by Ron C. Nieto
“Ah. Of course. Well.” His eyes abandoned her face for the first time and he had to drag them back. “The Unseelie court believes they have found a way to unbalance our world. Everybody believes Mackenna knows where to find the key. End of the story.”
“Like hell,” Lily almost growled.
“Hush! You will attract attention—”
“You promised to help, so you’re going to tell me the details. I don’t believe for a second that’s all you know.”
“In technical terms, I promised to deliver all pertinent information and—”
“I can’t believe you! This is pertinent. You were going to tell me before!”
“Before I learned that Kelpie has complete command over you,” he hissed, pressing his palms against the wall and craning his neck even farther back. “You have all pertinent information, My Lady. I am holding back, yes, but only the details, and I am doing so because I am bound by far older oaths.”
“What do you mean?”
“I cannot betray my court, my lady. If I tell you all I know, Kelpie could learn it with but a simple question. Your intentions might be noble, but you couldn’t deny him the truth.”
She was kneeling in front of the window, though she wasn’t conscious of moving. Her cheeks were wet, but she didn’t know when she had begun crying.
“Please,” she said, understanding the full implications of the word and using it nevertheless. “Please, there must be something else you can tell me. Something that is safe to tell me.”
“Don’t cry, My Lady.” Cadowain’s voice sounded pained below her. He sighed. “The neutral force I mentioned is known as the Wild Hunt. Are you familiar with them?”
Lily shook her head. Then, she realized he couldn’t see her from his angle and whispered, “No.”
“Long, long ago, the King of the Fay graced the King of Men with an offer of friendship. The offer was accepted, and the fey king visited the human one when a prince was born. During his visit, he was greatly offended and even threatened by the human king’s courtiers, but he bore the insults with nobility and said nothing. Then, when the time came for the human king to visit the fey, our sovereign gave him the chance to make amends. Still he chose to insult his host. Not wanting to be unfair, the fey king then gifted the human with a hound, who would guide them back to the mortal world if they were worthy of soul. After a sniff, the hound caught the scent of the human king’s wickedness and led them on a never-ending path across the forests that populate the frontier between our worlds. The human king and his retinue have spent mortal centuries in those lands, and the lands have changed them to better reflect who they are. That is how the Wild Hunt came to ride: a host of twisted mortals who achieved immortality, feeding their life-forces with that of their prey. Prey that can never escape.”
“Is that a legend or is it true?” asked Lily. Her tears had dried as she got sucked into the story. Cadowain had a talent for storytelling, that was undeniable.
“It is the story as our bards tell it,” he said. “I don’t know how much embellishment is there, but I know there is a host of creatures, neither mortal nor fey, who inhabit the edge between the worlds, and that they always succeed in bringing their prey down. The name of Wild Hunt seems to fit them well enough.”
“So, the Unseelie court has found a way to somehow control this Wild Hunt? To sic them on whoever they choose?”
“Yes.”
“How?”
Silence. Lily straightened up and dared to peer down. Cadowain wasn’t looking at her now. His regal figure was hunched as if in pain and his eyes were fixed upon the ground.
“The human king’s hunting horn,” he said, his words muffled by heavy breathing. “It was a gift from our sovereign and can be used to summon the host and to command them to ride out.”
“Is that the information everyone wants?”
Cadowain shook his head in a jerky movement. “Everybody knows that much. Mackenna, she knows where the horn is.”
“What?”
“I—I can’t.” He shuddered and leaned against the white wall for support. Lily had to lean forward to keep him in sight, and she caught a glimpse of his ashen face, covered in sweat. “The oath binding me to my court is not a gentle one.”
Lily bit her lip. She knew how it felt like to try to resist a command, and she didn’t feel great about Cadowain pushing himself like that to answer her questions. Still. She remembered the flying iron coin, almost hitting Troy instead of the redcap. It was all about loopholes, wasn’t it?
“The reason you can’t tell me,” she began, “is because Troy could get the answer from me, right?”
