by Tom Deitz
David took the tray and offered Alec a Coke. He gulped it ravenously; David chose another and drank it more slowly. The nameless woman was staring hard at Rigantana. Rigantana matched that stare, and David got an odd sense of rivals trying to glare each other down. “Greetings to you, Lady Rigantana,” the nameless one said at last, her voice cold as frost. “My companions owe you much, as do I: I whose part it is to collect, not bestow.”
Rigantana smiled back, but it was not mirth that curved her lips. “And greetings to you…Lady Morrigu.”
Morrigu! The word curved around David’s heart like a squeezing hand. Before he could stop to think, he was moving.
“Morrigu!” he hissed. “I thought so!”
And with that, he grabbed the sword Alec had set beside him, and leapt toward the Mistress of Battles.
Chapter XXI: Deceptions and Inceptions
(Athens, Georgia—Saturday, October 31—night)
“No, David!” Alec, Liz, and Aikin yelled as one, their voices slamming against the decorative brick walls of the bus stop more loudly than the band tuning up down the street. David felt Aikin’s strong arms lock around his chest and biceps, even as Alec grabbed his wrist and Liz pried the sword hilt from his fingers.
“Leave me the fuck alone!” he shouted, rationality having dissolved all in a second, as a week’s worth of suspicions proved true with the naming of their mysterious companion as the Morrigu.
“David!” From Liz.
“Cool it, Dave, just cool it!” Aikin echoed.
“She killed my uncle,” David growled. “She killed him!”
But already he was resisting those restraining hands less vehemently. Anger had flashed and gone in three seconds: anger he hadn’t known he possessed so fiercely. Anger forced to overload by the stress of the last few hours.
“Okay,” he grunted, and let Liz secure the weapon. He shrugged out of Aikin’s grip, but still stood glaring at the Morrigu. “I’ll let her defend herself, and then I’ll— Oh, just fuck it!”
For her part, the Morrigu seemed easily as furious as David, but her rage manifested exactly the opposite way: in dead, icy calm; in a carriage that could have withstood glaciers; in a set of mouth that would have given Hitler pause; and in eyes that flashed a fire that could melt titanium.
“Well,” she said at last, glaring at Rigantana, “since this face no longer serves me, I suppose I should resume my own.”
And with that, heat like flame erupted in David’s eyes. He shut them instantly, heard Aikin mumble a strangled, “damn!” but didn’t open them again until his companions’ breathing steadied.
And this time he knew her features: the Morrigu, Lugh’s mistress of battles, she who oversaw all conflicts involving Tir-Nan-Og or its denizens. A tall red-haired queen of the Sidhe, she was; robed in crimson velvet, around the cuffs and hem of which marched an endless file of crows worked in black beads and faceted hematites. “Now,” she demanded, “what is this about?”
“You know what it’s about,” David shot back, feeling that anger spark again. “You have to! You were there.”
“Suppose I was not,” the Morrigu replied placidly, but with a sting of acid in her words. “Suppose, as they say in your land, I am innocent until proven guilty. What then are your charges?”
“You killed my uncle—David-the-Elder. Not you directly, but you were with the guy who did it. You seduced him—probably—and to impress you, he started flashin’ ’round this grenade—he was a soldier, see—and then you got him stoned on hashish, and he…pulled the pin and threw it—at my uncle.”
“Christ!” Alec breathed behind him. “Now I see. It was in your dream, wasn’t it?”
The Morrigu’s eyes narrowed, as did Liz’s. “What dream? What are you speaking of, boy? I have bedded many mortals, and some of them have been soldiers, but none were fond of hashish.” A pause, then: “Where was this supposed to have been accomplished?”
David shrugged. “The Middle East. Lebanon—Syria. Maybe Iraq or Libya or Tunisia. They wouldn’t tell us for sure. It was screwy.”
“I have not seen the Levant since before you were born,” the Morrigu informed him.
“So you say!”
“I will place my hand on that Iron blade there and swear, if you like—if that is required to prove my honesty.”
David shook his head. “Pain’s nothing for someone like you. It wouldn’t prove anything.”
