Jack the Giant-Killer (Jack of Kinrowan Book 1)

by Charles de Lint

  Then only Kerevan was there, hooves clicking, fiddle playing. And the rider. Motionless in his shadows. And that was the way it remained for the rest of the night.

  Sixteen

  I dreamt I heard a fiddle play all night long," Jacky said when she woke the next morning.

  They had slept in the room overlooking Windsor Park, the five of them sharing the blankets that the Gruagagh had left for Finn, the hard wooden floor for their mattress. They woke in various moods of discomfort. Finn and Arkan were edgy about their surroundings. Kate hadn't appreciated the meager sleeping arrangements and felt a bit grumpy, while Jacky was still fuming about the Gruagagh's disappearance. Only Eilian was cheerful.

  "I heard it too," he said. "And I thought I knew that music, or at least who played it, but it's not so clear now that the sun's up and I'm more awake."

  "Unseelie musicians – that's who played outside this Tower last night," Finn said. "Who else would be abroad in Kinrowan? Only the Unseelie Court … and gruagaghs. Oh, we're in for a bad time, I just know it."

  "The Host has gruagaghs too?" Jacky asked.

  "Every court has wizards of one sort or another," Arkan said. "Even your own folk."

  "Can't trust them, either," Finn added. "Not one of them. And the Gruagagh of Kinrowan himself is in league with Moon knows what."

  "He fixed you up," Kate pointed out.

  "For what?" Finn asked. "For why? No good'll come of it – mark my words."

  Jacky looked away from the window. She'd been standing there watching the sunlight fill the park. She felt better now with the night gone. She hadn't only heard music last night. She'd heard the whispering sound of sluagh around the Tower, the restless dead calling out in mournful voices. Not close, not as close as the fiddling, but too close for comfort.

  "We'll just have to make our own good," she said. "And we'll start by going to Calabogie. Now, while the sun's up and the Host's not so strong. Unless anyone's got better suggestions?"

  Kate looked up from where she sat cleaning her nails with her little Swiss penknife. "Breakfast?" she tried.

  "We can stop for it along the way."

  "I'm ready to go," Eilian said and one by one the others nodded, even the morose Finn.

  "Don't we make a grand company," the hob muttered as they followed Jacky to the front of the house. "We've got Gyre and all his kin just shaking in their boots, I'm sure."

  "She did kill a giant," Arkan said, nodding ahead to Jacky.

  "There's that," Finn agreed.

  Jacky had reached the front door and flung it open. Standing on the steps, arms akimbo, she looked up and down the street. The October sun was bright in the crisp air. The grey pavement of the sidewalks and streets was ablaze with the colour of dried leaves that scurried and spun down their lengths. With her redcap on, though she didn't really need it anymore, Jacky studied every possible hiding place, and a few more, besides, but could see nothing. Not anything dangerous. Not anything at all. They could easily be alone in the world, the street was that quiet.

  "They're not here," Arkan said wonderingly. "I knew we could lose the Hunt for a while, but I thought it was sure they'd have tracked us down by now. Yet there's not a soul to be seen."

  Jacky nodded, though she still sensed something watching them. She couldn't spot whatever it was. "It'll be a tight squeeze, five of us in Judith," she said to Kate.

  "I'm still going," Kate said.

  "Of course you are. I'm just saying it's going to be cramped, that's all."

  "Kerevan," Arkan said suddenly.

  Jacky gave him a strange look. "What?"

  "Last night, the fiddling you heard. It was Kerevan playing."

  "Who or what is Kerevan?" Kate asked.

  "No one's all that sure," Finn explained. "There's some say he was here when the first faerie arrived, others say he's of mixed blood – that of Kinrowan and that of the native faerie."

  Eilian nodded. "That's right. I've heard that story. And he's mostly seen in Kinrowan's lands, if he's seen at all. But that hasn't been for many years."

  "What does it matter?" Jacky asked.

