by Tom Deitz
“Not if you are no higher than my finger is long,” said Lugh.
“You mean you’ll shrink us?”
“Or expand the land around you; it comes to the same thing. Sometimes I myself am not certain which occurs. Now let the contestants come stand by the stream, and we can end this matter.”
Lugh’s gaze swept the crowd. “Morrigu, shape-shifting is an art you practice almost as frequently as Ailill, and with somewhat more pleasing results; can you shift a man’s size as easily as his shape?”
The dark-haired woman stepped forward then, a disquieting smile upon her fair face. “That I can do, Lord, and that I will do most gladly.”
“David Sullivan, Fionchadd MacAilill, come forward,” commanded Lugh.
David looked at Alec and Liz. Alec smiled sadly and stuck out his hand. David took it, squeezed it, but went on to enfold his friend with both arms in a hearty hug.
Liz he hugged likewise, regretfully aware of how nice her body felt against his. As he broke away, he was surprised when she pulled him back and kissed him firmly on the mouth.
A moment later David was standing on the sand at the side of the stream, water lapping about the toes of his boots. Fionchadd came to stand by his side. The boy’s face was grimly emotionless. David could not imagine what thoughts hid behind those eyes. Was the Faery boy favorably disposed toward him, as David had some slight reason to suspect, or was he truly an enemy? And what was the relationship between the boy and Ailill? Father and son, certainly, but was that love between them, or hatred, or some curious combination of the two?
“Prepare yourselves,” the Morrigu snapped.
Prepare yourselves? he thought. He glanced at Fionchadd in confusion, and then realization dawned on him: The boy had sat down and was tugging off the green, thigh-high boots he wore beneath his short green tunic. David felt his face coloring. Well, of course, he thought, you can’t swim very well fully clothed. But he had brought nothing to swim in, and there were people around—ladies around—Liz, for God’s sake! A corner of David’s mind knew that bathing suits were a modern invention, that in olden times people had customarily swum naked. But it seemed like an insignificant thing to be concerned about now, when lives were at stake. Reluctantly he unzipped his jacket.
A moment later he stood beside Fionchadd, blushing furiously in his Fruit-of-the-Looms. The Faery boy wore only a narrow white loincloth, but seemed totally unconcerned about his state of undress. David sized up his opponent. The Faery boy was an inch or two taller than he, and more finely boned. But long smooth muscles wrapped the boy’s arms and legs, and the firm, graceful curves of his chest and shoulders hinted at the sort of strength that was good for endurance.
David wondered suddenly if he could win. So far the trappings of the contest had distracted him from the thought that should be centermost in his mind: Victory. It was for Little Billy, he did this, and Uncle Dale, and now for Liz and Alec.
“Face me!” came the unexpectedly harsh voice of the Morrigu. “Look me in the eyes! Both of you! Now!”
David found he had no choice but to obey. The Power in the woman’s voice seemed almost the equal of Lugh’s, perhaps even stronger in its own way.
The eyes he gazed into were gray. Gray as evening. Gray as the steel of swords. Gray as cannons and arrows and unpolished armor. Gray as the netherworld of death.
The Morrigu blinked—or he did. And David stood again beside Fionchadd looking down at the ridiculously small stream; his face registered the confusion he felt.
Lugh’s voice rang loud in their ears. “When I give the word, you will dive forward. The Power will come upon you then.”
David shrugged, glanced at his friends. Alec gave him a thumbs-up signal. Liz blew him a kiss, and he grinned in spite of himself.
“Ready.”
He tensed himself, crouching bent-kneed, poised for a long, shallow dive. The notion of throwing himself with full force into what appeared to be three inches of water was daunting indeed. But that was logic, and logic was not the pillar of stability it once had been.
“Now!”
David’s body took over for him, for which he was grateful. And he flung himself forward, fully expecting to feel the sharp stones of the stream bed impact his chest, drive the air from his lungs. Instead, there was a brief strange sensation of falling, like a dive from a great height, and suddenly he was in deep water, twenty yards or more from shore.
