by Tom Deitz
Gargyn chewed his lip. “’At’s as much as we could ’ope for, Lady,” he sighed. “But—well, where is this place? I can’t say I’ve ’eard of it.”
“Ys touches the Mortal World underwater,” Rhian-non informed him. “But it overlaps another land on the other side: one in which Power burns more brightly than in the Mortal World. I would settle you small folk there.”
Gargyn’s eyes narrowed sharply. “Would? Does ’at mean you’re not sure?”
“Access is awkward,” the queen admitted. “Yet a means exists in the Mortal World to erect a permanent gate between my realm and this other.”
“But—”
“Enough!” Rhiannon snapped. “You have your dreams, I have mine, and mine require that I mold another’s dreaming.” And with that, she set heels to her horse’s flanks and flashed away.
Gargyn watched her as long as he could. And wondered what Borbin would think about moving.
Chapter III: Rocks and Mages
(Lookout Rock, Georgia—Saturday, October 24—noonish)
“Well, that little grossness is done,” Aikin sighed, so softly Alec could scarcely hear him above the whooshing jingle of the water that slid down fifty feet of black rocks into a small pool two yards to his right. “All them guts be out and gone—like we shoulda done to start with,” he added, more loudly, over his shoulder.
Alec looked up warily from where, stripped to his cammo fatigues, he was attempting to wash everything above the belt in an escaped tributary of the pond—one whose normal clarity was clouded with swirls of red from the abundant supply that stained nearly all his visible skin.
Blood. Deer blood, courtesy of “friends” with screwed-up senses of humor.
True, Aik was also ensanguined, as was Dave; but he’d got the worst of it. And he should’ve known better, dammit! Should’ve expected that, as neophyte deer hunter and default group geek, he’d run afoul of some stupid initiation rite. With his first squirrel, at age thirteen, it had been smears of blood down either cheek, marked with David’s fingers. He’d expected the same with the doe, though she clearly wasn’t his kill.
What he hadn’t counted on was for Aik to pass him his Rakestraw hunting knife, point at the dime-sized hole at the base of the poor beast’s neck, and state bluntly, “It’s time you got your hands bloody.”
He’d done it, too, had sawed right on in there—with his teeth clenched and his stomach threatening to revolt at the stench of hot viscera. And there’d been God’s plenty of blood, sure enough, more than enough to fill the Thermos that sat on the rock shelf behind him with what, just that morning, had carried something’s life.
But what he absolutely hadn’t anticipated was that David would grab him from behind just as he was securing the cap, while Aik thrust his arms into the wound up to the elbows, and thus begored, tried to smear the yucky stuff across his face—and bare belly and chest, which, despite his best efforts, David’s deft hands had exposed.
And what his so-called friends hadn’t counted on (nor he) was the cap on the Thermos not being as secure as any of them had thought, and that his frantic thrashings (better than quiescent acceptance, though he’d known he was doomed from the start) would unseat it—lavishly anointing all three with the gruesome contents. Dave had caught it in the face; Aik from chin to groin. A free-for-all had ensued. In the end, they’d emptied the Thermos—much of it down David’s britches.
At least Aik had been sport enough to refill it.
But what none of ’em had counted on—or had forgotten in a year—was how heavy a medium-sized doe was when you had to drag her close to three miles. Hand-rasping, leg-numbing, shoulder-straining numb. Even in two-man shifts.
“Really should’ve field-dressed her where she lay,” Aikin persisted, as he skinned out of his T-shirt, squatted to Alec’s left, and commenced to scrub his hands.
“’Cept we’d have scooped up half a mountain’s worth of crud inside her,” David muttered absently, as he joined them. Behind him, the lately-eviscerated deer dangled by its hind legs from a dying pine between the lean-to they sometimes camped in and the impressive stone outcrop that gave Lookout Rock its name. Like his companions, he’d shed his shirt. Unlike them, he’d likewise doffed his boots. He looked unaccountably grim.
“Yeah, but we had a start on it already,” Aikin countered with a smirk. “I mean, given that old Frank Buck here split the friggin’ diaphragm so the guts started oozin’ out a mile down the trail—and we’re still gonna have to lug it on down to your house! Right McLean?”
