Warstalker's Track

by Tom Deitz

  David folded his arms, trying not to look at his father. “So what do we do?”

  LaWanda rolled her eyes. “Look, folks, this ain’t that big a deal, but we don’t have time to jaw if more bad guys are on the way. We’ve got what we came for. No reason—”

  “It’s got hinges,” Brock broke in excitedly, pointing to the far side of the sphere. “A hinge, anyway—and a counter-spring, I think.”

  “Makes sense,” David acknowledged. “Anything else they’d have to raise and lower, which would require touchin’ iron, or something that could touch iron, or—”

  “Power,” Aife concluded. She strained up on tiptoes, eyes probing the bobbing Dungeon. “The boy is correct, too, and probably there is a catch on this side, for do not forget, Lugh’s queen had this made. It is therefore likely it was built for one person to manage. Or very few servants.”

  Nuada gnawed his lip. “It could still be locked, warded, or otherwise bespelled.” He eyed Aife and Fionchadd critically. “Neither of you is normally my match, and Fionchadd is injured; but I think if we merged our strength, we could counter whatever protections have been laid upon it.”

  In reply, Aife simply reached to her waist and unsheathed her dagger, which she then presented to the Faery Lord. Fionchadd did likewise. Wordlessly, they joined the taller warrior, one to a side. What happened next was obscured by Nuada’s cloak—deliberately so, David suspected. But he did glimpse Aife locking fingers with Nuada, with the naked blade of the dagger between, so that their blood might mingle, and Fionchadd doing something similar with Nuada’s metal hand. A brief gasp—pain was pain, regardless—and all three froze, barely breathing. David felt the hair on his body start to prickle, as though he stood in the presence of a strong electrical field. His eyes burned, too, as badly as they had in at least a year, so that he had no choice but to wipe them. Power was at work, in impressive amounts, in spite of Nuada’s poor-mouthing.

  “Shit!” Aikin breathed beside him, as his vision cleared enough to show the sphere enveloped in shimmering blue-green something, like a film of oil on water, and beneath that envelope: arabesques, swirls, spirals, and shapes that were not exactly letters set in linkages that were not precisely words, all wrought in gleaming white and silver. But as they watched, those patterns first brightened, then exploded into light, as flames of gold took hold and devoured them, so that silver became bright red, then furnace white, then dimmed to gray, and finally to flakes of black that slid away from rust and bare metal alike. A moment later only wet iron bobbed in the steaming water.

  “Done,” Nuada sighed heavily, as Fionchadd and Aife drew away, wiping daggers that gleamed red upon their cloaks. “Simple—were I fully myself. My thanks to you, young Lord and Lady.”

  “And to you, Lord,” Fionchadd countered. “For such a sharing.”

  Nuada ignored them, intent as he was on staring at the sphere. Finally he indicated a series of gold-toned bosses not far from the nearside edge of the narrow band that encircled the object. Each bore an intricate design—what David would’ve called Celtic knotwork—graven deep within it, easily a finger wide. There were five in all, of different metals, all subtly distinct. “If you mortals will trace those with your fingers,” Nuada advised, “from center out, then back again, without pause or flinching away, I think the sphere will open.”

  David grimaced sourly but shucked out of his mail and eased over the side, not daring to think of the water that seethed scant inches beneath his feet and occasionally sloshed onto that narrow ring. The heat was appalling, too, and—no surprise—the Dungeon itself was all but impossible to touch, for though iron was not hot to David’s kind, the sphere had heated the water around it, which had then returned that heat to its source. Still, he persevered, claiming the right-hand two, as Aikin joined him to the left, with LaWanda beyond, also doing two. “Begin when I say,” Nuada commanded. “And together, as much as you may.”

  David steadied his hands atop the bosses—each maybe a foot across and slightly domed. He found the centers with no problem and rested his index fingers lightly beside the slots, ready to insert them.

  “Now!” Nuada cried.

