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

by Charles de Lint

  "And you'll let me lead you to the Keep?"

  "I have to go to the Keep. My friends are there, if they're still alive. And the Horn's there."

  "Girl, you don't know what you're talking about. That Horn is no toy."

  "Boy, you'll take the bargain my way, or your fiddle will lie in pieces from here to wherever the hell it was that you came from in the first place."

  They glared at each other, neither giving an inch, then suddenly Kerevan nodded.

  "Done!" he said. "What care I what you do in that Keep or with that Horn? I want the Lairdlings to be safe – all of Lairdsblood – and whoever will come with me by their own desire or if I must trick them, those will be saved. But not by doing what you do. Not by the Horn."

  "Running away from what you have to face doesn't solve anything."

  "And running headlong into it does? Willy-nilly, and mad is as mad does? Oh, I wish you well, Jacky Rowan, but I doubt we'll meet again in this world."

  "I don't know," Jacky said. "You seem to do pretty well moving from one to the other."

  "What do you mean by that?"

  "I was told you'd died about a hundred and fifty years ago, but I get the feeling that, even if you did die back then, with you it's never permanent."

  "I'm no god –"

  "I know. You're Tom Coof and Cappy Rag and you're full of tricks and bargains. I think you might even mean well in what you do, Kerevan, but sometimes I think you're too damn clever for your own good. You know what I mean?"

  Before he could answer, she stood up and offered him his fiddle. "Come on," she added. "I want to get inside the Keep before it gets dark."

  "There'll be an uproar," Kerevan said. "They'll be scouring the countryside looking for you."

  "Well, then. If you want to keep your bargain with Bhruic, you'd better start thinking about how you're going to get me in there in one piece, don't you think?"

  Kerevan considered himself a manipulator, one who cajoled, or tricked, or somehow got everyone to follow a pattern that he'd laid out and only he could see. It was worse than disconcerting to have his own tricks played back on himself. He took his fiddle bag, returned his bow to it, and slung it over his shoulder. Taking out his wally-stanes, he let her choose as many as she wanted. She took nine.

  Three times three, he thought. She knows too much, or something else is moving through her, but either way, he was caught with his own bargains and could only follow through the pattern that was unwinding before him now.

  "Come along, then," he said, and he led her back into the forest once more.

  Nineteen

  "His daughter?" Arkan said, staring at the pigheaded woman. "Oh, that's just bloody grand, isn't it?"

  "Arkan, be still," Eilian said softly.

  Kate, looking from the poor creature to the two faerie, was suddenly struck by what a difference Lairdsblood made. Arkan, brash and not easily cowed except by the Gruagagh, had immediately obeyed Eilian's quiet statement. She could see the distaste blooming in his eyes, but he said not another word as Eilian came to where she sat with the giant's daughter.

  "If they're not born Big Men, and strong," Eilian said, "oh, it's a hard lot to be a giant's child."

  The creature tried to hide her features in the crook of Kate's shoulder as he leaned closer, but he cupped her chin and made her look at him.

  "You weren't born this way," he said. "Who set the shape-spell on you?"

  "The Gruagagh," she said.

  Kate gasped. "The Gruagagh?" Her worst fears were realized. Bhruic Dearg had set them up.

  "I warned you," Finn muttered. "But would anyone listen?"

  "Not so quickly," Eilian said. "There is more than one gruagagh, just as there's more than one Billy Blind. It's like saying weaver or carpenter, no more." He turned back to the creature. "Which gruagagh? One in your father's Court?"

  The creature nodded.

  "That could still be Bhruic Dearg," Arkan said. "For all we know –" He broke off as Eilian shot him a hard look.

  "And what's your name?" the Laird's son asked the creature, gentling his features as he looked at her once more.

  "Monster," she said gruffly and tried to look away, but Eilian wouldn't let her.

  "We came here to help another," he said, "but we won't leave you like this when we go. We'll help you, too."

  "And how will we do that, Laird's son?" Arkan asked, emboldened by the fact that there was no way Eilian could make good such a promise. "Even if we had spells, you know as well as I that Seelie magic will never take hold in this place. We can't help her. We can't even help ourselves."

