Earth's Hope

by Ann Gimpel

  “I have one.” Dewi showered her with compulsion. “Since both men want you, and I’m an inconvenience, let’s switch what we did earlier.”

  Aislinn shut her eyes for a moment. “I’m a little slow on the uptake here, but switch what?” And then she understood. “Ohhhh. Like when you fucked the Minotaur with me inside you.”

  “No Minotaurs here”—Dewi’s jaws lolled in a grin—“so you’re fairly safe.”

  Despite reservations, Aislinn could see advantages—lots of them. She straightened her spine. “No sex with any of the dark gods.”

  “Agreed. You were right to terminate that event.”

  Aislinn’s eyes widened. “No shit. I was right about something?”

  “Oh, stop it. If you’re willing, come close and we’ll do this thing. We can hammer out the fine points once we’ve merged.”

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Fionn stood in front of the last mirror while Nidhogg looked through his eyes. When the dragon didn’t say anything, Fionn prodded, “We must pick one and be gone. Too much time has passed.”

  Bella spread her wings and flew to a table where she landed and looked up at him. “Not going?” Fionn asked.

  She shook her head. “None of them feel right to me.”

  “’Twould appear Nidhogg is having the same problem,” Bran noted sourly.

  Fionn felt steam rise from his lungs and he blew the heated air through his nose and mouth. “Don’t bait him,” he told Bran. “My throat’s raw from dragon effluvium as ’tis.”

  Nidhogg pushed their shared body back to the last mirror. “This one.”

  “What do we do once we’re inside?” Fionn asked.

  “I won’t know until we get there.”

  “Not particularly comforting,” Bran muttered.

  “You’re taking me.” Rune had been sticking to Fionn’s side like a stubborn shadow.

  The dragon borrowed Fionn’s voice. “It may well be the death of you, laddie.”

  “I don’t care.” Rune’s tail plumed. “I’m the only one here who can find her.”

  “Yon wolf has a point,” Fionn said and reached into a pocket for the length of leather he often used to tie his hair back.

  “Here.” Bran handed him more cord. “That isna long enough.”

  “Thanks.” Fionn hastily fashioned a collar with a loop he could hang onto. Rune eyed him balefully, but didn’t protest when he snugged the device around his neck.

  “We must stay together,” the dragon cautioned. “I’ll use magic to bind us, but the pull inside the glass is strong, and it only takes seconds to get swept away.”

  “Will we be able to talk in there?” Rune asked.

  “I don’t know,” Nidhogg replied.

  “Let’s find out.” Fionn chafed to be gone. Sharing his body with the dragon was taxing, and he wanted to get into the thick of things, rescue Aislinn, and be gone from here. Once she was safe, he could return and make short work of the dark gods. Or maybe just blow their dead, rotten borderworld out of existence. Hours had passed since Aislinn and Dewi’s disappearance. Despair riddled him if he let himself think about everything that could have happened to Aislinn in all that time.

  “Here we go,” Nidhogg said. “Follow my lead.”

  Fionn gripped Rune’s leash and stepped through the silvery surface. It rippled around him and pressed hard, as if it were trying to crush him. Rune grunted, but didn’t yip.

  “Ooph, not exactly pleasant,” Bran muttered.

  They still weren’t through the glass; the sensation of being crushed intensified. “Pull us the rest of the way through,” Fionn told Nidhogg, struggling to breathe through compressed lungs.

  “I did this on purpose.” The dragon didn’t sound much better than Fionn felt. “Once we’re through, we’re at its mercy.”

  “We have to control it,” Fionn ground out. “We’ll never do that half in and half out.”

  With a wrenching tug that made a wet, slurping sound, the dragon moved them to the far side of the glass. As soon as they were through, the dark haze before Fionn’s vision cleared, and pulsating, iridescent tunnels spread in three directions. He dug in his heels and anchored himself to the dragon’s magic to avoid being sucked into one of them.

  Bran wove magic in with his, and clutched Fionn’s arm. “Which way?”

  “Rune?” Nidhogg’s deep voice echoed and the tunnels pulsed harder.