There was a commotion beside him—in front of him—as Fionchadd wasted no time in forging considerably ahead. One part of David’s mind wanted to stop, to gaze skyward, to see if the towering forms of the Sidhe looked down upon him. But there was no time for that now. Fionchadd was already two bodylengths ahead of him, and pulling away. David gave himself over to the task at hand.
He was not a trained swimmer, he knew. But he’d been doing it since he was a child, and had been told (by David-the-elder) that he had a natural gift for it. Water thus held no fear for him, and he often swam far out into the lake. He had raced Alec some, too, but always in fun, never for real.
And then he quit thinking, just let his body take over. Stroke. Stroke. Kick. Kick. Breathe. Stroke. Stroke. Kick. Kick. Breathe.
He was gaining. But not fast enough.
Ahead he could see Fionchadd’s supple form gliding smoothly through the water, disturbing the surface almost not at all as he plunged his narrow hands into it.
Stroke. Stroke. Kick. Kick. Breathe.
They were into the current now, and it was all either of them could do to keep from being completely overwhelmed by it. Vast waves appeared from somewhere, towering high above their heads before crashing down upon them.
Another wave fell atop him, plunging him far under water. Something brushed against him, but he tried not to think what it might be. And then he was on the surface again, and Fionchadd not so far ahead as he had been.
More waves, and then the waters smoothed, and then waves again.
The water rose abruptly under him, bearing him upward, higher and higher, then plunging him down. Up and down. Up and down. It was like swimming in a stormy area.
All at once a wave crashed upon him, harder than any before, and he felt himself knocked half senseless, felt himself drifting nervelessly toward the bottom as bubbles trickled from his mouth to tickle his nose. His lungs hurt. His head hurt. He was drowning, he realized.
Drowning in two feet of water.
And then David remembered what Fionchadd had said about the Stuff of Heroes, how David was himself of that substance. From somewhere images came unbidden in his mind: Beowulf in his contest with Brecca, amid the monsters of a cold northern sea; Leander who had dared the Hellespont each night for love of a lady whose very name was Hero; Bran the Blessed who had waded the Irish Sea.
Ruthlessly he kept his arms and legs in motion. Ruthlessly he kicked toward the surface, ignoring the pain in his lungs, the buzz in his ears, the red blurr that filled his eyes.
Abruptly he surfaced and rolled over onto his back, coughing, finally dragging in long, blessedly cool breaths of sweet air. He looked for Fionchadd but the boy was nowhere to be seen.
Despair filled David until he saw the Faery’s head break the surface near his own, victim of the same killer wave. For an uncertain moment their gazes met, and then both set forth again, but Fionchadd had lost most of his advantage; David was nearly neck and neck with him now, and the boy seemed to be tiring.
David rationed his own energy but maintained his pace. The shore was in sight, a thin dark line through the wet blur of water and hair that continually obscured his vision. But he was tiring, falling further and further behind. He needed an incentive, he realized, and so he once again set his imagination free to conjure images, dark images, this time. The things he most feared, the things he knew would happen if he did not succeed:
Uncle Dale lying in bed, head rocked loosely back, eyes staring at nothing, a line of thin spittle trickling from his open mouth, while the banshee stood beside h
im, her rictal smile greedy upon her face.
Little Billy, a bodiless wraith of hopeless fear, torn from his own world, maybe even his own shape, a disembodied child-voice crying in the wind: “Davy! Davy! Davy!”
Alec and Liz, dressed in the strange clothes of Faerie, besotted on Faery wine, eyes dulled by an endless succession of days wherein nothing changed.
His parents wondering how two sturdy sons could have vanished without a trace.
Fionchadd—Fionchadd would die if he won. Well, he had wanted to kill him once, when he saw the elf-arrow stuck in Uncle Dale’s chest. But they had made a sort of peace, somehow. “Let us be friends when this song is ended,” the boy had said. Well, there was still one more verse. And he still owed the boy one.