  David let his fingers slide home—and almost yanked them out again, for the slots were fiery hot, as though lined with molten metal. “Pain is in the mind,” Nuada advised, as Aikin gasped and LaWanda bared her teeth in a stubborn grimace. Jaws clamped hard together, David began to draw his fingers along the curves and twists of the patterns—first to the edges, then back again, in paths from which, he discovered to his dismay, there was neither release nor retreat. Abruptly—so suddenly he uttered a yip of surprise—the pain vanished, and he could remove his fingers. Aikin exhaled his relief. LaWanda didn’t react at all.

  David hesitated, uncertain whether to remain where he was or return to the vessel, when a harsh grating reached his ears, and the top half of the sphere—its edge scant inches from his hands—began to rise, hinged at a point directly opposite. He held his breath, then caught his first glimpse of what proved to be a length of chain anchored to the shell of the sphere just below him, stretching taut toward the center to where a slender bare foot was clamped in a manacle lined with a silvery leather he recognized as wyvern skin. In spite of that barrier, though, the flesh nearest those bonds was puffed and blistered. Blood welled up around it.

  Lugh! My brother!

  Nuada’s relief flooded David’s mind, threatening to drown him with emotions not his own. Fear followed, then a fury that could barely be believed—or endured. Not until that instant did he realize the strength of the bond between those Faery lords. As strong as that between himself and Alec. Or him and Liz.

  No one spoke as the dome continued to rise, revealing ever more of he who hung within, bound at wrists, neck, and ankles, and with a shimmering sprinkle of something across his naked body from which blood and pus oozed constantly. Iron filings! David identified. Not enough to kill, but more than sufficient to sap strength and dull awareness with constant pain.

  “What about the manacles?” he demanded, when the dome finally clanked -to a stop. “How’re we gonna unlock ’em and still keep him from touchin’ the sphere?”

  “Not the best way, I fear,” Nuada shot back, gazing first at the Pillar, then at Aife. “Lady, you are the only one who can accomplish this, for now.”

  David caught a buzz of thought, but already Aife’s shape was altering into a vast white eagle that winged skyward almost before that shifting was complete, to settle into a tight circle barely higher than the mast. Fionchadd, too, must have received some command, for he, along with Nuada, had joined the mortals on the rim, each with drawn sword in hand, boots smoking at even that brief contact with the perilous metal. A thought, and those blades swept down, one on the band that bound Lugh’s right ankle, the other on that which stretched his left arm straight out from his body. A flash of light, a metallic ping, and the manacles parted, to clatter against the sphere’s interior. Lugh’s limbs sagged with them—not quite touching the metal. Again—Nuada’s doing—and the collar that clamped Lugh’s neck shattered in a spill of light.

  The air promptly filled with the rush of wings as the eagle swooped down to clutch the tortured Faery in talons a foot across and drag him upward, while swords swung a third time and the last bindings parted. For a heart-stopping moment Aife struggled with Lugh’s weight, which for all his slightness considerably exceeded her own. Yet somehow she got him aloft and managed to keep his dangling feet shy of his prison until David and Aikin could take that weight themselves and pass him up to LaWanda and Fionchadd, who were back on deck, extending arms down to receive that unconscious burden.

  David joined them at once, his companions doing likewise, while Aife resumed her own shape (slapping at her feet), and Nuada shouldered everyone aside to kneel beside his sovereign and friend, boots stinking of burning leather.

  Lugh looked awful—what parts David saw before Nuada flung a cloak across all but his head, pausing only to brush ineffec
tually at the iron dust that clung stubbornly to the High King’s sweat-soaked skin, oblivious to the pain it must have cost him. “Bring water!” he shouted. “We must wash away this…filth.”

  “I’m on it,” LaWanda replied, already trotting for the cabin.

  “Is he—?” David dared.

  “Weak,” Nuada snapped. “As weak as I have ever seen him—and cursed be those who have bled such a one of nine parts in ten of his blood so insidiously that he is but half alive, and to have wrapped him in so much pain he must hide within himself to escape.”

  “You mean—?”

  “He will command no one today,” Nuada gritted. “He is weaker than your sire.”

  “So, what do we do?” Aikin wondered.

  Aife joined them, her face grim, nodding toward the Pillar. “We run,” she spat. “We have company.”