  The wolf whined; something about the ultrasonic frequency in the vibrating walls hurt him—probably his ears because they were pinned back against his skull. Fionn felt the wolf deploy the Hunter bond. Thank fucking Christ it didn’t boomerang back and hurt him further.

  “Middle,” the wolf said. He whined again and added, “Hurry. This is hard.”

  And it only got harder. The magic didn’t want them in the middle tunnel, which told Fionn the wolf had chosen wisely. Power buffeted them from behind, pushing them to the right, then the left. Even with the dragon’s magic linked to his own, Fionn moved forward at a glacial pace, as if he were plowing through thigh deep quicksand or snow. Bran’s hand tightened on his arm and the rough sound of his breathing joined Fionn’s own.

  Deep in Fionn’s mind, Nidhogg cursed, first in Gaelic and then in the dragons’ language. Fionn considered asking where he thought the other tunnels led, but didn’t want to disturb his concentration. Maybe they didn’t lead anywhere fixed. The thought of mutable passageways that shifted depending on who was in them was even more unsettling than Majestron Zalia’s head had been.

  He lost all sense of time. The pressure surrounding him ebbed and flowed. Once the wolf yelped piteously and Fionn picked him up, holding him awkwardly and shielding his ears.

  “Will this get better once we reach the tunnel?” Fionn asked Nidhogg.

  “Probably.”

  “Can we hurry?” They’d been crossing the fifty yards between them and the center passageway forever, or maybe time ran differently behind the glass. Fionn snuck a glance over one shoulder and couldn’t see the backside of the glass. How would they find their way out?

  I canna worry about that.

  Rune wriggled in his arms and he whispered soothing Gaelic into the wolf’s ear. Finally, just when Fionn was within a hairsbreadth of telling Nidhogg they had to go back, that the pearlescent tunnel would suck the life out of them, things got easier. And easier still. Rather than thigh-deep quicksand, it was just knee-deep, and then mid-calf.

  “’Twould appear we survived the first leg,” Bran observed. “Would ye like me to carry the wolf? He must be heavy.”

  “I can walk,” Rune said, so Fionn set him down and they covered the final few feet to the rounded opening of the center passage.

  “Hang on,” Nidhogg said. “Things may go very fast once we pass beneath the lintel.”

  * * * *

  Young Nidhogg did a quick nose count. They’d all made it back to Earth handily. In truth, he’d been impressed by the amount of power they’d been able to concentrate. It was triple what he’d expected.

  “That was fun,” the copper male crowed.

  “What’s next?” one of the green males asked.

  “We move to the borderworld,” Nidhogg junior answered. “It will be harder, but we can do it, and we need to move fast, before Royce and Vaughna track us.”

  “Yes, it would be bad for them to haul us back now,” the copper male said.

  “Once we’re heroes,” the green male said, “they won’t be able to punish us.”

  The black youngling, understudy to the Norse dragon slot, wasn’t so certain about that. He was fairly sure there’d be hell to pay once one of the adults caught up to them, but until then they’d keep going. His link with his father came and went, and he hadn’t liked the last bit he’d seen. Something about a place of shifting sands and illusion that crushed and pulled.

  “Ready?” he asked and scattered what magic he could to obliterate signs of them having passed this way. It might fake out Royce and Vaughna. Mayb
e.

  “Do we have time to hunt?” a red female asked.

  “No. Heroes eat after victory, not before.”

  “Who made that rule?” the copper dragon grumbled.

  “My father,” Nidhogg junior answered. “Now let’s go. There’s no air for this crossing, so fill your lungs well.”

  To the accompaniment of huge sucking breaths, Nidhogg borrowed magic shamelessly from his eggmates and formed the spell that would take them to the borderworld. They tumbled through a gateway so fast he was certain he’d done something wrong, but before he took them back to Earth to start over, he sent his magic spinning outward.

  “This is an ugly place,” one of the red females said.

  “Yes, and it stinks,” the copper male cut in.

  “Not much lives here,” a green male said, “but there’s lots that’s dead and decayed.”

  Nidhogg junior exhaled sharply. Despite his doubts, he’d led them to the right place. Clear traces of his father and mother lingered in the stale, lifeless air.