  "Well, before the Gruagagh of Kinrowan became the Gruagagh, he was prenticed as a bard. He went into the Borderlands between Kinrowan and Dunlogan, and prenticed himself to Kerevan, who'd learned his own craft from the old Bucca, Salamon Brien. There was a great to-do about it – especially in those days when we didn't have the Host to worry about so much – because the Bucca's one of the fiaina sidhe, you see, those faerie who bow to no Laird."

  Finn nodded in agreement with what Eilian was saying. "There's always been a bit of something strange following the Gruagagh of Kinrowan," he said. "If it's not prenticing himself to Kerevan, it's becoming the Gruagagh in the first place. If it's not being the best of both – poet and wizard – it's losing the Laird's daughter to Gyre the Elder and suffering no more than a few hurts himself."

  "But what about this Kerevan?" Kate asked.

  "Why, he's dead," Arkan said. "He's been dead for a hundred and fifty years."

  "So it was his ghost we heard last night …?"

  "Oh, great," Jacky said. "That's all we need. I think it's time we hopped to it. We can exchange all the ghostly stories you want on the drive up, but let's get going."

  She led the way to the garage, just as she'd led the way out of the Gruagagh's Tower. Taking the lead was coming naturally to her, which was odd enough in its way, she thought. But odder still was the way the others were deferring to her. It came, she supposed, from killing giants. This morning she didn't feel weird about that. It was as though she'd seen an exciting, if a tad overly gruesome movie the night before, and while she remembered what had happened, the gory details weren't so clear anymore.

  Arkan lifted the garage door and they all stared at the car.

  "Poor Judith!" Kate cried. "Look at her!"

  "She's never going to make it," Jacky said.

  "Oh, we'll get her running," Arkan said.

  With Eilian's help, and Kate fussing about over their shoulders like a concerned mother, Arkan managed to bang the VW's fenders into a semblance of their proper shape. A piece of wire pulled taut around each of the lights had them pointing straight again. The dent in the bumper they banged out with a rock from the Gruagagh's garden.

  "Well, what do you think?" Arkan asked, finally, stepping back to admire his own handiwork.

  "We'll get her fixed up properly as soon as we're back," Jacky promised, cutting Kate off in the middle of a rant about what exactly was wrong, everything was wrong, were they blind that the couldn't see that dear old Judith was just so much junk now thanks to …

  Jacky squeezed into the back with Kate and Finn. Eilian and Arkan rode up front, with Arkan driving. The car started smoothly as Arkan connected the ignition wires. He backed out of the garage and onto the street at a reasonable speed that bore no resemblance to last night's flamboyant ride. Jacky peered out the back window and all around as they drove off. The feeling of being watched persisted – they were being watched – but she couldn't see by whom, or from where. Then they were on Riverdale. The Gruagagh's street was left behind, and with it, the feeling.

  * * *

  Hobs weren't the only beings that could stitch invisibility. Hidden through the Hunt's special magics, one of the nine riders watched and waited. As soon as the VW started up in the Gruagagh's garage, the rider kick-started his Harley. He waited until the VW was almost at the end of the block, then fed the bike some gas. But before he could pull away, the music started.

  It came from all around him, catching him unaware. His hands went lax on the handlebars. The bike coughed and stalled. The rider slumped in his seat and the machine began to totter. Before it fell over, a lithe figure with cloven feet slipped forward and leaned his own weight against the bike, keeping it upright, all the while playing his fiddle.

  The rider was firmly snared in the music's spell, something Kerevan had only accomplished by taking the rider by surprise. It wouldn't
last long. He lifted the bow from his fiddle and slid the pair of them into the sack that hung from his shoulder. Then he took a firmer grip on the motorcycle and let the rider slide off it, onto the ground. He grinned down at the fallen Huntsman as he straddled the machine.

  "Oh, my," he said, kicking the Harley into life once more. "Won't this be something."

  He roared out of the rider's hiding place in time to see the VW turn onto Riverdale. Giving a jaunty wave toward the window where he knew the Gruagagh was watching, he fed the bike some more gas with a relaxed twist of his wrist and sped off in pursuit of the little car, humming a hornpipe under his breath. The tune was "The Tailor's Twist" and most appropriate it was, too, he thought.

