblets steamed on the raised hearth that served as the leering sculpture’s tongue. The smell was wonderful: wine, herbs, and delicate spices. David’s stomach rumbled.

  As for furniture—they’d been summoned to a council, and the room was set up as a council chamber—sort of. The rugs were strewn with comfortable-looking seats of every kind, interspersed with diverse small tables, all facing inward toward a larger trestle table, behind which a pair of what could only be described as thrones were set—empty, for the nonce, save for the dozen or so enfields that dozed or padded or stretched lazily about them. Lugh’s pets, if David recalled right.

  Those were the only empty places however—save a quarter arc of seats directly in front of them, into one of which Fionchadd had already settled, motioning him and his companions to do likewise. David chose a low sofa-loveseat thing upholstered in nubby green, but he did so mechanically, for his gaze swept wildly about the room as he took in all those people who had turned to stare at him, like schoolmates sizing up the new kid in class.

  That was the second thing that had startled him: all those people. There were fifty of them if not more; enough to fill the place, yet not to make it feel crowded. But the thing that charged him with absolute awe was that they truly were people. Human people. His kind, not the strange grim beings who claimed this World. Not the Sidhe, the Seeli
e Court, or the Tuatha de Danaan.

  No, these were just regular folks. Some old enough to be termed ancient, some—a few—clearly younger than he. Most had an American look to them, and most, though not all, were Caucasian. As for dress, that too was southeastern standard: jeans or fatigues, a lot of T-shirts, one or two folks in what he thought of as church attire. A couple in bathrobes. Though he knew it was impolite to stare, and seriously uncool to gape, he couldn’t help doing either, gaze flitting from face to face around the room. He was searching for someone, he realized, anyone…any face at all that looked familiar. He half expected to see his Uncle Dale somewhere, or even his brother, Little Billy. Certainly both of them had experienced Faerie firsthand more than once, and not in the most pleasant contexts, either.

  In spite of his care, however, he almost missed the lanky, middle-sized man lounging in a juncture of pier and wall, for the man’s denim jacket was the faded blue of the ocean worked on the tapestry behind him, and his shortish hair nigh the same auburn-brown as the cliffs above those woven waves. The face, however—angularly bland, but basically good-looking, thirtyish and worn by experience and a life outside—he’d seen before. A glance at the man’s hands confirmed it. The right was bare and tanned, the left gloved in tight black leather.

  David’s heart leapt. John Devlin! That was John Devlin! A man he’d met exactly once, though they’d spoken on the phone a score of times. But more to the point, a man who’d befriended his namesake uncle in the weeks before that uncle’s untimely death in Lebanon. Devlin knew some stuff, David reckoned, though he’d been unable to determine exactly what, save that the man seemed to have arcane knowledge, arcane power, and—apparently—arcane connections. He’d never managed to ferret out the specifics, but he suspected from certain objects he’d observed the one time he’d visited the guy’s north Georgia cabin, that he practiced ceremonial magic; and from what little else he’d managed to discover, it was magic from a different…tradition than that which empowered the Sidhe. That he was present now was more than a surprise. Christ, the man had never let on a thing, though David had revealed as much of his own outré adventures as he absolutely dared.