  "Be still!" Eilian cried, his eyes flashing with anger. "We have a Jack with us," he said to the giant's daughter, "loose outside the Keep and she'll help us. Don't listen to him."

  "A Jack," Finn repeated mournfully. "And what can she do, Eilian? Didn't you see the Court Gyre's gathered here? All it needs is sluagh to make its evil complete, and they'll be here come nightfall."

  "Our Jack's all we have," Eilian repeated quietly. "Let's at least lend the strength of our belief to her, if nothing else.

  "What's your name?" he tried again, returning his attention to the giant's ensorcelled daughter.

  There was no escaping the Lairdling's gaze. It penetrated the creature's fears, burning them away.

  "Moddy Gill," she said.

  "That's a nice name," Kate offered, for lack of anything better to say. The creature gave her a grateful look.

  "And a powerful one, too," Eilian added. "There was a Moddy Gill that once withstood the Samhain dead, all alone and that whole night. Do you know the tale?" Moddy Gill shook her head. "It was a bargain she made with the Laird of Fincastle. One night alone against the Samhain dead, and if she survived, she could have what she wanted from the Laird, be it his own child."

  "What … what did she take?" Moddy Gill asked.

  "His black dog," Eilian replied with a grin. "And with it at her side, she stormed Caern Rue and won free the princeling from the Kinnair Trow. Oh, it's a good story and one I never tired of hearing from our Billy Blind. They married, those two, and went into the West with the black dog. No one knows what befell them there, but do you know what I think?"

  Moddy Gill shook her head. She was sitting upright now, just leaning a bit against Kate.

  "I think that if they didn't live happily ever after, they at least lived happily, and for a very long time. And so will you, Moddy Gill. We'll take you with us when we leave this Keep."

  "You came for the swan girl, didn't you?" she asked.

  "In part," Eilian replied. "But we came to make an end of the Unseelie Court here, as well."

  "Is she your girl?" Moddy Gill asked.

  "Who? Lorana?" Eilian laughed. "I doubt she knows I exist. I came here to help our dear Jack, not looking for swan girls to wed."

  Kate gave him a considering look. There was something in his voice when he spoke of Jacky that made her think that he had more in mind than simply helping her.

  "I know something," Moddy Gill said. Her pig's head was nodding thoughtfully, the tiny eyes fixing their gaze on Eilian. "I know where they keep the Laird of Kinrowan's daughter. They hang her out by day, but not at night. Then they put her in a cell – a secret cell – and I know where it is."

  "When our Jack comes, will you help us rescue Lorana?"

  Moddy Gill sighed. The sound was a long wheezing snuffle. "We'll never get free," she said. "And the night's coming soon when they'll give her to the Samhain dead, and then they'll stew us for their feast."

  "Well, at least someone's speaking sense here," Arkan said.

  Kate frowned at him. "Why are you being like this?" she demanded. "I thought you were going to help."

  "And I wanted to help – make no mistake about it, Kate. Your courage made me feel small, but moon and stars! I remember now why I had such a lack of it myself. We were helpless against the horde that ambushed us, and they were but a drop in the bucket compared to the size of the Court Gyre has g
athered in this place."

  "We've no magics here," Finn explained. "Not hob magics, nor Laird's magics – nothing sainly. Not even a gruagagh's spells will take hold in a place so fouled by the Host."

  "Then we'll just have to depend on something other than magic," Kate said.

  Eilian nodded grimly. "Until we're dead, there's hope."

  Arkan looked as though he meant to continue the argument, but then he shrugged. "Why not?" he said. "I heard a poet say once that we make our own fortunes and if our future goes bleak, we've ourselves to blame as much as anything else. 'Be true to your beliefs,' he said, 'and you'll win through.' They're just words, I thought then, and I think so now, but sometimes words have power when they fall from the proper lips. I'll mourn our deaths no more, not until the blade falls on my neck."

  "Oh, they won't use axes," Moddy Gill said. "They like to throw folks in their stews while they're still kicking – for the flavor, you know."

