by Tom Deitz
He made to rise at that, to stomp up to Lugh and demand details. Screw Tir-Nan-Og! He had to know about Sullivan Cove and he had to know it now!
“No, David!” Liz hissed, reaching up to restrain him. He glared at her, nearly snarled, but Alec was there too, gazing at him sadly. Oddly calm, for all his earlier storm and fury. “Wait,” he urged softly. “Listen. That’s what you’d tell me. You’ll gain nothing by rash action now.”
“Your friend speaks true,” Fionchadd agreed, handing him a cup of some mint-smelling liquid. “Lugh would not have called you here had he not sought your advice.”
David flopped back into his seat, looking sullen. His protest had taken the merest instant; had all been lost in the furor that filled the chamber.
“Why are you telling us this?” a woman demanded, from the opposite corner. She was old enough to have white hair and withered skin, and wore the look of a scholar. David was glad she’d spoken up. He didn’t dare, not now, not here; not when he, though a guest and probably under some sort of protection, was totally outgunned and outmanned.
“I tell you this,” Lugh replied simply, “first because it is something you should know, for affairs in my Land affect affairs in yours. I have not lied, nor will I. I will protect my land. Your Land, has in effect, invaded. Invasion is tantamount to war. Think what that implies. War between the Lands of Men and Tir-Nan-Og.”
“You said first,” the woman reminded him coldly. “What is second?”
Lugh managed a thin, grim smile. “I have also told you this because I would know my enemy. I do not ask you to betray your kind, for surely I would not betray mine—as indeed I would do, should I let this situation persist. I ask you, in short, for advice. How do I deal with this? I do not want war between our Worlds; such a thing is unthinkable. Yet I refuse to relinquish my Land.”
“In other words,” Sandy called, “you want us to come up with a nonconfrontational solution that won’t betray the existence of Faerie.”
Lugh’s smile warmed at that, and Nuada added one of his own. David himself was pleased, first that one of his comrades had spoken so eloquently, concisely, and coolly, and second because he hadn’t had to—which might’ve been a mistake, consumed as he was with anger and fear and dismay. Only pure strength of will kept him from thinking about that now—and he wasn’t so sure Fionchadd wasn’t fooling with his mind; steering it from that far-too-dangerous course. One more account to be settled later—whenever later was.
“You have the gift of words, Sandy Fairfax,” Lugh laughed. “I could not have put it plainer. And you are exactly correct. The problem began in your World. It would be best if your World resolved it—and there is time, a little, during which that may be accomplished.”
“How much time?” Aikin called.
A tiny frown flickered across Lugh’s brow. “Until iron bites the stone of Bloody Bald.”
“You can’t…just keep that from happening?” Liz yelled back.
Lugh shook his head. “We cannot touch iron—as you should know.”
“Not even by—I dunno—suicide attack?” That was Gary.
“I mean, you guys are immortal, right?”
“Not where iron is concerned. I will not—cannot—explain further, save to say that that mountain is this mountain, and this mountain is also me.”
“Will iron on the mountain kill you, then?” That was Alec.
Lugh’s face was like ice. “It will never get the chance.”
David took a deep breath. He started to speak, to ask one question, then changed his mind and tried to frame another. Yet all around, his friends were tossing out cogent comments right and left. Debate was raging. People he didn’t know were joining in. Lugh was dancing a razor edge, he decided: warning of potential attack, yet hinting at his own vulnerabilities—which in turn implied he wasn’t truly worried, which in turn worried the hell out of David. He drank the last of his wine, though he knew it was stupid to seek answers in the bottom of a glass—or fabulous goblet, either.
He was getting sleepy too, which was damned irritating when now of all times he needed to be attentive and alert. He wished the wine were coffee. And realized, to his dismay, that he’d actually tuned out the last two questions—which meant none of his companions had asked them.
The tide of debate was changing, though; shifting away from queries about Lugh’s acts and options, toward what could actually be attempted in the Lands of Men to forestall that new construction. One of his fellow human advocates was clearly a lawyer and was tossing around the phrase “environmental impact statement.”
