"Thiswaythisway!" Ashling called frantically from nearby. Without hesitation, Cassia turned the chariot and charged in the direction of the pixie's voice. Despite the risk of low altitude, the Count dropped to just ahead of the leopards, leading the way at high speed. More of the hounds were closing in on either side of them, but they stayed just ahead of the packs, though a few snapping jaws got close enough that Megan could feel the hot breath.
"Ashling! Higher!" Megan heard herself calling, more than a little surprised that her first thoughts were of getting at least the pixie out of reach. She was even more surprised when the flighty little creature looked back, shook her head firmly, and continued to lead the way, rising only to make sure they were still on a clear path, making adjustments for Cassia to follow.
The chariot made another jump, landing amidst stones and dirt loose enough to send it skidding off to one side, briefly pulling one of the leopards off balance. The shift in momentum was enough to break Lani's grip, and she went tumbling over the side of the chariot, landing hard and headfirst. The cats recovered enough to take off at a run again, either not noticing or not caring that they'd left a passenger behind.
"Lani!" Megan called, leaping off the back of the chariot, reaching her friend before the nearest hounds did. With Lani trying to struggle to her feet, obviously dizzy, Megan tackled her out of the way of the nearest hound.
With more hounds coming from seemingly all directions, Megan did the first thing that came to mind—singing a few bars of the first song she thought of at the top of her lungs. To her surprise, a sudden gust of intense wind picked up some of the loose dirt and debris, carrying it into the eyes of the frontmost hounds.
The lead dogs pulled up short, trying to shake the irritants out of their eyes, and the hounds behind them crashed into the lead rank. Megan tried again, hitting the next bars as another hound came at them. This time, nothing happened. She tensed, seeing the creature bearing down on her, before it pulled up short, snapping at a black, feathered form that just clawed at the side of his head.
"Megan, go!" Ashling shouted, dive bombing a few more of the hounds, weaving and climbing and turning the small pack around.
Once Megan helped Lani to her feet, the two started to run again, though unlike last time they went at a full sprint, now it was Lani who was lagging behind, visibly almost losing her balance a few times. Megan slowed. Lani opened her mouth as if to argue, but Megan interrupted. "Not leaving you."
Coming around another hill, Megan saw a flat expanse, extending quite some way, before reaching another rise, this one an almost vertical wall of rocks and occasional grass patches. From here, it looked like a trap, somewhere the hounds would pin them against with nowhere to run, provided they didn't just run them down in the open plain, which seemed far more likely.
Then her eyes settled on Cassia and the cats, turned and waiting for them. Megan tugged on Lani's arm, starting towards the satyr even as the baying picked up again. A glance back confirmed that the distraction was over, and the hounds were in pursuit again. She turned her head back around, starting to sprint for Cassia, who appeared to be talking to someone—and the cats, though looking agitated, were howling and hissing back. Cassia finally seemed to reach a consensus, shaking her head at the girls running her way.
Just as Megan was thinking she was about to abandon them, Cassia instead pointed towards the vertical rise in the distance. Megan gave another panicked glance back, then looked at Cassia again. The satyr gestured again, more insistent, and Megan altered her course, just sprinting for the wall.
A howl unlike anything Megan had ever heard drew her gaze again. She'd seen the expression, or something like it, on Cassia's face before, when the leprechaun had splashed her. Now, it was even more intense, the woman's face flushing darker as she shouted. Both cats joined in the howl, and the chariot took off again—but this time towards the pack of hounds. The war cry and battle howl began to turn into a grin—but it was somehow no less savage, as the chariot rocketed forward, with Cassia calling "Euan Euan Eu-Oi-Oi-Oi!" as they charged. The unexpected tactic took the hounds off guard, and at first, they parted before her berserk rush.