  David’s heart gave a sick twitch as he followed her gaze. Another vessel was issuing from that flaming shaft, its contours uncertain at first, then clarifying, as though it turned some impossible corner there. Fortunately, it was emerging at the farthest point from them—which might buy them time.

  “Finno—” David warned.

  But the youth was already making for the tiller, a word poised on his lips. And as that new vessel veered toward them, Fionchadd began to steer their own away, on a slow outward spiral that then shifted inward, toward the Pillar of Fire.

  Thoughts buzzed in David’s head, angry and uncertain. “Do we fight?” Aikin murmured beside him. “Or do we flee?”

  “We—” David began.

  “Much as it pains me,” Nuada broke in roughly, “with Lugh as he is, we flee.”

  Chapter VI: Dropping In

  (the Iron Dungeon—high summer)

  “You!” Fionchadd snapped at David from the tiller of their ship. “Get your father below. Aikin, assist him. LaWanda, you and Brock take Lugh. You as well, Aife, if they cannot manage; then return here. What we face is best not confronted above decks.”

  David started to protest—an automatic response when being ordered about during a crisis—then thought better of it, as reason overruled emotion. Thank God someone was taking charge, because he flat wasn’t up to it right now. Not with them up to their asses in injuries, chaos, and threat; that last from the ship that had just issued from the Pillar of Fire, almost certainly full to the brim with reinforcements come to aid their late comrades, who had so patently failed to forestall Lugh’s rescue.

  “You get his top half,” Aikin panted, sweat and steam molding his dark hair to his skull like a lacquered helmet. David nodded mutely and hunkered down, finding it awkward as well as alarming to finesse his elbows into his father’s armpits while avoiding the splinter lodged in his back. Still, he managed, insanely grateful that Big Billy seemed to have passed out for the nonce—he hoped that was all it was. But there was a pulse at his throat, his chest rose and fell…

  “Now,” Aikin grunted. “Slow and easy. Try not to twist him.”

  David bit back another retort—and followed that with a choking cough as the remnants of breakfast invaded his throat when he found his fingers sticky with blood. He looked away reflexively—had to. And wished he hadn’t, for that revealed more chaos: LaWanda and Brock half carrying, half dragging the unconscious and iron-scabbed Lugh, whom they’d maneuvered onto a cloak that looked far too much like a shroud. And through the mist beyond them, the ship continued to approach, even as a bone-tired and barely healed Fionchadd alternately steered, coordinated, and uttered words whose purpose David had no desire at all to understand.

  That ship was still far off—maybe the only good thing that had happened lately—but it was alive with activity. He could see the flash of weapons, hear cries in a language that had no reason to be English, and feel, increasingly, that sick, thick clogging in his mind that was Faery speech—or will—being directed at this very vessel.

  “Any time,” Aikin urged.

  David shook himself, mumbled a curt apology, and moved as quickly as he dared toward the cabin, staggering beneath his father’s considerable inert mass. Somehow they made it—right behind the lighter Lugh—and with help from Aife managed to get Big Billy down the stairs without incident. David promptly froze, torn between returning topside (on the theory that a death you saw coming was better than one you didn’t) and tending his pa, which would be an exercise in futility if they didn’t get him to a hospital pretty damned quick.

  LaWanda thrust a plain clay pitcher of water into his hands, along with a cup. “Drink this and use the rest to clean your old man—or yourself. Better yet, get that crap off Lugh.”

  “Gimme that!” Aikin sighed, claiming the jug when David hesitated. Eventually curiosity got the better of him and he darted back on deck.

  And wished he hadn’t. Fionchadd’ s screwy evasions had clearly born fruit, and they were bearing down on the Pillar of Fire, no more than fifty yards away—so close that he could hear the flames that ripped and tore at the air and feel the odd painless heat that radiated from it as though it still was not entirely present. Straining on tiptoes, he turned to check pursuit—and saw, behind Fionchadd at the tiller, that the second vessel was close enough to reveal detail: notably that it was made of darker wood than its predecessor, that its crew were even more agitated than heretofore, that the carved dragon at its prow was two-headed, and that both those heads were slowly stretching forward as though they would nip at Fionchadd’s drakkar’s tail, though several hundred yards still lay between.