They were even now, neck and neck, and the shoreline was close, maybe fifty yards away. David took a breath, and withdrew into himself, summoning energy from every nerve, every muscle, every cell. And one thing more: his rage. He had never entirely set it free, but he did now, sent it spreading fire throughout his body.
And his body obeyed, knifing fiercely through the water, each movement born of the deadly flame of anger that drove him now, each flame consumed driving him closer to his goal.
Pulling him ahead of Fionchadd, finally.
David glanced sideways, saw a look of real, incredulous fear cross the Faery boy’s face.
That was what finally did it: the fact that the boy considered his own defeat a real possibility. A final show of strength would do it now. Now! David told his body, and every part of him suddenly unified into one whole as he poured his last precious reserves of energy into the effort.
Sand brushed his fingertips.
Another stroke.
Again.
And then he was scrambling to his feet, to fling himself breathlessly against the coarse sand of the shore. He rolled over onto his back, chest heaving, eyes glazed. Somehow he was his own size again.
But had he won? Or not? An eerie silence hung in the air.
“Way to go, Davy! You did it!” familiar voices cried. A feeling strangely like elation filled his mind, replacing those darker images that had pushed him to . . . victory, he supposed. But he was tired, and too numb to think.
Someone was helping him sit up, warm, tanned hands gripping his arms. Somebody forced a drink into his mouth, a spicy richness that sent new fire racing through his body as soon as he touched it to his lips, so that he was now able to rise shakily to his feet. Someone draped a tabard across his shivering shoulders, and he fingered the fabric absently. Velvet. Midnight-blue and gray.
“Hold!” a voice thundered.
“The Trial is not ended!”
Chapter XVII: The Justice Of Lugh
Not ended! David’s thoughts were awhirl. Not ended! What?
“It was a trial to the death,” came Lugh’s grim voice. “No life has yet been taken. You, Alec McLean, give your friend your knife. Fionchadd’s life is his.”
Someone—Alec?—thrust a knife into David’s hand, and he raised his head groggily, staring stupidly at the weapon.
Two of the black-clad guards pulled Fionchadd upright. The Faery boy’s body sagged between them, dripping wet, his eyes as unfocused as David’s. Water sheened his white skin; he breathed in great gasping pants. With obvious effort Fionchadd stretched a trembling arm toward David. “You have won fairly. My life is yours. And know that . . . that I bear you no ill will, for my fate is of my own doing. The song is over.”
Still half dazed, David felt someone leading him forward. One of the guards pulled Fionchadd’s head back, exposing his throat. David could see the pulse beating there.
He set the knife to that smooth flesh, felt Fionchadd’s breath brush hot against the back of his hand, saw the boy close his eyes in resignation. He set his own mouth grimly. Was he really doing this? He was human, mortal, civilized. Could he really kill a man like this? And not just a man but a man he knew, sort of, had talked to, who had had a life before their meeting—but who would have no life afterward.
“No!” he cried, and flung the knife to the sand.
“It is a strong man, David Sullivan, who can set an enemy free, perhaps to best him again,” said Lugh. “By this you have passed your final Trial.”
“By this you have cost me the last of my honor!” cried Ailill behind him.
David whirled to see the dark Faery seize the makeshift spear from a startled Liz. Pain darkened Ailill’s face as gray smoke poured from between his fingers; the smell of burning flesh filled the air—all in the second before Ailill spurred his horse to a brutal charge straight at David.
The company fell back, calling out in alarm.
David stood frozen, staring at black death bearing down upon him. He screamed. Other voices screamed in his head. “No!” he heard Liz and Alec cry as one.
Time slowed.
David saw Ailill on the white horse, the smoking hand that grasped the spear, the glittering eyes of the Faery lord. The blade pointed straight at his heart showed red hot as Ailill’s fury awakened it.
And he could not move.
There was no sound save the snorting of the horse and the pounding of hooves on the sand.
And still the spear came on.
Although David could not move, the horse could—and did, but in an unexpected manner. Something, a small stone maybe, upset its balance, and it broke its gait.