  * * *

  "It seems fairly straightforward," Jacky said. "We just take the Queensway out to Highway 7, follow that to Arnprior, then number 2 until we reach Burnstown, and then take the 508 to Calabogie."

  She was reading their route from one of Kate's maps that was a part of the clutter underfoot in the cramped back seat.

  "But that's just it," Kate said. "If it's that straightforward won't they have some nasty surprises waiting for us along the way?"

  "The other choice is to go down to … oh, Perth, say, then take Highway 1 up through Lanark to where it turns into 511. But 511's a pretty windy and hilly road. If we're watching out for good ambush country, that'd be it. What do you think, Arkan?"

  "We should take the quickest route," he replied. "There'll be enough of the Host around the Keep by day. Come nightfall, their numbers will easily triple."

  "What did the Gruagagh suggest?" Finn asked.

  Jacky frowned and folded the map with a snap. "What the Gruagagh does or doesn't suggest isn't our concern."

  In the front seat, Arkan and Eilian exchanged glances. "Remind me never to get on her bad side," Arkan said in a loud stage whisper.

  Jacky gave him a playful whack on the shoulder with the map. "I heard that," she told him.

  Leaning forward, she turned on Judith's radio, switching stations until one came on playing the Montreal group Luba's latest single, "Let It Go."

  "I like this one," she said with a smile.

  She turned up the volume and squeezed back in between Kate and Finn as the lively song with its hint of a Caribbean dance beat filled the car with an infectious rhythm.

  * * *

  They reached the turnoff to Pakenham without incident, having decided to leave the main highway once they'd covered half the distance to Calabogie. The radio had long since been turned off, though Jacky was still singing "Let It Go" under her breath. The bridge in Pakenham was under construction and they had to wait a few minutes before their lane could move. The Mississippi River was on their right, bearing no resemblance to its American cousin except for its name. On the left was a big stone building that had been built in 1840 as a private home, but now housed Andrew Dickson's, a well-known craft and artisan gallery.

  "I had a friend who had a showing there," Jacky said. "Remember Judy Shaw?"

  Kate nodded.

  "I have a cousin who lived there for a while," Finn remarked. "But he had to move because of Grump Kow."

  "Now who's Grump Kow?" Kate asked.

  "The troll who lives under this bridge they're working on."

  "Lovely. I had to ask."

  Their lane was clear now and Arkan steered across the bridge. He followed the road into Pakenham, then turned right onto 15. It turned into 23 before they hit White Lake, then they took Highway 2 into Burnstown.

  "I'm starving!" Jacky said, pointing desperately at the Burnstown General Store. Arkan obliged by pulling into a space in front of the store.

  It was an old brick building and in honour of the approaching Halloween, had pumpkins lining the concrete steps leading up to the front door, and a straw man in Wellie boots, jeans and a plaid shirt tied to one of the porch supports. They filled up on coffee, sandwiches and donuts, sitting on the porch while they ate.

  "So far we're clear," Arkan said. "I'm not sure if that makes me feel good or not."

  "Doesn't it mean that we've lost them for sure?" Kate asked.

  "Not really. They know where we're going. I'm afraid the reason we're being left alone now is because they're preparing something really horrible for us in Calabogie."

  Finn stared at his half-eaten donut. "All of a sudden, I'm not hungry anymore."

  "Time we were going anyway," Jacky said with false jollity.

  "Easy for you to say. You've already finished eating."

  "Don't mind her, Finn," Kate said. "She's feeling terribly fierce these days."

  Eilian laughed as he gathered up their wrappers and empty coffee cups and dumped them in a garbage barrel at the end of the porch.

  "All aboard!" Arkan called.

  They piled back into the VW, Jacky leaning into the front seats again as she tried to see just what it was that Arkan did with the wires to make the car start without a key. Judith coughed into life without Jacky being any the wiser as to how it had been managed, and then they were off again, taking 508 on the last leg of their journey to Calabogie.

