by Terry Madden
“People are people,” Dish said, “living or dead.”
Iris snorted a laugh. “Well if we’re every going to find someone to make you some legs, it’d be here.” Iris tipped her chin toward Saeth, whose back was to them. Dish was thankful Saeth didn’t understand English.
Iris said, “We’re being driven by Red Sonja, for godsake. She was a stone for a thousand years. How can you doubt that getting some legs is possible around here?”
He had to laugh. He was thankful to have Iris to keep his thoughts away from Lyl.
“What are you going to tell them?” Iris asked.
“Who?”
“Those guys who used to be your army, the ones who ran away. The men of Ys.”
“I don’t know,” he confessed. “I’m taking ideas, though.”
Iris found an apple in the small bag of food. Someone had saved it from the swarms. She took a bite and handed it to Dish.
With her mouth full, she said, “How about, ‘Hey, remember me? I was king, then I was dead, then I was king again. That makes me king now.’”
“It’s a bit more complicated than that.”
“How so?” Iris took the apple from Dish.
“Look, Iris…the king is not chosen based purely on inheritance, but strength—”
“The biggest bully wins, yeah, I know how that works.”
Dish sighed. She was right, the biggest bully wins.
“You just have to kick some ass, Dish.” She took the gun from her belt and handed it to him.
“No, no, I can’t. I’ve never fired one in my life.”
“Me neither until just a few days ago. It’s easy.”
“No. Thank you. You keep that, Iris.” He pressed it back into her cold hands.
Dish took a bite of the apple and handed it up to Saeth.
“My thanks, Lord,” she said, and bit into the apple.
“Stones don’t eat,” Iris said. “She must not be all stone.” Her smile was full of mischief and keenness. Iris would take care of herself just fine.
He stared back at the road they’d traveled and the leafless waste of the bog in the distance. On either side of the road, trees had appeared. Most were in leaf, with grasses and ferns growing beneath them. The plague of insects had not reached this far.
“Connor has got to live,” Iris said with finality. “And I’m going to see him again.”
“Yes. I have no doubt you will.”
Dish had not had time to think about Connor’s fate, but something itched at his memories about those last minutes with him. When Dish had surfaced in the cavern, Connor was bleeding out at the edge of the well. He’d been as gray as a corpse, but he was speaking in the tongue of the Old Blood. Could Dish be remembering that correctly? How could Connor even know the language?
As the road wound higher into the Felgarth Mountains, Dish was overcome with memories of the place. As they passed the road to the clanholding of Einion, he remembered that his father had taken Nechtan and his brother hunting in these woods. Of course, Nechtan was to act as the squire while the two men hunted. His brother was six years his senior. But it was Nechtan who killed the boar that day, not his father and not Gareth. Gareth’s spear had missed the mark and the boar would have gored him if not for Nechtan’s bowshot.
As only a boy of fourteen could do, Nechtan had worn a tusk from that boar around his neck for years—until Lyl had made fun of him for it during his lessons on the Isle of Glass. She’d called him “the unconquerable” that entire summer.
They were memories from another lifetime, from many other lifetimes, but being here brought them into crisp relief against the dull dreamscape that was the life of Hugh Cavendish.
The memories of a butterfly are very different than those of the caterpillar.
They camped that night at a saddle in the mountains Nechtan had known as Bwlch Penbarryn. Far below, the Bay of Serpents stretched toward the sea, glistening silver in the sunset. Caer Ys sat upon a sharp fang of stone in the bay, a black stain against the sunset. The causeway was submerged, so the tide must be high. They would reach Nechtan’s ancestral home in the morning.
The last time he had walked those halls, he had been poisoned by his wife’s soulstalker, the conjurer from Sandkaldr. Without Lyl, Irjan’s plan would have succeeded. And now Lyl was lost in the caverns beneath the bog, and probably dead.
The sun had vanished when Dish finally took his eyes from the view. He left his hope for Lyl’s life with the fading sun. Nothing but night faced him now.