“Yes. If I told you where we believe the horn to be, he could command you to get it for him. If I told you where Mackenna is, he could use his command over you to force her to give it to him. In both cases, my court would be in dire danger.”
The air rushed out of Lily’s lungs and she felt dizzy. “You know where my grandmother is.”
Cadowain nodded. “In Seelie custody.”
So close. Lily was so close to putting an end to the nightmare. She racked her brain for a way.
“How did she get involved in the first place?” she asked.
“The Wild Hunt accosts the realm of men as often as ours, if not more. We believed that taking the horn away would put a stop to their gory outings. Mackenna was chosen to hide it somewhere no fay could ever take it, and it was one of the few decisions ever made in unison by both courts. Now, it seems it was a ploy.”
“If you weren’t meant to ever find it, how come you know where it is?”
Cadowain opened his mouth, closed it again with a grimace. He shook his head.
“Okay. There must be a way around this.” Lily’s heart pounded in her chest and her blood became a thrumming roar in her ears. An idea was taking form in her mind, but it was risky. Very risky. “What if… What if we took the horn out of the equation?”
“You can’t destroy it, My Lady.”
“No, but we could put it back where it belonged. It wouldn’t be vulnerable, right? There wouldn’t be a reason to seek out Mackenna in that case, and you could tell me where she is.”
“The idea has some merit,” Cadowain murmured. “But it would bring us to the status quo as it was, with the Wild Hunt free to roam. And they would be furious for the attempt to restrain them. The price could be dear, and it would be paid in blood.”
Lily hadn’t thought of that and it horrified her. It horrified her that she didn’t care much as long as the blood wasn’t her grandma’s. Or hers.
“A trick, then,” she said. “We will hide the horn somewhere else. If the Unseelie think my grandma no longer knows where it is, they have no reason to pursue her.”
“Unless Kelpie asked whether you knew the horn’s whereabouts.”
Lily grinned. “No. I will say no, and it’ll be the truth.”
“What do you mean?”
“We must hurry, but it could work! Listen, I’ll give you my word not to tell Troy and you’ll tell me where the horn is. I’ll fetch it… you’ll hold on to it. Then I’ll go to my grandma, and she’ll be free because there’s no more reason to keep her secured. Then, we’ll ask her to hide it again, someplace else. The Unseelie won’t act because they’ll believe the horn is in Seelie hands, the Wild Hunt will be contained, the balance will remain, and grandma and I can go our own way.”
There was a moment of weary silence.
“That could work, I suppose,” said Cadowain at last. “The risk involved would be extreme if anybody found out I have the horn while I do have it, and there is a slim chance the Unseelie court would still lash out at Mackenna out of frustration, but…”
“Let’s do it then.”
“You do understand you would have to go alone, right? That you might run into more members of the Unseelie court and I cannot go with you if we hope to keep the plan a secret, that—”
“I promise you I’ll retrieve the horn and won’t let Troy know ab
out it in exchange for you telling me where it is.”
“Oh.” Cadowain sighed, and his voice sounded worried. “You have a bargain, I suppose.”
“Wait a minute.”
Lily rushed toward the vanity, fighting the laces of the dress bodice on the way. She tore it off her back and wrestled her cleaned mortal clothes on as fast as she could. Then, she laced her sneakers tight, threw her grandma’s notebook into her knapsack and slung it over her shoulders.
“I’m coming down,” she called to a surprised Cadowain.
“Now?”
“Yes. Troy’s giving me room and letting me sleep now, so it’s our best chance.”
“Maybe you do need the sleep, My Lady,” said Cadowain.
Lily was already dangling her legs out of the window, her arms clutching the sill to lower herself as much as possible before letting go.
“Or maybe not,” he added with a wry tone. “Come, I will catch you.”
Lily let go.
More than catching her, Cadowain managed to break her fall. He was tall and lean, but not as strong as Troy and they both tumbled a little with her forceful landing.
