Warstalker's Track

by Tom Deitz

  “Either might be the case,” a harsh voice answered, the tones wild and fierce and feral. “But what I would like to know is who, exactly, you are and what business it is that brings you here.”

  Alec jumped half out of his skin, but before he could locate the source of that voice, Aikin identified it for him. “Oh, my God!” Aikin cried. “It’s a gryphon!”

  Interlude IV: Dish

  (near Clayton, Georgia—Sunday, June 29—mid-afternoon)

  Faeries didn’t make good houseguests, John Devlin decided wearily, as he pondered the piles of dirty dishes that had transformed his stainless steel sink into a collection of mini pagodas made of china by way of Wal-Mart. Oh, sure they (Nuada, rather, him being the only Faery presently present) were tidy in their own way, brilliant conversationalists, and not at all hard to look at (and he was straight, for God’s sake). Still, when one was immortal quasi-royalty and not that far from godhood, one probably got accustomed to having servants around to attend things like cleaning. And to be fair, steel was steel, even when it was stainless; and chrome, such as ornamented his various faucets, was actually worse than ferrous metal as far as the Fair Folk were concerned, so he supposed that also conferred them some grace when it came to washing up. But could Silverhand maybe use the same glass more than once?

  Or was he simply so fried he was being petty?

  This was war, after all; it just didn’t look like one—yet. And while that neat bunch of folks who were trying to run things (and doing a damned fine job of it, actually) acknowledged that, and a few of them had even managed to get themselves sufficiently bloodied to skin the romance off the concept right fast, he still wasn’t convinced that the cold reality of the thing had sunk in.

  He wondered, too, what part he ought to be playing. He was mortal, the Mortal World was under attack, and he was nothing if not loyal to whatever causes honor demanded. A batch of these folks were on the ragged edge of being friends, too (and that didn’t count Nuada), but the particulars of this were not his battle.

  Except, dammit, if the incumbent regime in Faerie lived up to their threat and flooded every place Tir-Nan-Og overlaid this land—well, he might just find himself with beach-front property, or worse. The thing to do, then, was to afford what aid he could but volunteer nothing—and wait

  —Not long, apparently, because the kid in the wardroom was all of a sudden raising holy hell for him to get back there.

  Sighing, John dismissed the dishes (perhaps Silverhand had a cleaning spell) and strode back to see what had got the kid’s boxers in a wad.

  One look at the flaring candles told him. An instant later, shotgun in hand and boy in far-too-eager tow, he was marching across what remained of his yard to where Nuada was busily engaged with someone (he hoped it was someone and not something) at the border.

  He couldn’t help but grin when he saw what three traditions worth of wards (his own, Calvin’s, and Nuada’s) had wrought: a sort of invisible cage that admitted certain beings with certain qualities for a certain distance but denied them retreat, while certain other Powers fenced…whatever in from either side.

  This captive proved to be a woman: Faery, a Son (so to speak, and judging by the black-and-silver livery) of Ailill, and pissed as hell—as evidenced by the way she kept shape-shifting and yelling things the wards conveniently kept unheard.

  Nuada seemed to be mightily amused, which put John on guard at once. Usually when Fair Folk got tickled, it meant their egos were acting up and they were getting cocky. His experience said to never underestimate an enemy.

  “Caught one, did you?” he inquired more amiably than he felt when he came into hailing range.

  Nuada shifted his gaze minutely and nodded. “I am uncertain, however, whether she is a spy or bait.”

  “Or a test,” John appended, folding his arms and regarding the woman (who was growing black and orange scales) with a disapproving scowl. “Kamikaze, maybe? Sent to get as close as she could at whatever cost?”

  “Aye,” Nuada acknowledged. “Immortality makes for easy heroics.”

  “Wrote a poem about that once: ‘Easy Heroes.’”

  “I know. I read it.”

  John lifted a brow in genuine surprise, then peered at the woman. “Interrogation might be worthwhile. A hostage is a hostage.”

  Nuada shook his head. “Not when the hostage can build new bodies at will.”

  “What about iron?” Brock blurted out, wide-eyed.