After seeing to his horse, Glaw sat down beside Dish, a stem of grass between his fingers. He pretended to take in the view.
“Your friend, Dylan, has been telling me of the wonders in the land of the dead. Things ye’ve told him. Ships that fly, boxes with people inside. What’s the truth of it? Are ye a king in that other world?”
Dish had to laugh at that. Glaw was just fishing for Dish’s intentions here. Saeth had proclaimed him her king, and Glaw’s knickers were already in a twist.
“You’ve nothing to worry about from me, Glaw.” Dish pointed at his legs.
“This man—” Glaw nodded at Dylan who strode toward them, “told me of a likeness square the dead man carried across with him.”
Dish was puzzled. “Dead man? Connor?”
Dylan joined them, and Iris soon followed. She planted herself close to Dylan, and the four of them sat together on a knoll watching night come.
“What’s a likeness square?”
Dylan said, “A small square with perfect images of Connor and…” A bulb clearly went off in Dylan’s mind. He examined Iris’s face. “And you! You’re Connor’s woman! In that likeness square!”
“What’s he saying?” Iris demanded. Her command of Ildana didn’t exceed weapons and colors. But now they were all staring at her.
“What?” she asked Dish.
Dish finally understood. Dylan was describing a photograph. “Connor had a photo of you—and him together,” he explained to Iris.
“He did?”
Dish nodded. “It would seem so. A photo would be magic to everyone here.”
“Wait, I thought all the magic was here, in this world.”
Dish shrugged. “Magic is anything you don’t understand. That’s all. Both the living and the dead have their own magic. That gun of yours is as magical as anything here.”
“Then answer me this, Dish. If you didn’t come through that well to be king, or to get some shiny new legs…why did you come back here? I mean, it’s not exactly paradise right now. These people are getting ready to fight some undead badass.”
He pursed his lips, unable to answer without spilling far more than he wanted to.
Iris studied his reaction, and smiled. “That’s what I thought. Love.”
She fumbled in her small “Nirvana” backpack, and pulled out her wallet. Inside, she found a photo of herself dressed up in a cosplay outfit of a character Dish didn’t recognize. Something rather frightening. “Here,” she said to Dylan. “Take this. I love distributing magic.”
The look Dylan gave her was priceless. He thanked her a thousand times and showed the Glaw, without allowing him to touch it.
“I love making someone’s day,” Iris said.
Saeth killed a rabbit for their supper. After completing many tasks, Dylan managed to spare a moment for Dish as he spitted the rabbit and turned it over the fire. Since he’d received the magical gift, Dylan had taken over the task of developing Iris’s vocabulary with passionate concentration. The two had been talking for leagues. Now Dylan questioned Dish in a low voice, as if Iris would be able to understand what he was saying.
He wanted to know, what was the meaning of the particolored shirt she wore, and the rings in her lips? Were they tokens of accomplishment in the land of the dead? And the tattoos, surely she must be a warrior of some standing among the dead.
“Oh, she’s fearless,” Dish explained to him, “but she’s not a warrior. The dead like to decorate their bodi
es with tattoos as remembrances. And the rings are just jewelry.”
“Jewelry? Hm.”
Returning from the stream, Iris must have caught on that they were talking about her. Dylan’s dark eyes had flashed in her direction too many times.
“What’s going on here?” she asked, hanging full waterskins from a hook on the wagon.
“She’s Connor’s woman.” Dylan stated it flatly, as if he’d been working to accept it. “She was in his likeness square.”
“They’re good friends,” Dish explained. “You should ask Iris, not me.”
Iris sat down with them, her face bunched up, trying to make out what they were saying. “You’re going to summarize, right, Dish?”
“How could she take up with the likes of Connor?” Dylan ran a hand thoughtfully over his moustache. His scruffy facial hair needed trimming, but beneath it, Dish could see the face of the boy he knew so well.
“You’re not listening,” Dish said. “She’s not Connor’s woman. She’s her own woman, and I suspect she always will be.”