  Or maybe not. For even as those heads strained forward, the ship itself drew back—and only then did David realize that Fionchadd hadn’t freed the knobby sphere of the Iron Dungeon from the anchor, so that it swished along a few yards behind and a little to one side. More to the point, Nuada and Aife were leaning far across the gunwale, with Aife supporting the other, while green light dripped from their fingers, evidently trying to close the thing with Power alone.

  Abruptly, that light went out, precisely as the Dungeon’s lid snapped closed. Nuada wavered briefly, then sagged into Aife’s arms. David was there in an instant, taking half of the Faery’s weight, flinging the metal arm across his shoulders as they dragged him back to the cabin. Were Faeries always so hot to the touch? he wondered.

  It was as well they went below, however, for the light and heat had become unbearable. David had just helped LaWanda stretch the barely conscious warrior down beside his king when Aife, who’d surrendered her burden and returned topside, reappeared at the foot of the stairs, looking as disheveled as a Faery ever did. Her face was pale and slack, but her eyes blazed with command and challenge. Wordlessly, she slumped down against the wall just inside the door, then elbowed it closed it with a thump. “Brace yourselves,” she gasped, reaching out to grasp David’s shoulder.

  “For what?” Brock began, just as his eyes went big as saucers. David imagined he was feeling—seeing—sensing—whatever it was that had just played a dozen tricks in a row with his semicircular canals while making his eyes burn like novas with the Sight and charging his whole body with a kind of twitch, as though it had reversed polarity.

  “We are inside the Pillar,” Aife informed them. “That was…turning the corner, though if you had watched, you would have seen no such thing.”

  Brock made a beeline for the door, but Aife stopped him with a warning hand backed up with a glare that brooked no argument. “Best mortals do not see the fire that bums but does not consume, that is here yet not present, that rises to the skies yet sweeps before us like a river.”

  “Been there, done that,” David snorted, sprawling beside his father and starting to divest himself of several layers of sodden, bloody clothing before recalling the water LaWanda had tried to foist on him. He found it—Aikin was wiping iron-sweat off Lugh with it—filled the cup he still had, and downed it in one gulp. It was the best water he’d ever tasted. “So,” he asked Aife. “What gives?”

  The Faery shrugged, but her face, if anything, was grimmer. “We reac
hed the Pillar ahead of pursuit, which should permit us to elude them. But Fionchadd is tired and not fully healed, whatever he says. Nuada has done far more than he should for far longer, and Lugh can do nothing at all. I am…functional. And the rest of you?”

  “I’m…okay,” David sighed, gazing around as he refilled his mug.

  “I’ll live,” Aikin agreed.

  “Okay,” Brock grunted, though he didn’t sound at all convinced.

  “Been better, been worse,” LaWanda concluded. “You need me to do something, ask.”

  Aife glanced over her shoulder. “Wait, for now. And that may be hardest of all.”

  “Figures,” David muttered. And fell silent.

  “Won’t they follow us?” Brock asked warily from where he was building a nest of pillows in the corner—remarkably unconcerned, so it appeared, until David caught a glimpse of his eyes, which were as fearful as he’d ever seen.

  Aife shrugged. “Likely they will. We still have the Iron Dungeon in tow, and they may not know we have freed Lugh, which is why we were in such haste to close it.”

  Brock scowled. “But won’t towing it slow us down? And won’t they assume Lugh’s still in it and chase us harder?”

  Aife dared a thin, hard smile. “You are astute, for a lad,” she told him. “But the Pillars, even less than the Tracks, are not made for pursuit. They are like a”—she paused, brow wrinkled—“like a helix. Several helices, actually, all twined together so that two vessels could pass going opposite directions and never meet—or follow the same path yet not issue forth at the same point.”

  “Like the stairway at Chambord,” David observed absently. “The one Leonardo da Vinci’s supposed to have designed for Francis I.”

  Aife cocked a brow. “Only more so.”

  “Too,” LaWanda added, “I doubt it’d hurt to have iron between us if they do catch us. They’d only be able to get so close, right?”