  Nuada shuddered, which shocked the hell out of John. “That could be done, but it is not done by the ethical; the same way your folk could torture criminals but do not.”

  John puffed his cheeks. “She could also be a plant. I’d verify anything she told me before I acted on it.”

  Nuada tweaked his scrying pendant. “Aye. And this, by the way, is something they do not have. Good for verification.”

  “For which we may all be grateful, though I bet they’ve got something just as good.”

  “I could strip her mind,” Nuada mused, his words aimed at the woman as much as John. “Even so, I would have no proof it was her mind I stripped and not merely thoughts stored there in place of a mind already stripped by others. Do not forget that mind does not have to connect to body for us.”

  “Reckon we oughta hear what she’s saying?”

  “I already have,” Nuada admitted. “Few of the Sons choose to speak with tongues, which they feel a mortal affectation, and the wards damp down her thoughts, so I doubt that you have sensed them. But rest assured I have ‘heard’ every taunt she has hurled at me, and some are quite remarkable.” He grinned wickedly at the woman.

  John had started to frame another query when his attention was drawn by a flare of light beyond the warding. Gold rolled through the pines there like a strip of filmy carpet, and light blazed at the point it drew nearest. He knew what it was too and, for all his experience, gasped, for he’d never seen a Track activated, not in his own World at any rate. Nor had this Track been there until that moment. Whoever commanded it had moved it there, which meant he was Powerful indeed.

  Which proved to be the truth, for the glow grew strong enough to illuminate his whole place more brightly than the waning afternoon sun, and an instant later, Lugh Samildinach himself stepped off, clad only in a white leather breechclout and a fabulous cloak of feathers. He looked perfectly at home in the ensemble, as though it were no more remarkable than John’s worn blue jeans.

  A wave of Lugh’s hand, and the woman collapsed with a whimper, regaining her own shape as she fell. “Best she not think for, oh, a thousand years,” Lugh spat offhand. “My thanks to you, John Devlin,” he added tersely, nodding absent acknowledgment to John and Brock. “Now, by your leave or without it, I must reclaim my friend and warlord, for I have a kingdom to regain.” And with that, he marched straight through all three sets of wards to enfold Nuada in a hearty warriors’ embrace.

  Nuada merely nodded as the Faeries strode toward the cabin, ignoring their host completely. John caught a few words of their final conversation—a few of their more cogent thoughts, at any rate—and prominent among them were two word-images: a lichen-covered monolith and a spear that gleamed like the sun.

  Perhaps, he concluded, it was time to do the dishes.

  Chapter XV: Power in the Land

  (Galunlati—high summer)

  Kirkwood O’Connor, anthropologist extraordinaire, had heard of Power Wheels, of course, and knew from endless all-nighters that his quirky cousin Cal had considerable hands-on with them; but he’d never seen one in operation, much less helped construct one in a cavern in another World. Still, he had a vested interest in such things; and so viewed the process as a learning experience, to use a term his profs had been too fond of tossing around back at the University of Georgia.

  It wasn’t that hard, actually, else dear old cuz wouldn’t be whipping ’em up right and left. First thing: using pine-bough brooms, they smoothed the sand that covered the top of the stone terrace to which Uki ha
d summoned him and Cal and Dave. That accomplished, they used the old string-and-peg method to define a circle maybe four yards across, which Uki then deepened with a flaked obsidian dagger. Crossbars followed, delineating the quarters, and likewise marked with Uki’s knife. Then came the fine-tuning. Colored sand from stone jugs was poured into the markings, further differentiating them from the surrounding white. And finally, staves of stained or painted wood were set to mark the cardinal directions exactly as Cal had done to set wards back at John Devlin’s place. All that accomplished, a small fire pit was dug in the center and filled with kindling. And then Uki called everyone but the Cougar Boys to retrieve their gear and join them.

  Once assembled, they ranged themselves in a circle, with Uki in the south and Cal, Dave, and himself occupying the remaining directions, using some obscure symbolism Kirkwood didn’t recognize. The rest—Sandy, Liz, Fionchadd, and Okacha—filled the spaces between. And there they sat and waited, staring fixedly, a little nervously, at the unlit pyre in the center of the Wheel.