“I know enough of Connor so I’d like to kill him myself,” Dylan said. “If Lyl had given me the word…” He made the motion like slicing a throat.
“Whose throat did he cut?” Iris asked.
Dish patted the air with his hands in an attempt to hold her off.
“Why would you want to kill him?” Dish asked Dylan.
His answer took them through a supper of rabbit and apples. Dish tried to summarize a few points for Iris, but Dylan was still talking long after Iris and the others had fallen asleep.
Blood magic, a gift of runes from the goddess Arianrhod, flying rabbits without skin…and all of this because Connor was some kind of “blood scribe.”
Dish drew a blanket around himself against the chill.
“By the grace of the green gods I swear it’s what happened,” Dylan said. “He’s no man, that one. He’s blood scribe to Tiernmas. Lyl thought she could use him as bait to get Angharad back.”
“Wait,” Dish pleaded, “slow down.”
Dish listened with rapt attention to the story of Tiernmas’s release, and how Lyl had tried to trade Connor for Angharad; how Connor had begged for death rather than be returned to Tiernmas.
“Lyl said Tiernmas would be weak without Connor,” Dylan explained.
“Then why in the name of the green gods would she hand him over?”
“As soon as the trade was made, I was to put an arrow through Connor. But we never come to that. It failed.”
Dish glanced at Saeth. She stood guard at the edge of the firelight. He supposed that she’d been sleeping for a thousand years and needed no rest now. He had a sense that she’d heard everything, and he wanted to know her thoughts on it. He’d ask her in the morning.
As if reading his mind, she spoke. Her voice was wooden and distant. “If Caradoc returns to Tiernmas, the Ildana will fall.”
Dish found no sleep, wondering how he might reach across the Void to Connor before Tiernmas could.
Forced to wait until the causeway was revealed by the retreating tide, Dish’s little party started across near midday.
Mussels grew like black flowers over the rocks of the causeway. The wagon rolled over them, leaving pungent pink flesh in its path. Had Caer Ys become the haunt of ghosts alone? Little had crossed this causeway in some time, long enough to let mussels grow.
The village was still hugging the eastern part of the bay near the mouth of the river, but Dish could see no smoke from cookfires. Had everyone fled?
Leaving the others beyond bow-reach, Saeth approached the black stone walls alone. Dish saw no more than one bowman on the battlements which he had once ordered to be guarded with thirty men, day and night.
At the gate, Saeth stood with her gloved hands clasped behind her back, her long surcoat of horn-plated leather reaching her knees in the style of the warriors of old. Dish could not hear the words she exchanged with the guard, but it was not long before the gates opened and she motioned for Dylan to drive the cart in. Iris followed with the other two horses in tow.
Glaw kicked his horse to a trot, making sure he was the first to enter the gate. Dish knew Glaw would take control of any negotiations, and any interference from Dish would certainly be unwelcome.
The outer ward was tall with grass, as if none had used the practice yard all summer. The man who met them was too young to be captain. He could hardly be called a man, for he hadn’t grown to his full height. He was sinewy—muscle over bone and not much else. He wore a dirty battle cuirass that hung loosely over his slight frame.
“I am Lewys, captain of the guard of Ys,” he stated timidly, and then licked his lips repeatedly. He was barely older than Dylan had been when Dish first met him, if even that.
Dish started to speak. “I am—”
“Glaw, heir to the chieftain of IsAeron, and commander of its army.” Glaw looked like he expected to have his feet kissed.
Instead, the boy, Lewys, took a step back as if to parry a blow.
“I am Hugh,” Dish said from his seat in the cart. “I come from the land of the dead. Talan opened the third well. You know this, lad?”
“We were driven from the field.” Lewys talked fast and continually licked his lips. “Half our men were slaughtered by Emlyn. The captain died, and so I am…I am his son.”
“I’m sorry,” Dish said.
As Glaw listed his needs for immediate comfort, Nechtan’s thoughts wandered back to this place, the years he’d spent here. He remembered lying beneath his brother’s body for a day and a night on the battlefield, the same day he was burdened with the throne just as soon as Lyl had stitched his guts back in. He pitied this lad, Lewys. But someone would take control of Ys from him soon, and Dish made it his goal to make sure that it wasn’t Glaw.