Fire flashed across David’s side, and he looked down in amazement to see the velvet tabard slashed crosswise and a thin line of red oozing from a long, clean cut in the skin that overlaid his ribs.
Two screams rang in his ears.
Abruptly the pain was gone.
He turned, stared, and saw Fionchadd lying on the sand beside him. The boy’s eyes were open, but Liz’s knife-pointed runestaff protruded from his pale, still chest. The tiniest hint of white smoke spiraled upward from the wound to mark the sky; a single rivulet of blood trickled across the white flesh to color the sand.
David wanted to cry out, but his jaw locked. He felt his gorge begin to rise and clamped a hand across his mouth as he jerked his eyes away.
Silence hung in the air like a threat of thunder.
Wordlessly Nuada dismounted and with his silver hand yanked the spear from the wound, then spread his white cloak across the boy’s body. He turned to face Ailill.
“Madman!” he whispered.
“Idiot!” a woman’s voice shrieked.
“Fool!”
“Murderer!” The cries were a rising tide of anger.
“Kinslayer!”
“Kinslayer!” another voice took up the call, and then others joined in a chant that rang across the plain: “Kinslayer! Kinslayer! Kinslayer!”
Despair filled Ailill then. Despair and horror—and fear. His pride broke, and he spurred the horse to a gallop and made to follow the Straight Track across the empty field.
But even as he flashed past, David caught a blur of movement to his left, and saw Alec thrust his runestaff directly into Ailill’s face.
The Faery lord cried out, his eyes stretched wide in horror, for the fear of iron came upon him. He jerked back, sending the startled horse rearing beneath him. He held the reins firmly, but was unprepared when the horse bucked sideways; that move unbalanced him and he slipped from the saddle. But he was on his feet again, almost as he struck the earth, and running toward the Track.
Another stood there before him, though: a black-haired woman of the Sidhe, dressed in blue, and beside her an empty-eyed child in green pajamas. Straight in front of Ailill she stood, proud and queenly, barring his way.
The Faery woman! Yet it was no defensive Faery woman this time, but a great lady of the Sidhe. Vengeance was in her gaze and triumph in her carriage as her fingers worked before her.
All at once Ailill found his way blocked by a terrible wall of swirling flame that leapt man-high from the tall grass about him and spread rapidly to either side in a threatening arc. An intricate, cagelike mesh of icicles to
ok form within that barrier, through which the colored fires leapt and wove, constantly melting and refreezing even as the flames were extinguished and rekindled.
And so Ailill stood confounded, facing arcane fire on the one hand and the fires of iron that could bind him in torment on the other. Reluctantly he stumbled forward to stand before the king, head bowed.
Without a word, Nuada stepped forward to stand beside Ailill.
“So it is to be my justice at last,” Lugh said calmly. His stern gaze swept the crowd, “Then hear you all the justice of Lugh Samildinach, High King for this Time in Tir-Nan-Og!”
Lugh’s eyes bored into the dark Faery. “You, Ailill, are a fool. Even as you pass from my realm, you still contrive plots and deceptions. It was a plot of yours that started this trouble, for you should never have made that bargain with the mortal boy. But having made it, you should have stayed by it—this any honorable man would do. And now a plot of yours has finished it again, as is fitting, but that gamble has cost you a son—a high price to pay for victory. Nor is that the worst of your offenses, Ailill, for you have been guilty of another crime as well—a crime against my own house.”
“My lord, I have not . . .” Ailill protested.
Lugh motioned the Faery woman forward, who came, bringing the surrogate Little Billy with her.
“Now I know—we all know—that you took a changeling; the proof of that we see before us. Is this not so?”
Ailill made no move to acknowledge Lugh’s question.
“No matter,” said Lugh. “We all know the truth of it. The Sidhe could use some of the thick blood of mortals to strengthen our own; that I also acknowledge. But you did it without my consent; indeed, you flaunted it in my face, even refused to return the boy when I ordered it, and thus set your will above my own, for which you earned this exile. And what is even worse than that is that you left one of our own in the child’s place when a log would have served as well. What could have possessed you to do that?”