“I’m ready. Where do I go?”
“No fay may take the horn because Mackenna hid it in hallowed ground,” he said. “We can’t enter, but you, a mortal, shouldn’t have any issue.”
“Hallowed ground? Like, a church?”
He nodded. “Or its grounds. In her own hometown, we believe.”
“So I just have to find the way we came in through and then what? Cross again to give you the horn?”
“No, if the horn enters Seelie territory, the queen will know and she will order me to surrender it. I shall meet you near the opening you already know, in the forest humans call Glenbuchat. And since you were right about time being of the essence, you will follow a different way to Aboyne now. I can’t guide you, but nobody will miss One.” He pointed to the tree line and there, floating half-hidden behind a trunk, was the little sprite. “Not for a bit, anyway. She will take you through a shortcut and return before her absence is noticed. You will be alone for the recovery of the horn, and until we meet again for the exchange. Be most careful, My Lady.” He gave her a rueful smile. “Mackenna would never forgive me if you were harmed by a harebrained plan I consented to, and I would be most sorry to see you hurt as well.”
“I’ll be fine.” Lily answered his smile with a brave grin of her own and dashed off toward One. They had only a bit of time before Troy noticed her absence at dawn, and she wanted to be done with her part of the bargain by then.
C H A P T E R XXX
Taking One’s shortcut wasn’t a pleasant ride. When they burst through the opening and into the mortal land, Lily doubled over and fought back the need to retch.
“Oh, but I am good!” said One, not paying her any mind. “Look! I brought us right to the gate!”
Lily managed to straighten and look around her. She stood in the Green, where every summer the Highland games took place, and just in front of her loomed the iron gates to the parish church. It was an old temple, built sometime in the nineteenth century over the ruins of Aboyne’s original church, and it was all hard lines and massive planes. It didn’t look inviting like other buildings from the same period would, but foreboding.
The low stone wall circling the grounds and enclosing hundreds of crooked headstones and moss-covered crosses didn’t help.
“How can I enter?” she asked One.
The sprite shrugged. “Through the door?”
“It’s the dead of night. The door will be locked.”
“Well, how do you expect me to know how to get someplace I cannot even get close to? It is your task now, not mine.” One’s wings whirred and she shot up.
“Wait!” She didn’t, and Lily was left staring at a pitch-black sky, surrounded by twisted silhouettes of trees and centuries-old dead.
Her brilliant idea didn’t seem quite so brilliant anymore and the hairs in the back of her neck stood up. She had visited this place during the day, of course, back when she was a kid. It was very centric and you were never alone. Now, in the darkness, she was alone and she wished she’d feel that way. The eerie sensation of being observed nagged at her and made her knees wobbly.
Hoping against all hope, she tried the front door of the church. It didn’t budge, of course. She dried her palms against her jeans.
Okay. Let’s try the back door. It’s on the other side of the wall, so perhaps they don’t lock it.
She began to circle the outer wall of the cemetery. Her steps took her away from the open Green and under the trees, and the discomfort increased. Lamplight was nonexistent this far from the streets and the moon couldn’t make it beyond the canopy, sparse as it was. She stumbled over rather than saw a rock by the wall, dislodged from the oldest part of it.
That’s it. I’m not looking further.
The climb wasn’t too hard, only five feet or so of eroded stones that offered plenty of ridges to act as hand and footholds, and still Lily stumbled.
She dropped on the other side and overgrown ivy tangled her feet. She caught herself on a granite Celtic cross that stood sunken in the vegetation. It had an inscription, but it was too eroded to read.
“I’m sorry,” she whispered to whoever had been buried there.
She had known she would feel fear, but she hadn’t anticipated the wrongness that came with breaking into a church in the dead of the night, falling on top of ancient graves and disturbing the sleep of the dearly departed. They had departed, they couldn’t care anymore. And she might be sneaking in, but she didn’t have unholy intentions in mind, and surely God would understand her reasons.
Still.