  * * *

  Cloaked in a spell that hid him far better than either a hob's stitcheries or a Huntsman's magics, Kerevan kicked his borrowed Harley back into life and followed after them once more.

  The lack of pursuit or any interest by way of the Host troubled him, as well. He was of half a mind to speed ahead and spy out what lay in wait, but didn't dare risk letting the VW out of sight. If something happened to his charge while he was spying ahead, his bargain with Bhruic would be voided. And that he wouldn't allow. He'd waited long enough for Bhruic to shed his Gruagagh cloak. Too long, by any reckoning.

  But he had a bad feeling about what lay ahead.

  * * *

  Calabogie, first settled in the early 1800s, was considered by many to be the hub of Bagot & Blythfield Township, an area of around 175 square miles, two-thirds of which was Crown land. Calabogie's resident population of 1600 more than doubled in the summer when the cottagers descended upon it. The town took its name from the Gaelic word "Calaboyd," meaning "marshy shore," of which Calabogie Lake, on which the village was situated, had plenty.

  Jacky and her friends approached it from the east. Their first inkling that they were near was when they spied Munford's Restaurant & Gas Bar, on the corner of Highway 508 and Mill Street. Behind the restaurant was a small trailer camp.

  "Where to now?" Arkan asked, slowing down.

  "We go straight," Jacky said, consulting her map, "until we see a gravel pit on our right, then we turn left on a side road."

  "Are you sure you know where we're going?" Kate asked.

  Jacky pointed to her roadmap. "This is the same as the one Bhruic showed me, except it's got names we can understand instead of faerie ones. Once we hit that side road, we're looking for a cliff face that overlooks the lake at," she studied the map, "McNeelys Bay."

  "The cliff face is the Giants' Keep?" Eilian asked, turning around to the back seat.

  Jacky nodded.

  "Then perhaps we shouldn't be in quite such a hurry to drive right up to it," Eilian said. "Is there a way we can approach it from the rear?"

  "Not unless you want to hike over these mountains."

  "Look at that," Kate said, pointing to a motel sign as they passed it. "'Jocko's Motel,' I love it."

  Everyone looked and made suitably appreciative noises except for Arkan, who was watching the rearview mirror. A pickup truck was approaching them quickly – too quickly for his liking.

  "Hang on!" he cried.

  "What –?" Jacky began just as the pickup rammed them from the rear, knocking them all about in the confines of the small car. Arkan fought the wheel, trying to keep Judith on the road.

  "My car!" Kate moaned.

  "Is that guy nuts?" Jacky cried at the same time. She turned to look out the small rear window and saw, even before Arkan called out, who was in the truck.

  "Bogans is what they are!" Arkan
warned.

  "Can't we go any faster?" Jacky asked.

  "Not with this load."

  The truck rammed into them again, this time slewing them along the highway, rubber burning before Arkan managed to regain control and straighten the car. As the pickup lunged forward for a third time, Arkan hauled left on the wheel. The VW's direct steering answered with frightening efficiency. Again Judith's wheels were squealing on the concrete. Arkan tromped on the brake. The pickup, trying to correct its aim after Arkan's abrupt maneuver, went sailing by. Then its brake lights flared. There was a small bridge coming up that crossed a ravine with a creek running through it. Arkan brought the VW to a skidding stop a half-dozen feet past the bridge.

  "Out!" he roared. "Everybody out!"

  They scrambled to obey. Arkan had his door open and was hauling Finn from the back seat. Eilian, not so quick, was on the road a half moment later, helping Kate out. Jacky saw that the pickup had stopped ahead of them. Its reverse lights went on and she knew what it was going to do – ram them again.

  She froze for a long second, then Arkan had a hold on her arm and was bodily dragging her from the car. Her blue jacket, tied around her waist, caught for a moment, then came with her as she fell to the ground, half supported by Arkan. The pickup smashed into Judith and knocked the VW right off the road into the small ravine. The little car hit the rocks at the bottom with a screeching sound of buckling metal.

  "We've got to run for it!" Arkan cried.