“Though you’ve trusted my honor before?”
“That was before!”
“Very well, let me look in your mind and see what it is that has made you think this thing.”
“Like hell!” David flared. “No tellin’ what’d happen if you did that!”
“Perhaps I already have!”
“Okay, David,” Liz put in. “You know what you’re talking about, but the rest of us have no idea. So how ’bout you tell us? You’re not gonna get anywhere just yelling.”
David puffed his cheeks and scowled. “Oh, fuck it! Might as well, I guess.”
And with that, he related the tale of the vision the ulunsuti had given him on Lookout Rock. And as he spoke the details came rushing back as clearly as if he’d witnessed those events scant seconds before. Almost he couldn’t finish, almost those recollections became too much for him. By the time he concluded, he was sweating. He drank deep of his Coke, noting absently that his hands were shaking. Liz eased around to massage his shoulders.
Throughout his narrative, the Morrigu had held her peace, though he suspected she was prowling around in his mind, perhaps in quest of lies, perhaps merely seeking clarification of some point he’d missed, some spin or impression it hadn’t occurred to him to relate, or language made impossible to reveal. Her face had remained impassive, though her jaw had tensed once or twice.
Finally, she took a long, slow breath. “It was not me,” she whispered; and her tones bore the ring of ritual. “It was almost certainly my…sister Neman.”
“The…one who rode with the Hunt?” Liz ventured.
The Morrigu shook her head. “That was another of…us.”
“Macha!” David blurted suddenly. “Of course.”
Liz looked at him askance. No one else spoke at all, though Rigantana raised an eyebrow in delicate amusement. “I begin to see why Nuada regards you so highly,” she observed.
“’Cause I remember my folklore?” David shot back. “Big deal.”
“Yeah,” Alec grunted. “I avoid that stuff like the plague.”
David glared at him, then looked back at the Morrigu and took a deep breath. “It’s rude to talk about people in front of them,” he said. “It’d be best if the lady explained it herself. ’Sides, I might be wrong.”
It was the Morrigu’s turn to lift a brow. “Courtesy becomes you more than ire,” she informed him. “But you are correct…mostly. There are three of us. Sisters is the most convenient term, but we are closer than that. Three at one birth, and so alike in our bodies, minds, and thoughts that we were literally one. The Babd, they began to call us, for none could distinguish us. Sometimes we could not distinguish ourselves, and perhaps that is what drove two of us mad. Or perhaps I am also mad, in a different way, and do not know it. Of the three, I am the Morrigu—a title, actually; I never give my name. I am also the most conventionally sane—and the role I have claimed for myself is that of encouraging heroes. It is my joy to take raw clay—mortal men, even, like yourselves—and shape it into something more. Sometimes men—or women—fail and are cast aside. Sometimes I succeed beyond my dreams. Sometimes—”
“You were doing that on the Tracks, weren’t you?” Liz broke in. “You were testing David, to see what he’d do if he faced the Hunt. Even when you made us run, you were watching him.”
The Morrigu smiled faintly. “Yet the threat was real, and my shame at being less brave than a mortal was real. And my fear of the Hunt was real as well.”
No one responded.
“But to continue my tale,” the Morrigu went on,
“my two sisters are called Macha and Neman. Macha you met—if that word is appropriate—a few moments ago. She is the least sane of us, the one who glories in death and destruction for its own sake, without regret or guilt. Mostly she rides with the Hunt now; but wherever there is battle—violence—disaster—there will she be, for she is the reveler among the slain.”
“I know,” David breathed. “I…saw.”
The Morrigu nodded. “So mad is she that she cannot confine her madness. It leaks from her like foul water from a sieve, and though I love her as my sister, I detest the things she does.”
“And Neman?” David prompted.
“Neman is a trickster. She has no honor, only a craving for amusement. Most often this consists of inciting confusion among the ranks, so that men fight against their own comrades—”
“Friendly fire,” Aikin blurted out. “She’s the goddess of friendly fire!”
The Morrigu cocked her head. “Essentially that is true, though she is no goddess, no more than any of the Sidhe.”