She hurried along, picking her path to avoid the graves as best she could, and reached another door into the church. Locked as well, and she was not going to break a stained glass to enter. There she drew the line.
Options. There had to be more.
The minister’s office. It wouldn’t take her to the church proper, but it was connected.
She walked around the building as fast as she could, reached the side eave, and saw the much smaller door she was looking for. A quick trial showed that it, too, was locked. The Aboyne community didn’t take risks with their parish, it seemed. But there was a window, not of stained glass but something more modern. Lily stood on her tiptoes and heaved. It was closed, but they hadn’t thrown the safety lock and it gave.
When she dropped down on the other side this time, she didn’t fall on anything. The minister’s office was draped in shadows, but the dark hulks suggesting furniture were few and far between. Office table, narrow locker-style cabinet, couple of chairs… there couldn’t be much more.
Which was good. If she had to go through the minister’s belongings to find a magical horn of faerie make, she’d feel much more like a burglar and less like a rescuer.
The door connecting the office to the church was open and Lily slipped through. Her sneakers squeaked against the polished floor and the sound echoed in the empty space. Moonlight filtered through the stained glass and lit up the place in a colorless glow that would make the search, if not easier, at least less impossible. The pulpit stood like a lone sentinel in front of a sea of upholstered chairs, more prominent even than the simple altar at its side. High galleries adorned three of the four walls, each supported by marble columns and each with their wrought iron stairs to reach the upper seats. Other than that, it was empty.
Where would Mackenna hide the horn? Not in plain sight because that would risk someone relocating it to an unsafe location. So it wouldn’t be where people would stumble upon it by accident either. Most ancient churches of the Midlands would offer a hundred nooks to store a small object out of sight, but the interior of Aboyne’s parish church was almost aseptic. Perhaps it was because it had to be restored and could no longer be considered ancient.
Lily shook herself. By standing there and thinking architecture, she’d solve nothing.
&n
bsp; First the galleries. The steps going up and down. The banners hung upon the walls. The underside of the seats of every chair. The underside of every seat in the main eave. The back of the portrait. The pulpit. The altar. The organ. She couldn’t see very well, but she felt her way through it all, looking for a hollow sound, a raised border, a shape out of the ordinary.
Nothing. Nothing at all.
She should have brought a flashlight. She should have thought to pick one up and throw it in the knapsack. Granted, it might have called a neighbor’s attention, but this groping and fumbling in the dark couldn’t be much better.
The dark wouldn’t last forever, either. Lily could almost feel the first hints of predawn creeping up on her. Soon, the graves outside would be covered in morning’s dew and the sky would go gray and she’d be out of time.
She might be out of time already, taking into account the way its passage didn’t have an exact correlation between mortal and faerie worlds.
She felt like a rendition of Alice’s White Rabbit. Late, late; rushing around in circles and managing nothing. There was not a hint of the horn in the church. And really, when she stopped to think about it, it made sense. Mackenna was a very proper woman—except for the odd bits concerning faerie lore, of course. Still, even those bits had made her more polite, gentle, and self-aware than average. You didn’t overstep your boundaries when dealing with faeries, and so Mackenna had never overstepped hers when dealing with normal people, either. Imagining her breaking into a church and hiding something there, like a pirate’s cache, was just wrong. The church might be for the whole congregation, but it didn’t belong to any one member and she wouldn’t have been comfortable putting something of hers in a public place, no matter how faerie-proof it was.
But if Cadowain had been wrong and the horn wasn’t here, then where was it?
Hallowed ground.
Of course. Of course!
Mackenna didn’t own the building, but she did own a plot of its hallowed grounds, didn’t she?
Lily ran back to the minister’s office. She put one of the chairs below the window and used it to climb out with less struggling. Perhaps the next morning they would notice someone had broken in and hadn’t touched a thing, and perhaps by night she’d be laughing at their confused looks with her grandma while they scratched their heads and tried to understand. It didn’t matter.