Which could delay things, David conceded. But might be a problem, someone else pointed out, given that the potential developers had high-level political support—though not as high as the current, pro-environment, governor.
But at the very least, someone noted, there would still be surveying. And if a single surveyor drove an iron piton into the wrong place—well, according to Lugh, even that could spell disaster.
And then someone suggested a class-action lawsuit, which someone else observed would have to involve the Sullivans as principal litigants—was David willing to pursue that?
He found himself saying yes, without much conviction. No way in hell he had the patience to deal with something like that, but if someone else was willing to get the ball rolling, he’d certainly go through the motions.
He hoped it didn’t come to that. Surely there was some quicker, less cumbersome, and more reliable alternative.
“So why don’t you guys just kill ’em?” the youngest person there save Brock—the girl couldn’t be sixteen—hollered.
“Because,” Lugh explained patiently, “you cannot kill a…corporation.”
“You could run it out of business.”
“Which we intend, through our agents, to pursue. But as I said: time is of the essence.”
“Crash their computers?” someone else suggested. “I’ll be glad to try.”
“I give you my permission to make the attempt,” Lugh chuckled. “But if you accomplish that, what happens? They will seek you out. They may find you. If they do, there will be a trial and they will surely convict you. Will you seek asylum here? I will grant it. But you, I know, have a complex life and a large family. Will you uproot them? Can you live without them?”
The man retreated into thoughtful silence.
“It seems then,” Lugh declared finally, “that little can be settled now. Very well. As I have told you, we have time—a little. I would ask you to use that time turning all your thought and energy to this. For though this problem affects but a small part of your World, at present, in the end it could consume it all. My folk grow anxious. They grow fearful. They grow angry. They grow desperate. And some, I know, grow impatient. And though I am king, I cannot control them all. A fortnight—your time—we have, so I have been informed. Use it well. I will summon you all again then.”
And with that, Lugh Samildinach rose from his throne and strode from the hall. Nuada followed after.
“And I doubt it will do either of us any good,” David growled at their shadows.
“Come,” Fionchadd urged, as the room dissolved into chaos. “I will show you to your quarters.”
David glared at him, shook off the hand that sought to steer him toward the door. He strained on tiptoe, seeking…seeking John Devlin, he supposed. Someone, anyone, who was older, wiser, better versed in the ways of the world than he. God knew he was out of his depth! Shoot, what had he ever done? Grown up in Enotah County, made decent grades, goofed off with his buddies, then gone to college and repeated those last two rites ad nauseam. What he needed now was experience, and more to the point, objectivity. And, dammit, he needed it from another guy, not from Myra or Sandy. For them this was simply one more crisis: regrettable, but ultimately remote. For mountain-born Devlin, David somehow knew, it was a thing he lived.
But Devlin was gone.
Doors had opened where doors had no right to be, and a veritable phalanx
of Lugh’s servitors were escorting that whole vast assembly away.
“Come,” Fionchadd murmured again, his face a mask of concern. “Lugh does not wish you to speak among each other.”
Again David thrust the Faery’s hand aside. “Great! Lugh calls us here, but then he won’t hear what we have to say! He tempts us with knowledge, then jerks that knowledge away. What’s he afraid of? That we’ll compare notes and find out more than he wants us to?”
Fionchadd’s face went hard and still. “That, my friend, is exactly what he fears. He walks a sword’s edge, does our king. He asks—nay, needs—your support, yet he fears you may precipitate his fall.”
“Shit!” David snorted, gazing fixedly at the floor. In spite of the presence of his friends, he had never felt so alone. It was too much. Too much responsibility. Too much chaos. Too many competing problems. Lugh was concerned for Tir-Nan-Og, and David had no choice but to fret over it as well—but only because what occurred in Tir-Nan-Og affected his own place. His heart and center. The place that he could no more rip from his soul than Lugh could his own bright realm.
He shivered at that. Without intending too, he’d reasoned himself around to an understanding of how the High King felt.