  "And have you tasted such a stew?" Eilian asked.

  Moddy Gill shook her head. "I've no taste for another's pain, Lairdling. Not when knowing so much of my own."

  Kate patted the girl's shoulder then stood up to investigate the wooden grate that served as the door to their prison. The beams were as thick as a large man's thighs, notched together, then bound in place by heavy ropes that appeared to be woven from leather thongs rather than twine. The beam that lay across the door, held by a stone slot at either end, had taken five bogans to set in place. They didn't have close to that kind of brute strength in their own small company.

  "Why did they use only rope?" she asked Eilian as he joined her.

  "Faerie can't abide iron."

  "And even steel's got a high iron count," Kate said with a considering nod. "But what about those bridges the trolls live under, and the buildings in the cities? There's iron in all of them."

  "True enough," Eilian said. "Faerie that live in or near your cities and towns come to acquire a resistance to it. Some can only abide a proximity to it, but can't handle it themselves. Others, like our forester here, seem to have developed a total immunity – how else could he use your vehicle with such ease?"

  Her car. Judith was dead and gone now.

  "And what about the Host?" she asked.

  "They're a wilder faerie, not always used to urban ways. Against many, a penknife would be enough defense."

  There was a long moment's silence, then Kate grinned and reached into her pocket. "Like this?" she asked.

  She opened her hand to show her Swiss penknife. Opened, it had a blade length of two inches. She could have kicked herself for not thinking of it earlier when they were struggling with their bonds. But it didn't matter. They had it now.

  "Oh, Kate!" Eilian replied. His eyes shone with delight. "Exactly like that."

  "But these ropes are so thick …."

  "They were woven with faerie magic. Even your little blade there will have no trouble cutting through them."

  "All right."

  She pried the blade out of its handle and began to saw away at the nearest rope. The others gathered around to watch the little knife cut through the first thick cord as though it were no more than a piece of string. Moddy Gill regarded Kate with awe.

  "Moon and stars!" Arkan said. "When I find that poet, I'll gift him with enough ale to keep him drunk for a fortnight."

  Finn nodded eagerly. "This hope's a potent magic all on its own," he said.

  Arkan grinned. "And the next time you hear me whispering against it, Kate, just give me a good strong clout across the back of my head."

  "With pleasure," Kate said as she continued to saw away at the ropes.

  She didn't bother to mention that once they got out of their cell their troubles would be just beginning. There was no point in dashing their sudden enthusiasm. But they were going to have to come up with something more than a little Swiss penknife before they got out of this place. And then there was Jacky. Had the bogans caught her, as well? Or was that strange being that had snatched her on the highway one of the Wild Hunt in another guise? She had the sinking feeling that the nightmare was just starting to get underway.

  Twenty

  What's up now, Tom Coof?" Jacky asked in a whisper.

  "Whisht – just for once," the fiddler hissed back at her.

  They were hidden in undergrowth high up in the forest and rough terrain, which was, Jacky supposed, near the Giants' Keep. The land was certainly wild enough. The tree covering was mostly pine and cedar, with some hardwoods. Granite outcrops jutted from the ground like the elbows of buried stone giants. Roots twisted around the outcrops; deadfalls surrounded them. It had taken them the better part of the afternoon to get here from the road, Jacky in her hob jacket and Kerevan using his own spells. The forest was alive with the creatures of the Host searching for her.

  Jacky was just about to repeat her question when she saw what had driven them into hiding once more. As tall as some of the trees around them, a giant came, moving with deceptive quiet for all his huge bulk. He sniffed the air, a nose the size of Jacky's torso quivering. Jacky stopped breathing. Finally the giant moved on. Gullywudes and bogans followed in his wake. Not until they were five minutes gone did Kerevan speak.

  "Do you see that small gap? There, just the other side of the deadfall?" he whispered.

  "In the rocks there?"

  Kerevan nodded, but neither of them could see each other, so the motion was wasted. "That's one of their bolt holes," he said. "Take it and follow it into the heart of the mountain and it will bring you straight to where Gyre the Elder holds his Court."