“You’re the forestry jock!” Alec growled. “You’re the fool who handed me the knife. I’ve skinned three squirrels in my life and dissected one frog and a fetal pig. I don’t know crap about deer anatomy.”
“You guys got a spare pair of pants?” David asked abruptly.
“Wash what you got or go nekkid,” Aikin snorted. “Ain’t nobody gonna see but us and your folks.”
“Gosh,” Alec added, deadpan, “you mean you’re not gonna browbeat us into takin’ a dip?”
“Pants,” David snapped. “Now! If you got ’em. I don’t feel like puttin’ up with any more shit.”
“Gym shorts in my backpack,” Alec grunted. “If I had any sense, I’d make you beg.”
Aikin eyed him askance. “You bring clothes on a half day hike?”
“I have…friends I don’t entirely trust.”
David ignored them, but retrieved the shorts, swapped them for his cammos and Fruit of the Looms, which he left in the pool to soak, and picked his way barefoot to the verge of the overlook, where he stood staring west to where the near-perfect cone of Bloody Bald lifted its quartzite crown above the waters of Langford Lake. Eventually he sat down: silent, still, and staring, shivering every now and then in the autumn air. Alec stowed the Thermos in his backpack and regarded him dully. It really was getting to him this time. Then again, the anniversary of the death of David’s favorite, role model, and namesake uncle had never actually coincided with his and Aik’s ritual first-deer-hunt-of-the-season. What was it he’d said when Aik had asked what was bugging him? Seven years? Had it really been that long since David-the-Elder’s death? Seven years was a long time to miss somebody, a long time to nurse so much pain.
God knew he knew about missing somebody, about a heart clogged thick with loss.
For in spite of what logic—and David, all too frequently—told him about how ruthlessly she had used him, he still missed a slim, dark-haired Faery woman he’d only known as Eva. Aife, actually; she’d been a partisan of Ailill’s, the Faery lord David had thwarted all those years back. In revenge, she’d disguised herself as a mortal, put on the substance of the Lands of Men, and in that form used his own jealousy of David’s newborn love for Liz Hughes as a means of wreaking vengeance on Lugh Samildinach, the local Faery king.
Somewhere in there he’d let her pop his cherry, never dreaming that she’d wanted not him, but merely his seed, so as to strengthen her magical hold. He’d felt like singing then—and like putting a bullet through his skull when he’d learned the truth soon after. And for a while he’d hated Eva. Yet there at the last, when she lay dying in Uncle Dale Sullivan’s yard (as much as the Sidhe could die) she’d admitted that in spite of herself, she’d come to love him too. A flame had awakened then, and that flame had never entirely died.
“You’re not the only one who hasn’t forgotten,” he told David, as he came to stand behind him. Their shadows were tiny before them; it was breathing hard on noon.
“Seven years,” David gritted. “Seven bloody years since the best man who ever lived got blown to pieces on a Middle Eastern street.”
“Less than that since the only woman I ever loved betrayed me, redeemed herself—and left me all over again.”
“And at the end of seven years the Queen of the Faeries pays a tithe to hell,” Aikin finished, as he joined them. “That’s what it says in ‘Tam Lin.’”
“It’s not like that,” David snorted. “No more than
sex is like jackin’ off.”
“Don’t remind me,” Alec groaned.
They ignored him.
“I haven’t forgotten,” Aikin said eventually.
“Sex?” David wondered. “Or jacking off?”
“That it’s noon! That’s a between time, right? One of the times the World Walls grow thin.”
“That’s what the books say,” David spat. “Why should the truth be any different?”
“Seven years since something hurt you,” Aikin went on. “And three since something else hurt Alec. I can’t help you guys, but you can keep me from hurting anymore.”
David rose explosively. Alec stepped back to let him pass—and saw his friends glaring at each other, chest to chest: fair-skinned blond against dark brunette; gymnast-slim versus wrestler-stocky; blue eyes vying with hazel. The air was taut with incipient violence, though Alec had no idea who would strike first—or why. But then David exhaled loudly, and with that, the hardness of his anger that had made the very earth seem frail and weak melted away, leaving a soft, resigned core. “We’ll try the easy way first, if you don’t mind,” he said tersely.