Once Cassia had their attention, more of the hounds turning her way, the chariot spun around and raced off, with the surprised dogs gathering up and taking off in pursuit again. It was only when she heard Ashling's shouts again that Megan turned back around, moving faster once she stopped watching the high speed chase. Lani was picking up speed, along with better balance, with the recovery time, and Ashling kept looping back around to make sure both girls were focused ahead and ignoring the shouts and howls and baying behind them.
It seemed to take forever, and both girls were thoroughly out of breath as they finally reached the wall. Megan craned her neck upward, looking at the sheer wall ahead of them. "That's... a long way up."
Chapter 17: Reunion of a Sort
“Lani?” Megan asked with a strain in her voice as she hauled herself up.
“Yeah?”
“Just realized something.” A deep breath as she reached for the next handhold, then exhaling. “I'm a Faerie Princess.”
“Legally, yeah.” Lani scrambled ahead of her again.
“When do I get my gosh-darn wings and tiara?”
“If you do,” Ashling said quietly, “watch out for butterfly collectors.”
That got things silent for a minute, as the two girls dragged themselves onto the grass and got out the snacks from Lani's pack. For once, Ashling didn't seem eager to tell a story.
In the silence came a sound on the wind. “Megan.” It was a whisper at first, then louder. “Megan can you hear me?” asked the voice like chocolate.
“Whoa,” Lani said.
“I... yeah...” Megan muttered. “Dad?” She immediately wished she had managed to make her first conscious words to her father something a bit more impressive.
“Good to hear from you, Sir,” Ashling said.
“And you as well. Ashling, Lani Kahale, Counts-to-18. Could you excuse the two of us for a few minutes?”
“Of course.” And the crow rose into the air and flew a little way farther, Lani following.
“So you can talk, even though you're frozen or whatever out there?”
“My dear, Winter is My Time. The ice might be around me, but it's not going to subdue me. It's only because of a terribly clever use of wards and location that I'm stuck at all, and enough effort and preparation can get the occasional communication out. The real salt in the wound is, well, the salt.”
“I'm guessing the salt is another faerie issue I don't know about. Lani knows about the Menehune-Brownie Strategic Alliance of 1801. I'm still not sure what 'Seelie' means.”
“Yes,” the voice on the wind replied. “But you're managing wonderfully, no doubt.”
“Her dad probably explained a lot of stuff.”
“I'm quite certain he did. Parenting seems to be the sole menehune job which mustn't be done in one night.”
Megan sat and thought for a moment, then took a breath. “You left when I was two.”
“Yes. Two years, two months, two days, and I'll swear on your middle name that it wasn't that you were less than delightful,” the voice said with quiet warmth on the cool breeze. “I stopped back home for the Dance, found out there was a full-blown political crisis, and couldn't foist off the responsibilities anymore.”
“Why didn't you come back?”
“Well, I was very busy, and by the time you were in kindergarten, your mother was very cross.”
Well, there was no arguing with that. Cross was one of her mom's defining characteristics, along with tired. Megan had seen a lifetime of cross and tired. She remembered Cassia's words, though.
“There's more to it than that, though, isn't there?”
“There's always more to it, Megan. One realizes one has said 'just one more day' a few hundred times too many.” The wind shifted, and she could almost feel a shrug and a smile. “So your friends are trying to help.”
“Yeah...mostly because the Dance is supposed to be important. Lani thinks it's like climate change or something.”
There was a silence in the wind, but not the absent kind of silence. It was the silence of people thinking as they sit next to each other. Then, the chocolatey voice spoke. “From a passing acquaintance with her father, that seems reasonable.”
“You'd think she'd be allergic to all the science stuff. Isn't that sort of the opposition? Like vampires and churches.”
A chuckle in the wind. “Not at all. Science itself is no particular bane. For that matter, neither are churches. I love science. I love religion. I love how they create wonder and stories and open up minds. I love that they open up the big 'whys.' The only time they're a problem is when people stop wondering, stop grasping for those whys. When the thought that an unseen hand, or some invisible set of rules, drives things makes people search for the answers and meaning, or striving to get closer to those things—that's marvelous. It's only when people stop wondering, stop searching, stop researching, or stop caring about the whys, and just have a pat answer of 'Because science,' or 'Because God,' before they move on—that's when those things become anathema to faeries.”