  Jacky bit at her lower lip, which was getting all too much wear of late. "You're leaving me here?"

  "This is the Giants' Keep. You did want to come here, remember?"

  "Yes, but …" She sighed. Somehow she'd hoped that once they'd reached the place, Kerevan would change his mind and offer to help her.

  "A word of warning," the fiddler added. "Seelie magics are of no use inside, so your hob coat won't hide you, your shoes won't speed you, your cap won't show you any new secrets, and even the wally-stanes you took from me will do you no good. Not when you're inside."

  "Is that why you won't go in?"

  "It's suicide to go in there," he replied. "A fool I might be, but I'm not mad."

  Jacky looked in his direction. If she squinted and looked very hard she could just make out the vague outline of his shape.

  "I don't know what to do," she said. "Now that I'm here, I don't know what to do or where to begin. Can't you give me some advice, or does that require another bargain?"

  "This advice is free: Go home and forget this place."

  "I can't."

  "Then do what you must do, Jacky Rowan, and pray you didn't use up all your luck these past few days."

  "And nothing will work? I mean, none of the magics?"

  "Not one." Kerevan sighed. "There's a reason that no Seelie's gone to do what you mean to try, and now you know it. It's not so much a lack of courage, though the Seelies left are not so brave as their folk once were, and who can blame them? Once in that Keep, they would be powerless. You've seen the Big Men. You've seen their Court – the bogans and all. How could hobs and brownies and the like stand up against them without their spells to help them? Even Bhruic would have no more than his natural strength in there."

  "Okay, okay. You've made your point. I go by myself and it's kamikaze time."

  Kerevan knew what she meant, that it was a suicide mission, but he said, "Do you know the actual meaning of that word? 'Divine Wind.' Perhaps you should call on the gods to help you."

  "I don't believe in God. At least I don't think I do," she added, hedging.

  "The desert god your people hung from a tree couldn't help you here anyway," Kerevan replied. "This is the land of the Manitou. But Mabon walks that Great Mystery's woods sometimes, and the Moon is sacred everywhere."

  "Is Mabon your god?"

  "Mabon is the young horned lord."

&n
bsp; Jacky waited for him to say more, but he didn't elaborate. "I guess," she said, "that when I go down that hole, it's just going to be me and no one else."

  "I fear you're right."

  "Then I suppose it's time I put my ass in gear and got to it."

  An invisible hand touched her shoulder and gave it a squeeze. "Go as lucky as your name can take you," Kerevan said.

  Jacky swallowed. "Thanks for getting me here," she said. "I know you were just fulfilling your bargain with Bhruic, but thanks all the same."

  "I mean you no ill, Jacky Rowan, and I never have."

  There was nothing more to say, so she moved ahead past the deadfall to the gap in the rocks. He was right that there was a passage of some sort here. A familiar reek rose out of it. This has got to be the way, she thought, because nothing else could smell this bad. Breathing through her mouth, she squeezed between the rocks and forced her way in. The passage wasn't high enough to stand in, so she moved forward at a crouch, one hand on the wall to her left, the other brushing the ground ahead of her.

  * * *

  Kerevan sighed when she was gone. He touched his fiddle, felt the stag's head scroll through the cloth material of its bag. He was free to go now. He had done all that he'd bargained to do. Yet he stayed hidden in the underbrush, staring at the bolt hole. After a long while he sighed again, then began moving slowly up along the rocky mountainside, heading for the great stone gates that were the main entrance to the Keep.

  There's fools and there's fools, he told himself as he went. And here I am, all these years old, and I never knew I was still this sort of a fool.

  * * *

  The smell intensified, the deeper Jacky went down the narrow tunnel. If this was a bolt hole, she thought, it could only be one for little creatures, because a bogan wouldn't fit in and a giant would have trouble just sticking his arm into it. She'd never been one of those people that got nervous in an enclosed space, but this tunnel, with the weight of a mountain on top of it, had her shivering. Combined with the darkness and the stench, and with what she knew lay waiting for her at the tunnel's end, there were half a dozen times when she thought she would take Kerevan's advice after all. She was ready to just GoJackyGo right back out of here.