  Until Uki clapped his hands and lightning flashed down to ignite that cone of kindling. It burned brightly—too brightly for normal flame—but at least Kirkwood didn’t jump half out of his skin this time. As soon as the fire was burning steadily, Uki began to chant in what sounded like archaic Cherokee, of which Kirkwood could make out about five words. To his chagrin, Cal joined in (he’d have to drag the text out of the lad one day), and that chanting continued until Uki clapped his hands again, and it began to rain—inside: huge, slow, sloppy drops that soaked him through in seconds. The fire sputtered but didn’t go out, though steam began to rise, so that pretty soon the entire area was as thick with the stuff as the inside of a sauna. At which point he recalled that one of the key tenets of Cherokee mojo was that between things had Power. And what was steam but a substance between water and air? Fog was, too, but while Cal could summon fog and had once done so to prove it, this in all likelihood had more esoteric significance. Grist for yet another all-nighter.

  No, dammit! He was supposed to be keeping his mind blank and centering on his breathing. And had just found a rhythm that suited him when Uki clapped up another bolt of lightning and reality turned over.

  It wasn’t much fun, Kirkwood decided, this teleportation thing. But at least this iteration was nowise as ball-busting painful as the journey here had been. This was merely sick disorientation and a bubbly-prickly sensation from the inside out, with no external impression at all—

  —and then warmth and light and more sand beneath his bottom. Whereupon Kirkwood exhaled a breath he didn’t know he’d been holding and opened his eyes. And opened them wider still as he took stock of his surroundings.

  Cal had told him about this place, but that hadn’t prepared him for what was to all intents time travel. Shoot, this might as well be the ceremonial complex in one of the pre-Columbian chiefdoms, reconstructions of which he’d seen in places as diverse as Town Creek, North Carolina, and Moundville, Alabama. Certainly it had all the requisite features: four enormous earthen mounds maybe fifty yards to a side and half that high marking the quarters, each topped with a wattle-and-daub, thatch-roofed sanctuary approached by a flight of split-log steps; the whole mess centered on another Power Wheel, this one much more finely constructed than the one they’d left, and focused in turn on a fifteen-foot pole topped with what looked alarmingly like a cave bear’s skull. Or at least something beside your basic Ursus americanus.

  Too bad he didn’t have time for a closer inspection, but Uki had arisen, and Cal and Dave were taking their cues from him and doing likewise, whereupon the rest of the company (all quite dry) followed suit. He yawned, stretched, and shook his head to clear it. Uki, to his relief, was grinning, having evidently worked through that snit that had possessed him earlier. There was a disquietingly expectant glint in his eyes, though, and he kept peering at first one sanctuary, then another.

  Lightning again, from a cloudless blue sky. Three bolts stabbing down, striking the sanctuaries of the east, north, and west, respectively. The air went white.

  Thunder followed, though Kirkwood only noted it subliminally, intent as he was on determining if he’d just had his eyeballs seared beyond redemption. Shapes reappeared, however: dim at first, like sun-bleached photographs, then clarifying. As it happened, he was following Uki’s lead and looking east, and so was first to see the figure who strode from the temple there. Not unlike Uki, he was, in general size, build, and features, save that his skin was deep, rich red. “Asgaya Gigagei,” Cal confided. “The Red Man of the East, Lord of Lightning.”

  Kirkwood didn’t pause to watch the man join them, because a nudge from Cal had drawn his attention north, where another figure had appeared, near-twin to the others, save that his skin was the blue of deep, cold water. “Let me guess,” Kirkwood whispered. “Asgaya Sakani, the Blue Man of the North.”

  “Catchin’ on,” Cal chuckled, by which time a fourth man was emerging from the dark, roiling smoke that shrouded the sanctuary to the west. This one needed no introduction, for it was Asgaya Gunnagei, the Black Man of the West, whom Kirkwood had encountered before, when Cal had journeyed to the fringe of the Black Man’s realm to rescue a boy who didn’t belong there. The same journey on which Cal had encountered Okacha, and he’d first met Dave, Liz, Brock, and other members of their odd confederation.