“Oh.” Megan took a moment to process that. Her dad apparently had a thing for rhetoric, but then, he was in politics, even if it was faerie politics. Suddenly she asked, “Counts-to-18?”
“The best translation anyone can manage of the Corvid deed-name. It's for his cleverness: most crows only count to 16.”
“Oh.” She paused. “We may have left Cassia to be eaten by dogs,” Megan confessed.
“The hounds deserve their legend, but I suspect that's not how her story ends. I've known her for most of her life. I don't recall her being left to be anything for quite some time, so I suspect she had a hand in the matter.”
“It was her idea, yeah.”
“Then all's well. Because no matter what your guide and mine says—and this is an important secret—the true distinction of the Unseelie is beyond all good, evil, avarice, passion, ambition, jealousy, and so many other things. It's not that, as the Seelie value order, we value chaos. It's that any Unseelie will always desire at least the option to make the wrong choice."
“Oh.” That actually made some sense. Maybe too much sense. “So do you know who did this?”
“Know who ambushed me into this trap? I know several of them, but they did not act on their own initiative. Distinctly not Idea People.”
“What happens to them, when you get out?” Megan's mind rushed at all the horrific possibilities, having seen what sort of people her father was technically king of.
“Oh, mostly they'll owe me a favor.”
“That's it? After trapping you and risking the climate shift thing, just owing you one?”
“There is no 'Just,' my dear. While it's not a cold iron wound, owing is one of the worst things that can happen to a faerie. Someone else gets the choice. Promises and debts are as real a thing for us as the breath in your lungs and the color of your eyes."
“Okay, then. So anyway, sounds like you can't really tell us who else might try something. We're trying to get the...Cleeves Sole-ish. The Light-Sword.”
“The Claiomh Solais. Yes, that figures, considering where you are. I don't know if I'd be able to find you again, without a real energy source against… this. The Claiomh Solais. Well, that's one way of going about it.”
“What were you thinking?”
“Well, Mega—” and half the dark whisper was lost on the wind. Then there was something about “hesitate” and “step,” again with half the words lost.
“Dad? Dad!”
Then there was something about “losing,” “dear,” and “good-bye,” and then there air was still.
Megan walked in the silence to where Lani was sitting and recovering. Lani opened her mouth, looked at Megan, pulled herself to her feet, and hugged her.
Chapter 18: To the Gates
There was still no sign of Cassia or the cats as the girls made their way to the city. Lani made them stop at a stream, this one thankfully devoid of flesh-eating fish, to refill their canteens. Megan quickly learned why. The terrain rapidly grew more and more lifeless, the green and moss disappearing by the time they went over the last hill.
Finally, she reached the top and caught her first glimpse of the city of Findias. From the distance, it actually looked inviting, at least compared to the hills. The higher buildings, what she could see of them above a dark wall, looked to have once been brightly painted and still bore faded hints of the swirl of colors.
"So, this is one of the lost cities?" Megan asked as they sat to rest.
"It is," Lani said. "There's four of them. Mostly I hear about them as the ultimate remodeling projects. Dad wants to get a huge crew together from the islands and just go to work."
"What happened, anyway?"
Lani looked around to make sure Ashling was out of earshot, but the pixie and crow were safely off in the distance, scouting the route ahead. "Different things to each city. Findias used to be one of the favorites of the fae. It was pretty close to An Teach Deiridh, and the sorcerer who ruled there, Uiscias, used bardic magic, the music stuff. Some of the stories suggest he either taught that type of magic to the Gods, or to their mortal children. I don't know, exactly. Anyway, it used to be a city of music and parties and things."
"I can see why it would be pretty popular. It looks like it was pretty colorful too. And it's not even that ruined. How long has it been abandoned?"