Aikin looked briefly confused, but nodded.
“Come here, then,” David told him, grabbing him by the arm. “Step on my feet—no, both of ’em: yours atop mine, and barefoot would probably work best—skin on skin usually does.”
Aikin shrugged free long enough to remove his boots and socks, then eased onto David’s feet once more. David wrapped his left arm around him to balance them both. “Okay, now look over my right shoulder toward Bloody Bald.”
“What am I supposed to see?”
“I’m not gonna tell you—though you probably know already. Just look at Bloody Bald!”
Aikin did, resting his chin (he was five-five-point-five versus David’s five-seven and Alec’s five-foot-ten) on his friend’s shoulder. David took a deep breath, drew Aikin into a tighter embrace—and clapped his free hand atop the shorter boy’s head. “Everything between my hands and my feet is mine!” he cried. “Now see, Aikin; see!”
Alec expected some reaction. Probably he expected Aik to go stiff, or cry out in wonder or awe. Instead, he remained as he was: inert in David’s arms.
“See anything?” David prompted, when perhaps ten seconds had passed.
“The wind on the water,” Aikin murmured, quoting Malory. “Maybe a shimmer on the mountaintop; maybe a glittery spikiness up there.”
“No castle?”
“Coulda been, I don’t know.”
David released him. Aikin staggered back, face bitter with disappointment. “You should’ve seen a whole lot more. The High King of Tir-Nan-Og’s got a friggin’ castle up there.”
“Well, I missed it!”
Alec scratched his head. “The World Walls—” he began.
Aikin spun to face him. “What about ’em?”
Alec started. “Oh, uh…well, it just occurred to me that we’ve seen evidence that the World Walls were thin back up on the mountain. So maybe they’re thicker than usual around Lugh’s palace. Shoot, maybe they’re in a state of flux.”
David scowled thoughtfully: a worried look in lieu of the anger, which seemed to have vanished as quickly as it had appeared. “God, I hope not. The last thing I need’s trouble with them.”
Aikin glared at him. “What’s it got to do with you?”
“Nothing—I hope. But trouble in Faerie hereabouts has a tendency to…infect me.”
“Cool,” Aikin said. “I’m game.”
“It won’t make you happy,” David countered. “It never does.”
“I still wanta see.”
“Tough.”
Aikin regarded him steadily, a cold glint in his eyes. “What about that jewel in the pot you think I don’t know Alec brought along,” he whispered, with a smug grin. “What’s it called? An ulunsuti?”
“Christ!” Alec grumbled. “What don’t you know?”
“Tell him,” David snapped. “Hell, show him. I don’t care.” He sat down again and stared at the recalcitrant mountain.
Alec puffed his cheeks and likewise sat, motioning Aikin down beside him. “If I’m gonna talk about it, I might as well show you,” he agreed. Whereupon he reached around to snare his backpack. He held it in his lap while he rummaged inside, finally producing three objects. One was the Thermos of deer blood that had caused so much angst already; the second was an unglazed bowl the size of a big man’s brainpan; and the last was a plain clay jar, simply shaped, and closed with a thick bark stopper. The Thermos he set to his right, the bowl in the center of the rough triangle they’d somehow formed, while he pried the lid off the jar and reached inside. An instant later, he drew out a hand-sized pouch of white-bleached buckskin, soft as suede and delicately nappy. Carefully unlacing it, he tipped the contents into his palm.
Aikin’s breath hissed as Alec held it there, bright in the sun, its glitter less hard than diamond, sharper than oil on water. Like amber, perhaps, or some types of plastic. Hand-sized it was, and roughly oval, milky-clear, with a red septum bisecting the center, perhaps to separate its two parts: real and unreal; animal and mineral; comprehensible and insane.
“The ulunsuti,” David whispered, for Aikin’s benefit—and probably for dramatic effect. “The jewel from the head of the great uktena.”