  “Do you suppose they’re in there?” The copper dragon inclined his head toward a sprawling building.

  “Well, they’re not out here, and I sense them close, so it’s logical,” young Nidhogg replied.

  “How do we get inside?” the copper male asked. “Should we teleport again?”

  The black dragon shuffled the idea through his father’s memories. “Not a good idea. We have to get inside, but there’s a barrier once we get in there. Everyone else went through the front door and ran into problems. Let’s look for another entrance. Maybe one where we won’t get trapped by whatever crushed Father.”

  “Is he all right?” one of the red females cried anxiously.

  “Yes. Bad choice of words. There was a crushing sensation, but he got through it.”

  “Is Mother with him?” a green male asked.

  “No. I don’t have the same link to her that I do with Father. She’s inside, and alive, but I don’t know anything further.”

  “I know where she is,” the red female who’d been reluctant to come with them spoke up.

  He eyed her and was suffused with sudden understanding. “You’re the next Celtic dragon god.”

  She snorted fire. “Unfortunately, yes. It’s a shit job and I don’t want it.”

  He wanted to slap her, tell her to quit whining and grow up. Instead, he swallowed his irritation and said, “You’ll have a long time to get over that. I suspect Mother will live a few thousand more years.” He spread his wings. “Fly with me. All of you. We’ve come this far. Let’s get to where we can do some good.”

  As he pumped his wings, forcing the air to support him, young Nidhogg hoped to hell they could find a way inside. He feared the way his father had taken might well be the death of them. It had taken most of his father’s wisdom—and power—to lead himself, Fionn, Bran, and the wolf through the bad place. As he flew, he sought Nidhogg, trying to pinpoint where he was in the rambling structure beneath him.

  “You!” detonated in his head, nearly blowing his brains out his ears. “I thought I sensed you. What in the hell are you up to?”

  Young Nidhogg hastily erected wards. He should have done it before, and he sent orders down the line to his eggmates to do the same. The last thing he needed was their father ordering them home. Not when they were so close to their chance to become heroes.

  As he flew in an arcing circle, something caught his attention. Toward the rear of the building, a collection of other structures linked to the main house by a partially submerged walkway. Surely that was how servants had gotten inside. Those entrances were probably never warded.

  “Look there,” he sent to the other dragons. “A way in.”

  “Not a moment too soon,” the copper male sent. “A portal just opened on the other side of the building, and I sense more dragons.”

  Crap! Must be Kra and Berra. Or even worse, Royce and Vaughna.

  “Hurry,” Nidhogg urged his eggmates and scattered magic to obliterate any evidence of their presence on this world.

  * * * *

  Gwydion stepped through a gateway and waited for the others. He forced magic outward to reassure himself they’d come out at the right place, and was gratified when he sensed Fionn’s energy, along with Dewi’s and Nidhogg’s. He sheathed his power. No reason to do a headcount of everyone who’d been here. He gazed at the dry, dead landscape he remembered from earlier visits. Not the last one where his astral self had been locked away in a bell jar deep within a dungeon. He’d never seen the outside of his prison then, since he’d teleported both ways.

  Gradually, Arawn, Andraste, and the humans and dragons emerged. “No one’s here,” Arawn observed. “They were, and not all that long ago, but what happened to them?”

  “Do you suppose they’re in there?” Timothy motioned toward the fortress.

  “’Tis as good a guess as any,” Gwydion muttered.

  Kra trumpeted and blew smoke. “The dark ones are here. I feel them.”

  “You and I can stand watch while the others go inside,” Berra said. “We could merge with them, but it would be foolhardy to not guard our exit route.”

  “Thank you.” Andraste blew a kiss at the dragons.

  “Shall we?” Gwydion jerked his chin forward, grasped his staff, and took off at a lope. If the dragon was right about the dark gods—and there was no reason he wouldn’t be—why wasn’t his staff glowing red? Normally, the staff wasn’t influenced by wards. Maybe the magic-muting effect of this world had something to do with it.

  Arawn chugged around him and across the drawbridge. “Charming.” He pointed at two sea serpents coiled beneath them in the moat.