“That asshole who killed my uncle thought she was!” David retorted. “He called her an angel.”
Again the Morrigu nodded. “It was reasonable for one such as he to think as much, for what other term do such poor ignorant fools have for immortal beings whose beauty surpasses their own? No, do not interrupt”—when David would have protested—“you were correct, in a way.”
“How?”
“Since those men who meet her most often think of her as a goddess, they often call her one—and she enjoys that adoration. Sometimes she even takes that ‘form’ and pretends to be a deity of whatever folk invoke her. And for those without manifesting gods—like most folk in your World these days, such as that man in the Levant—she might well claim to be an angel.”
And with that she fell silent. David felt her eyes on him, burning with resentment and accusation. “Now do you see?” she concluded.
David nodded numbly. “I see that I accused you falsely, and I’m sorry—but that doesn’t really change things! I mean, David-the-Elder’s still dead! One of your sisters still screwed around and got him killed, and that’s just impossible to forgive. I don’t know what I can do about it, unless you can take me to wherever she is and let me kill her with iron, but—”
“Uh-uh,” Aikin inserted. “You don’t wanta do that, man; you just think you do. It’d feel good for about five minutes and then you’d hate yourself for the rest of your life. I mean, think, man: that guy who killed your uncle, he didn’t like him, so he offed him: pull the pin, throw the bomb, bang! You’re pissed at Neman. So you—”
“Yeah, I get it,” David growled. “And you’re right. But it still hurts, guys. It hurts so goddamned much!”
“I know,” Aikin acknowledged. “But I’ve seen more death than any of you folks, even if it’s mostly animals, and as of today, I’ve been on both sides of a hunt. And while I still believe that killing’s part of nature, killin’ like you’re talkin’ about’s not a thing you even want to think about doin’.”
David fell silent. They were right, dammit. He didn’t like it, but they were. Killing anyone—anything sapient—was not a thing a man could do and still call himself civilized—or sane. Certainly not when done for vengeance’s sake. He stared across the street, where someone had set another Dumpster alight, to where music thundered like the drums of hell. To where the Dance of Death had swept closer down Washington Street…
“Oh shit!” Alec exclaimed abruptly, pounding his knees with his fists. “I just remembered something!”
“Like what?” From Aikin.
“Like the ulunsuti! See, if Rigantana’s right, and her mom stole it…well, gee, I mean she doesn’t know what to do with it. She doesn’t know how it works!”
“She will find out,” Rigantana shot back instantly. “Objects of power are her special study.”
“Yeah, well, it’s not from her World, though,” Alec retorted. “It’s from a World at two removes from Faerie, so who knows what’ll happen if she tries to use it? Sure, she knew enough to send me a false dream through it, but that doesn’t mean she knows everything. Like, the worst thing is that four times a year you have to feed it the blood of a large animal or it’ll go mad. I don’t know what that means, exactly, and I don’t want to, but I don’t wanta even think what’d happen if that occurred in Faerie, or the time differential screwed it up, or if it reacted some weird way to Faery blood or the blood of Faery animals, or—”
“Not good,” Rigantana broke in, sounding very human again. “And unfortunately, I have no idea what my mother knows about it, only that she has almost certainly been watching you with her arts, so that whatever she attempts is probably safe, as far as she’s concerned.”
“Great,” Alec groaned. “Just peachy.”
“I didn’t think you liked it,” Aikin observed. “I guess you don’t have to worry now!”
“Only about Uki,” Alec shot back. “Only that a shaman in another World gave it to me and could be really pissed if something bad happened ’cause I was stupid. Only about the Worlds,” he added. “Like if gating from here to Tir-Nan-Og fucks up the World Walls, who knows what’ll happen when folks start zapping between Ys and wherever. And is it gonna be, like, a permanent gate, or what?”
“Sounds like we need to get it back,” David sighed. “I don’t even want to think about what’s involved in tryin’ to do that, but it sounds like what we oughta do.”
“And we generally screw up if we don’t do what we oughta do,” Liz agreed.
“Fuck,” said Alec. “Fuck, fuck, fuck—but you’re right.”