  “Asgaya Unega,” the Blue Man cried, addressing Uki by one of his alternate names as he stepped from the stair to level ground. “Why do you call us here?”

  “Why indeed?” the Black Man echoed, his voice ominously hollow, like James Earl Jones in a cave.

  “I assume it is important,” the Red Man concluded, likewise drawing near. Whereupon Kirkwood realized to his distress that they were effectively surrounded. Still, Cal had dealt with these guys before, and though formidable, they were also fair-minded and would at least grant them a hearing.

  Which raised the question of why Uki had summoned these obviously powerful dudes—his analogs in the other three quarters—and which of their own band would take the lead in pleading their case.

  Cal solved that last by stepping forward, greeting each in turn (with David in reluctant tow, since he too had met these beings), and finally looking Uki straight in the eye and saying, “By your leave, adewehiyu, Yanu-degahnehiha is best suited to tell this tale. If anything is unclear, please ask, and one of us will try to answer.”

  Uki inclined his head, but raised a hand to halt David before he could speak. One at a time he surveyed the other Chiefs. “I have summoned you, kinsmen; nor do I do so lightly, though I myself know little of what we are about to hear. Still, weighty matters are afoot; matters that, though they primarily affect the Lying World and that place that lies beyond it, may nevertheless cast shadows here. Too, some of those here are friends. Hear them with open ears, open hearts, and open minds, as I shall hear them with mine.” A pause, while he surveyed the environs. “I have lingered indoors enough today. This seems as good a place as any to speak of war and Power.”

  David raised a brow in wordless confirmation that it was indeed time to begin, then motioned them all to sit, though he himself remained standing. “Siyu,” he began formally. “I greet you, oh great Chieftains, in the name of myself and my friends, and in behest of many thousand thousand people you neither know nor have cause to love, who dwell in what you call the Lying World and in Tir-Nan-Og, in the greater realm of Faerie, which lies above it as does Galunlati, save on what I have heard described as the ‘other side’.” He paused for breath, then continued in a more relaxed manner. “Great Chiefs, some of what I have to say you probably know already and some you don’t, but bear with me if you’ve heard some of this before…”

  And so he continued, describing first the various realms of Faerie and how they related to his own World in space and time, then something of those realms’ respective rulers, and finally of the complex situation in which they had found themselves embroiled.

  There was a fair bit o
f discussion of the gating problem, and a certain amount of doubt concerning the vulnerability of Faery substance to iron, until Fionchadd bravely demonstrated by touching his palm with a blade from Kirkwood’s Swiss Army knife. The seared, smoking flesh that ensued proved more than sufficient to dispel any doubts about iron’s intrinsic threat, so that David was free to continue.

  His second harangue was more difficult, and he was constantly interrupted—sometimes politely, sometimes not—by questions. The gist of his tale centered around the relationship between Bloody Bald and the mountain that lay atop it in Tir-Nan-Og that Lugh had made the literal heart of his realm, and how the plan by certain developers (a notion which really took some explaining) to place a resort there threatened to precipitate a war between the two Worlds, with dire results on both sides.

  War, the Chiefs understood well enough, but the problem lay in clarifying how the folk of Faerie and Galunlati knew of the Lands of Men and what went on there, but few indeed in that Land knew of (or believed in) either Faerie or Galunlati, which fact would render aid from the political powers in the Lying World unlikely until it was too late.

  Which brought him to the reason for their embassy: the possibility of having Tir-Nan-Og moved, as Galunlati had been, more than once. And, almost as an apologetic afterthought, the fact that David’s father was very ill and that water from Atagahi might be useful.

  All these arguments the Chiefs heard, but the one that drew their attention most forcefully was the loss of ancestral land. Kirkwood couldn’t help but be amused by the irony of that: a purebred white boy explaining to the gods of a people his kinsmen had dispossessed how he would retain his ancestral soil or die. Eventually, however, Cal pointed out that while it was true David’s kin were guilty of de facto genocide, his clan had likewise been dispossessed from Ireland two hundred years before, and from their central European homeland a millennium before that.