“Which is a giant serpent that lives in Galunlati,” Alec explained. “That’s the Overworld of the Cherokee, if you don’t already know. A shaman-type guy we know over there gave it to me—only I don’t want it. It has assorted oracular powers, but you have to prime it with blood to effect anything useful. And once a year you have to feed it the blood of a large animal or it’ll go mad—which so far, I’m pleased to say, has not occurred.”
“Thus the reason for beggin’ along on this trip?”
Alec nodded sheepishly. “Basically. See, I’ve been feeding it beef blood, but that’s…not quite working anymore. I can’t say how I know, but I feel like it needs the real thing: hot from the body of something wild.”
“So could we maybe try something wild?” Aikin asked carefully. “I mean, given that you’ve gotta feed it anyway?”
Alec exchanged glances with David.
“I think we oughta cut your ears off,” David growled.
“Let’s do it,” Alec sighed. “You know we’re gonna have to sooner or later.”
“We’ll have to hurry then,” David grunted. “We’ve still gotta lug Bambi’s mom down the mountain, ’fore the meat goes bad.”
In spite of himself, Alec hated what came next. He was a computer nerd—a protoscientist (lodged between chemistry and geology, at the moment). His world of preference was facts and formulae, cause and effect, predictable results, and logical rules—world without end, amen. It wasn’t fair that he, of all unlikely folks, was saddled with the onus of such preposterous irrationalities as physical places with grounds, skies, and geological features that suddenly ended in nothing. Never mind endless tubes paved with golden light and walled with such unlikely entities as vast tangled hedges of thorn, a yard beyond which lay utter void. Never mind trying to figure out how the complex of chemicals that was blood, gleaned from a creature of this World, could prompt a clump of quasi crystal from another to peer into other times and places. There was no connection there: blood to crystal to vision; not like acid to base to alkaline. Not like E = mc2. Not even like chaos theory and fractal geometry and fuzzy logic. And absolutely never mind how the damned crystal—the goddamned ulunsuti—knew the difference between domestic Guernsey and wild whitetail hot off the cloven hoof.
Yet here he was, still suffering the figurative ripples of his friends’ near-confrontation; sitting half-naked on a mountainside, with his knees touching David’s and Aikin’s; pretending he was a shaman presiding at a rite he neither approved of nor understood.
David, to his left, looked nonplussed and bored. Aikin, by contrast, seemed anxious and apprehensive—and was trying very hard to hide both. “Pass the grue,” h
e told the latter, and with that, he set the ulunsuti in the bowl.
And jerked reflexively. It was almost as though the jewel had shocked him, had reached for him in some hungry way, and nipped away an invisible piece of his flesh. Setting his jaw, he accepted the Thermos, unscrewed the cap, and tipped it over both crystal and bowl.
The blood was darker than he remembered, which surprised him, given how much of it he’d seen that day.
It also stank (he thought of it as a stench, at any rate; David and Aik rather liked it). And to his surprise, it gave off a faint warmth: subtle, but noticeable, where it flowed past his fingertips. Already the ulunsuti was filmed with crimson; already it was half-drowned in a sanguine pool.
He could almost feel its pleasure, too, almost hear a soundless purr of contentment, as the jewel drank its fill of whatever empowered it. He squinted at it, saw it slowly begin to glow; and as he did, an idea came to him: a chance for subtle revenge. Aik wanted magic, huh? Well, he’d give him magic. But Aik would also pay the price for being a dweeb.
“Dave,” Alec muttered, “give Hunterman your knife. We’ve primed this thing already, but if it’s gonna do its thing for him, he oughta provide the fuse.”
Aikin eyed him dubiously. And took the weapon.
“Cut yourself,” Alec told him. “Enough to draw blood that’ll drip. Otherwise, you’d have to touch the crystal with the wound, and that might not be cool. Shoot, it could suck you dry, blood and…life force both. Right now it’s both sated and hungry, so feed it, but don’t risk yourself. And when you’re done, stare at the septum and try to imagine—I dunno—imagine Bloody Bald with a veil over it, and then imagine that veil lifting. It’s kinda hard to say, really; Liz usually does that kind of thing. Mostly it works best when you just sort of worry at it. But this close—”