Rigantana had not spoken for several moments, but was looking more troubled by the instant, and even the Morrigu’s face was tense with concern. “This is probably a moot discussion,” Rigantana said at last. “The stone is surely out of reach.”
David looked up sharply. “How do you know?”
“Because if I were my mother, as soon as I procured it, I would have taken it to the coast, where ships wait to sail the Tracks for Annwyn, as they can do only at certain times of year, of which this is one. Barring that, I would have sent it there in haste.”
“If I knew Rhiannon,” the Morrigu mused, “she only sent it ahead. Do not forget what night this is: Lugh and the court of Tir-Nan-Og ride the Tracks tonight—and need not fear even the Hunt, for it will not attack so many. Usually they ride to the sea on this day, to meet those who have made the crossing, and to bid farewell to those who depart for Erenn and Annwyn. And Rhiannon loves ceremony, and likewise loves to ride; and it is years and years since she has joined the Rade in Tir-Nan-Og, save perhaps at Lughnasadh just past.”
“And if she does ride with Lugh,” Rigantana cried, “perhaps we can meet them and enlist Lugh’s aid.”
“Whoa!” Alec said. “What makes you think Lugh’s gonna listen to us?”
“Sovereignty is a fluid thing,” Rigantana replied. “Lugh rules Tir-Nan-Og, but he is likewise concerned for the Lands of Men that underlie it, for all of Faerie depends on your World for its shape—its very existence. In that sense, he may look upon you as one of his subjects who has been wronged. Certainly you know how important honor is to him. If you were to meet him, and demand redress for a wrong—the theft of the ulunsuti—he might listen. Perhaps he would even set things right, for I doubt my mother has told him of her intentions regarding that stone. It would be most unlike her.”
David exhaled sharply. “And if I asked him for vengeance against Neman, what would he do?”
“Pay blood price, most likely.”
“No,” the Morrigu countered, “he would not. She is not his subject, nor does she dwell in Tir-Nan-Og.”
“Where is she, then?” David snapped, as a surge of irrational anger took flame again. He fought it down.
“She is in Annwyn,” the Morrigu told him flatly. “She is almost beyond my reach there; certainly she is beyond yours.”
“You owe me,” David spat. “You goddamn owe me!”<
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“I cannot give you a mortal’s life,” the Morrigu shot back. “Nor can Lugh, nor Nuada, nor Arawn, nor Finvarra, nor Rhiannon, nor Manannan mac Lir. Your kinsman’s soul is beyond our reach.”
“I want justice.”
Rigantana eyed him sharply. “Justice? Or what your kind call closure?”
David blinked at her. “What do you mean?”
“He is gone beyond recall,” Rigantana said. “Never more will he walk the Lands of Men in the body once he wore. Yet what pains you most, I think, is that not only do you miss him, but you never held a proper parting. He left and you thought to see him again, but he did not return, and there are things yet unsaid between you. You were not…finished with him.”
“I’ll never be finished.”
“No,” the Morrigu acknowledged in turn. “And as I said, I cannot give you a mortal’s life…but if you are brave, perhaps I can give you that last meeting.”
David blinked at her through a veil of tears. Did he dare believe her? Did he dare not? Something survived death, he knew; his friend Calvin had journeyed to the Ghostcountry a couple of years back, to placate the shade of his own father and rescue a boy whose own grief had sent him there. But himself and David-the-Elder…? Was it possible?
“H-how?” he whispered at last.
“The Crimson Road,” the Morrigu replied. “That is as much as you need to know…for now.”
“But what about the ulunsuti?” Alec asked quietly. “What about catching the Rade?”
“If we seek one,” the Morrigu announced, “we seek the other.”
Chapter XXII: Raid on a Rade
(Athens, Georgia—Saturday, October 31—near midnight)
“We could reach Faerie directly through the World Walls,” the Morrigu told the company at large. “It would then be simple to locate the Track the Rade will follow. Yet given that we also seek whomever Rhiannon has entrusted with the oracular stone, who surely have ridden ahead, we had best take the Track from here instead—and breaking the World Walls hereabouts so soon after they have been breached twice would not be prudent.”