  Andraste caught them up, mumbling, “We should have annihilated both these borderworlds a long time ago.”

  “A use for us already.” Kra screamed a battle cry and bathed the serpents with fire. Berra joined him. The inferno blazed orange before it rolled off the serpents’ scales, but at least it kept them from squirting poison upward through slats in the drawbridge.

  Gwydion let magic guide him through the entry hall, past portraits of the dark gods and into a dead end.

  “What the fuck?” He turned in a circle and saw the doorway into the room vanish as the last of them entered it.

  Arawn walked briskly to one of the mirrors and tapped its surface, except it swallowed his fingers. The god of the dead yanked his hand back. “Goddammit!”

  Gwydion joined him. “Persian mirrors, huh?”

  “’Twould appear so.”

  “Aye.” Andraste spat on the floor. “They bite back.”

  Timothy made his way to their side. “What are they?”

  “Gateways,” Arawn said, his voice grim.

  “Look, Celt.” Timothy crossed his arms over his chest. “You’re going to have to do better than that. Gateways to where?”

  “I’m not certain,” Gwydion answered, “but, ’tis a sure bet Adva is here. He’s their god of portals, and I’d bet my ass he brought these with him.”

  “Is that a guess, or are ye certain?” Arawn asked.

  “As certain as I can be. I only tangled with him once, and he nearly had my hide because of these fucking things. He lured me inside, chasing him, and I got lost—horribly lost. ’Tis like a hall of mirrors inside with nothing firmly anchored.”

  “How’d you get out?” Timothy asked.

  “I verra nearly dinna. But I learned how to counteract their power.” He blew out a tense breath. “Let’s hope I recall exactly how I did it.”

  A tall human female with a hawk on her shoulder spoke up. “Is it safe for the animals in there?” Her black hair was pulled back into a queue, and her dark eyes reflected worry.

  “Probably not,” Gwydion said.

  “Humph.” She pressed her lips together. “There are five of us Hunters. We’ll wait outside with the dragons.”

  “How?” Timothy asked. “The door into this room got absorbed by something, probably the mirrors’ magic. If
I pay attention, I can feel it like a scratchy undercurrent.”

  Andraste drew magic experimentally, and a portal glittered before her. With a sharp nod, she scattered her spell. “Ye can teleport,” she said. “Mayhap not far, but at least out of here.”

  A corner of Arawn’s mouth turned down grimly. “Aye, the mirrors are glad enough of us leaving their domain, but they guard the rest of this building—and goddess knows what else.”

  The Hunters formed a tight ring with their bond animals. The dark-haired woman chanted low until a gateway formed and all of them walked through it. Gwydion waited until the magic winked out, then he turned and faced the others. Besides himself, Arawn, and Andraste, there were five humans.

  “Listen closely,” he said. “Once we’re inside, ’twill feel as if something is crushing the verra breath from your body. We will face choices on the far side of the glass. ’Tis imperative we pick the correct one, or ’twill take us so long to return here we will be useless to Fionn and the others.”

  “How will we know?” Timothy asked. “My magic isn’t as strong here as it is on Earth.”

  Gwydion shot him a wry smile. “The choice that fights back is the one that will lead us into this stronghold. I sense Fionn in this room, Bran too. We may be able to track them once we’re behind the glass, but doona count on it.”

  “Does every mirror work the same?” A human female with short, curly brown hair asked.

  Arawn shook his head. “Nay. We must pick the correct one to enter, and then the correct choice once we’re within.”

  “The first choice is easy,” Gwydion said and walked to the far side of the room. “This is where Fionn went through.”

  “How can you be certain?” Timothy asked. “I sense him—and Nidhogg—in front of each mirror.”

  “As do I,” Gwydion concurred, “but the energy moves forward here, and not with the others.”

  “How do we know Fionn chose the right one?” the brown-haired female asked.

  “Because he had the dragon with him,” Andraste said. “Nidhogg is many things, but he isna often wrong. Gwydion and I will draw a spell to hold all of us together. Ye all must weave your power in with ours to avoid being swept away once we cross the barrier.”