“We must talk,” Dish said to the lad. “You are without a lord. Talan has…died. And a great darkness is crawling from beneath the Red Bog.”
“Aye,” Glaw interjected. “I’m here to lead all against this darkness.”
The young man hesitated, his wet eyes darting from Dish to the Glaw. Lewys seemed to understand that he was the in control, if only for a little while longer. A look of relief softened the corners of his mouth. He bowed slightly, and indicated the way to the inner ward, and the great hall.
With one arm around each of their shoulders, Saeth and Dylan carried Dish between them.
Nothing had changed in the cavernous great hall, except that there were no courtiers and few servants. The balcony that overlooked the bay was shuttered closed, though the day was fair, and rather than being lit by the sun, it was lit by torches.
The vaulting of carved oak faces looked down on them as they always had, serpents and horses and laughing women. Ravens and goats and warriors. When he was a boy, Nechtan had made up a story about all the creatures that decorated the hall. Something about a maiden stolen by a wolf in the woods of the Felgarth. He couldn’t remember it all.
He was still looking up at the fire-blackened faces when he heard her voice.
“I’ll do what I can,” she said.
Dish turned at the sound of her voice. Her dark hair had been cut off. It fell almost to her shoulders in ragged pieces. She wore the garb of an archer of Emlyn with one sleeve missing. Her cheek was badly scraped and turning purple. But her smile was unchanged.
“Lyl.”
Chapter 10
Lyleth’s feet failed to carry her any farther. Lewys was whispering, but she no longer heard the boy. She stood, frozen, in the doorway. In the middle of the smoky hall of Caer Ys sat the teacher. The man who had washed up in the well with hundreds of the Old Blood.
Dylan strode quickly to her, and embraced her.
“I thought ye dead,” he said.
“And I, you.”
But Lyleth couldn’t take her eyes from the man in the chair. She knew who he was, and who he wasn’t. She knew who she wanted him to be. It was unfair to compare him, and yet, he was both men, an
d neither.
The girl was with him, the one who’d also come through the well. At least, Lyleth concluded she was a girl. She wore metallic rings in her lip, and a row of similar rings traced the outer edge of one ear. Her hair was shaved over that one ear, and streaked with green. She wore the tattoos of one who had seen many battles, like the people of Amorica.
But neither the teacher’s nor the girl’s skin was gray, as Connor’s had been. Because the well had truly brought them across…alive.
“Lyl.” His voice was so different.
Short, unruly acorn-colored hair fell to the collar of his odd shirt. No warrior braid. His face was blanched, and Lyleth thought it must be with weariness. The dark shadow of beard stubble made the angles of his face sharper. Heavy brows, like the wings of a raven, hooded yew-green eyes she would know in any world, in any flesh. There was no mistaking those eyes.
It was Nechtan. In the flesh of the teacher.
His clothing was like none she’d ever seen, and by the looks of him, he’d been dragged through the mud like the others in his party.
“How did you get out of the cavern?” Dylan was asking.
But Lyleth’s eyes never left the man in the chair. For one who’d trained a lifetime in diplomacy, she found no words at the ready.
A big man with the face of a hunting dog was talking. Something about a need for men and arms.
“Ys has few men left alive,” Lyleth managed to say. “And fewer who are able to fight. You did meet Lewys. He is one of the few.”
The teacher was speaking, but with his eyes alone. To her alone.
Though crippled, he had the look of strength. His hands belied it. And…the sleeve of his dirty shirt was pushed halfway up his forearm. There, on his right wrist, was the mark of the king, the mate of the one on Lyleth’s left wrist. The water horse of Black Brac. How?
“Lyl.” He gripped the arms of the chair as if he might try to stand. “Where is she?”
Lyleth wasn’t sure if he meant Angharad or Merryn. But it wouldn’t do to discuss either of them in this room full of people.