"A really, really long time. The Fomoire drove the faeries out of it. It was one of their last victories before the Gods dragged them off for good. But before they left, they made sure the city would stay mostly standing, but the fae couldn't use it."
"Why not?"
"Cold iron. The whole city is surrounded by it. Everything is locked up. I can't imagine how much work it had to have been, but it was apparently worth it to have the ultimate insult sitting so close."
"My dad mentioned cold iron. I'd even heard of how it's supposed to be bad for faeries. But it's really that nasty, even just as, like, gates?"
"Aside from just the fact injuries from it don't just disappear the way they usually do for a lot of faeries, it cancels their magic."
"That doesn't seem that hard. Aren't most weapons made of iron, or at least they were?"
"Most weapons can sort of work for a little bit—and everything tends to work on half-bloods, so don't go testing this—but only cold-wrought iron cancels out proper faerie magic and leaves lasting or permanent injuries on them. The more forging—which most metal things need—the less nasty. So there's wrought-iron gates, and there's awkward-looking weapons specifically intended to kill faeries."
Megan thought about that a few seconds. "So, if they heal from everything else, is that what happened to Ashling's wings?"
Lani was quiet for a few seconds, then nodded. "She doesn't like to talk about it. I think she'd even rather think someone mistook her for a butterfly. The Count was able to get her free, but someone knew exactly what they were trying to collect and came prepared."
After thinking about that for a few seconds, looking at the black dot in the sky wheeling back towards them, Megan shuddered, then collected her things to start walking again. "And it was really that big of a thing to the other pixies? It's like she doesn't even look at them."
"Pixies and their relatives are really, really social. That's even how their magic works. One pixie, well, can open some doors and windows and find their way around. Even sidhe lords and ladies usually don't mess with whole glimmers of pixies."
"Glimmers, really?"
"Yes, really. But the point is, pixies fly. Their whole life is based on it. Some of them might have been weirded out by the reminder of vulnerability and actively wanted her out of their pixie games, but mostly she just couldn't keep up.”
"And then my dad—?"
"Took her in? Yes. Ashling always loved to explore. Even before it happe
ned, she and the Count were buddies, playing tour guide for each other in Faerie and on Earth. She knew all the pathways, and she'd flown all over the place. So your dad got a new scout, and someone to check on you once in a while.”
"He also recognized my excellent tactical skills and the Count's extraordinary knowledge of fashion trends. Before we came along, your dad had no idea how to accessorize properly," Ashling explained as the crow landed on Lani's shoulder.
"Of course," Megan replied, managing a smile and trying not to cringe at the sight of the tattered wings.
On finally reaching the city gates, there was no mistaking it. The high fence was black iron, with pointed tips. Where An Teach Deiridh might have had ivy or thorns, it had vines of additional iron woven throughout. Beyond the fence, she could see some of the buildings shuttered, with dark chains and a lock sealing every entrance.
They stood outside the city for a while, studying the gate. Despite a careful search, there was nothing, literally nothing, to open the gate. Megan looked up at the wall of black iron lattice. The intricate weavings became tighter the higher it climbed. The wind whistled through the cold-wrought gaps. No shrill despairing cry, just a brief indifferent ring. A middle C, maybe, Megan thought. Then she realized Ashling was trying to tell her something.
“I said we've checked,” Ashling repeated pronouncedly as the Count found a place on the ground to land. “There's only this one gate, if you can still call it a gate when it's locked this solid. No way in.”
Megan gave a short little exhalation, and the wind almost did with her.
“Did you hear something?” she asked. “Something on the wind?”
Lani sighed. “No, Megan. I know that it was awesome that your Dad managed to get in touch, but that was a special case. The winds of faerie magic are very tricky, and they definitely won't work here. We're next to a giant wrought-iron fence. That's really the bulk of a lot of problems. If you heard something, sometimes the wind is just the wind.”
And the wind kept whistling, but there was getting into the city to consider.
Foul is Fair Page 8