“Come,” Fionchadd pleaded a third time. “Your quarters await. And I will tell you this, if it helps: Lugh has never quartered mortals in this number in his palace before. Saving Oisin, every mortal here has either been a slave, a prisoner, or a lover.”
David’s frown shifted to a wry half-smile. “And which are we, I wonder? Still…gotta make the best of a bad situation. Okay, Finno. You lead, we’ll follow.”
Chapter XI: Floor Fight
(Tir-Nan-Og—high summer)
“God!” David spat viciously, as he slumped against the massive ornate door he’d just sought unsuccessfully to slam. “I thought we’d never get anywhere!” Without waiting for reply, he stomped into the room to which Fionchadd had escorted them, sparing the barest glance at the splendor of their surroundings, caring not the least for the honor Lugh had bestowed by offering them lodging there. Though not the first night some of them had spent in Tir-Nan-Og, it was undeniably the first any had been housed in Lugh’s own citadel.
David didn’t trust it. It was too good to be true. Lugh was being too up and up—too solicitous. And the terrible thing was, there was nothing he could do. He was trapped. How had he put it earlier? Totally outgunned and outmanned.
Or maybe not. He still had his friends, none of whom had spoken since his tirade, and all of whom were ranked around the room gazing at him speculatively. He glared back, trying to read their faces. Trying, more to the point, not to reveal too much of his own indecision. He was their leader, dammit; for good or ill, it was him. Oh, Myra and Sandy might be older, Calvin more world-wise, Alec and Liz equipped with more common sense, Gary more practical. But he was their…their own pocket Lugh Samildinach. The man skilled in every art.
Ha!
The only art he was skilled in now was sulking. Or worrying. Or being pissed. Or simply feeling sorry for himself. The only good thing, he concluded, was that he was no longer even the tiniest bit tired. Which pissed him all over again. It was in the wine. Or the food. Or the air itself. It wasn’t real, wasn’t natural. It was more of Lugh’s goddamn magic—magic that seemed fair set to destroy every single thing he held dear.
Still not looking at anyone, he stalked over to the nearest chair, flopped down in it, and kicked off his sneakers with a noisy flourish before helping himself to a long draught from the frosted copper tumbler on the black lacquer table at his side. His hair fell into his eyes—when had he lost the tie that bound it? He batted it savagely away. Only then did he take stock of the environs.
They were in a lounge of some kind: a salon. Vaguely Arabic, somewhat Byzantine, more than a little Moorish, with festoons of delicate arches and filigree balancing a blessedly low ceiling inlaid with calligraphic designs, and walls that seemed wrought as much of drifting skeins of sea-toned silk, as of stone, wood, or metal. The far side was open, revealing an arcade of more delicate pillars surrounding a garden which in turn curved around a sparkling azure pool maybe ten yards across. It was night, (hadn’t it been daylight when they arrived, by this World’s time?), and stars sparkled above intricate crenelations that blocked all other view. As for the rest of the palace, the famous twelve towers: none showed. Presumably they were massed behind this place. This suite, to use Fionchadd’s term. The place where they were free to sleep where they would until break of day.
And that was a laugh, wasn’t it? David doubted he’d ever sleep again.
Others, however…Gary was yawning, and Darrell likewise looked crispy if not fully fried. They’d had long days, though, to have arrived so early in the morning with Myra.
Someone cleared a throat.
“Well,” he charged. “What do you guys think?”
“Do you really want to know?” Liz retorted, coming over to sit by him.
“It’s a crock, is what it is,” Alec volunteered at last, as silence stretched and lingered. He dragged up a cushion and sank down on it, not far from David’s feet. He still had the cat-cage. Still had Aife. David found himself wondering what effect the iron bars in that prison might have here, where iron supposedly never cooled. As though reading his mind, Alec grimaced. “Guess I’d better let her out. She’s been stuck in there a bloody long time. I was gonna free her soon as we got back from Tracking.”
“If not sooner,” Aikin hinted, cuffing him. “I kinda figured you’d free her on the Track.”
“Thought about it,” Alec admitted, as he opened the cage. “But the fact is, she really is Aife. We only see the cat, and sometimes the enfield, but we forget there’s consciousness in there too. I don’t like mistreating animals; I won’t mistreat a—uh, essentially a person. It’d be like torturing my poor old senile granny. She might not know it, but I would.”
“Spoken like a true humanist,” Myra remarked from a nearby sofa, where she was concocting a snack of some impossible seafood delicacies from a cache she’d found on the arcade. Aife was intrigued too, judging by her twitching nose and whiskers, but was taking her own sweet time investigating. Alec lost interest in her but left the cage door open.
“Right,” Sandy agreed, busy with a sandwich of her own.
“But the fact is, folks: we’re evading the question.”
David lifted a brow. “You brought it up; you answer. What do you think?”
Sandy gnawed her lip. “I think we are honestly too tired and too…shell-shocked to think anything rational right now. I know I’m not at the top of my form, and I doubt anyone else is either. Oh, there’s energy around; you can feel it in the air, and the food was great, and a lot of little things that were bugging me physically seem to have gone bye-bye. But brains don’t work like that, and emotions certainly don’t, and tonight both have taken some damned solid hits. I know you folks from Georgia must be about to lose it. Never mind all that crap Lugh laid on us about his troubles; there’s a major threat to a place you’ve loved from birth and, for all practical purposes, held sacred.”
David nodded, and Gary uttered a weak, “Here! Here!”
LaWanda was pacing back and forth like a caged leopardess. “If I wanted to be snotty, I’d say it serves you right. That’s if I wanted to be snotty. I’d say it’s time white folks knew what it was like when somebody marches into their land with power and knowledge they can’t stand against and takes command. I’d say that, but the fact is, I don’t believe it. And whether or not I do, I’m still human; and whatever happens up here, sooner or later it’s gonna touch me wherever I am. Shit, folks, Sullivan Cove’s a little place; ain’t nothin’, really, just the pretty ass-end of a grungy little redneck county. But it’s all the world to some of you. It’s your heart, it’s your gut, it’s your center. I got my own. But if things don’t change, which is to say, if we don’t try our own dead-level best to fix things, my own heart and gut and center may be next.
I don’t know what those folks are plannin’ if the bulldozers start to roll, but they’re gonna have to be damned careful or they’ll blow their own cover all to hell. A place like these developer folks’re talkin’ about, it costs money. Lots of money. And when folks start throwin’ that much cash around, other folks start watchin’. I’m not sure Mr. Lugh Samildinach knows how many folks start watchin’, but one slip, and it’s history. He can’t spin doctor Time or Newsweek. And he sure as hell can’t spin the National Enquirer! And, folks,” she finished with a wicked glint in her eye. “Mr. Magic Man may have mojo, but we got steel!”
David giggled; couldn’t help it. Couldn’t resist. Which was all he needed. First to get mad as hell, then to get punchy. He squinted at the tumbler curiously, wondering how it had gotten so empty. And yawned.
No, dammit! He’d been almost feverishly alert bare seconds before; he had to stay functional now. Had to coordinate their council of war.
“It occurs to me,” Liz observed, “that we’re probably not smart to talk about this stuff here. I mean, think, folks: look at the situation. Lugh springs a big one on us out of the clear blue. He asks us to talk about it and report back. Then he asks us to spend the night—which he’s never done.
Now maybe he’s simply being Mr. Nice Guy. He is—sort of—Irish, after all, and also, if I may say, Southern. Hospitality’s a big thing with both of ’em. But maybe he’s got a hidden agenda. Maybe he wants us to talk. Maybe he’s got this room bugged. Maybe he doesn’t have to; they’re telepathic, after all. Maybe he’s left us here close at hand so he can eavesdrop, hear what we really think, what we really plan.”
David gnawed his lip. “Yeah,” he acknowledged. “You may be right. I’m mad as hell too, but that’s not gonna help my thinkin’. Nope, what I’m gonna do”—he sat up abruptly, gazing beyond the arcade to the softly glimmering pool—“what I’m gonna do is go swimmin’. Anybody wants to can come along.”