Warstalker's Track

by Tom Deitz

  “Shit!” David groaned—nor was he alone in expressing that sentiment.

  “What I said,” Scott agreed. “Bad thing was I had to be there to watch it and fake approval. Worse thing is that it’s gettin’ dark over here. Remember what they said? That as soon as iron bit the mountain, they were gonna flood?”

  “One of the variations,” David acknowledged.

  “Whatever. You better get over here though, ’cause I think it’s about to begin.”

  “On our way,” David assured him. “We succeeded, by the way—maybe. No word from the others, though.”

  “Not here, either.”

  “Hang in there, then. Oh, wait! What about Elyyoth? He have anything to say? What’s he doin’, anyway? I’d kinda forgot about him.”

  Liz could practically hear Scott shrug. “Your folks left him in charge when they split for Clayton. I’ve seen him once since then, and he was just pacin’, frettin’, and bitchin’ about honor requirin’ he be two places at once. I haven’t told him the latest.”

  “He’ll know anyway,” David assured him. “If you heard the Land ring, he did too. In fact, if I was you, I’d stick to him like glue. He might be your only hope.”

  “So, you guys comin’ over?”

  “Quick as we can.”

  “I’ll be waitin’.”

  “Bye.” David turned off the phone and handed it to the grim-faced Devlin. His face was even grimmer as he rose, including them all in his stare. “Better be movin’, folks; it’s that time.” And with that, he started for the door.

  Devlin caught him before he could enter and drew him aside. Liz lingered with him; no way she was letting him out of her sight now. “You need me to come?” Devlin murmured. “It’s your call.”

  David shook his head. “Can’t think why. You’ve helped more than you’ll ever know, but this is our fight, and you’ve got your own turf to protect. You could still have company tonight.”

  Devlin gnawed his lip, then nodded. “You need me, you got more ways than one to give a holler. I can be there in a hour, and that’s by normal means.”

  “Thanks,” David replied. “And I mean that.”

  “No problem,” Devlin said, and slipped back inside, leaving Liz alone with David on the porch. “Well,” David told the twilight silence. “Here we go.”

  Five minutes later they were traveling, three in Kirkwood’s T-bird, four in Sandy’s Explorer. Clouds were darkening in the west. The first raindrops caught them as they crossed the Enotah County line. The radio was playing “When the Levee Breaks.”

  Liz turned it off and tried not to think about dying.

  Interlude VI: Moves

  I

  (Tir-Nan-Og—high summer)

  A word, and the menhir snapped closed, looking no different than the thousand other rough-hewn megaliths that warted the Plain of Lost Stars, east of Lugh’s citadel. Which is to say it was roughly thrice his height, as wide as his outstretched arms, and patched with lichen and moss that had overgrown what might’ve been petroglyphs older than the Sidhe’s tenure in the land. Grass waved around it, knee-high on Lugh and Nuada and the thirty other warriors who had come, by wind, steed, and water, in beast shape and their own, to join their rightful king in his drive to retake his throne. The Sons of Ailill had numbers, for now, having staged their coup when Lugh’s court was abroad. But Lugh had Power and experience, and now he was free of the taint of iron, he had anger besides, which was stronger by far than youthful bravado.

  He also had the spear. The Spear of Lugh, it was called, which was name enough. Goibniu had wrought it in Gorias before Lugh was born, in response to a dream he’d had. Lugh had retrieved it from hiding now, in the place he alone had known. Even in the waning light, it glittered when he flourished it aloft, flinging sparks of light about as though it gloried in once more drinking down the might of the westering sun. His cloak glittered, too: the cloak of feathers he’d brought with him (perhaps wrongly, but it had seemed a gift) out of Galunlati.

  Otherwise, he was clad as a man of war. Silver mail sheathed him from neck to heel, close as any fabric and pliant, almost, as the pure white silk he wore beneath, tight as a second skin. Over it was a white velvet surcoat charged with his arms: a sun in splendor, or. This particular sun was mildly englamoured, too; for the rays whirled and twisted as he moved.

  He wore no helm, however; let the Sons of Ailill know who came against them. Nor did he carry any shield. He had his warlord. He had a tenth part of his guard, but the most loyal and hardy tithe. And, again, he had his anger.

  A final pause to flourish the spear, feeling already how the sun fed it Power, which Power likewise replenished Lugh’s own, and he lowered it with a hiss like the air itself parting in its wake. The grass likewise hissed, whipped by a rising wind from the west that carried a hint of Power misapplied in a way Lugh didn’t like but understood.

  “Lord,” Nuada began, likewise rearmed and rearmored from the High King’s secret stores. “Lord,” Nuada repeated. “There is trouble in the air, and in more Worlds than this, if I guess right.”

  “You do,” Lugh assured him. “The Land sings beneath my feet, as it will not for Turinne. But it just cried out as well. Wounded it was, like a thorn or bee sting, yet it was pain. But,” he added with a grin that bent his mustache into sickles, “it soon shall ache no longer.”

  And with that he mounted the white horse that had met him in the Vale of Dreaming Women; stared for a long moment at the warriors ranked around him, young, fair, and loyal, and doomed to face iron at his command; and then at his warlord and best friend, gold-clad at his side. “Now!” he cried, and set spurs to the white stallion’s flanks, and turned toward the twelve-towered palace sparkling on the horizon. The wind was against them as they rode, but they were stronger than the wind.

  II

  (the Seas Between—high summer)

  There was water beneath Arawn of Annwyn’s flagship, but there was also air, for it was a ship of Powersmith make and could sail on seas or above them. Tracks it preferred but did not require, here in the Lands of the Sidhe. Oars it likewise had, but they were for show more than anything, as was the sail, which billowed regardless of wind, so that all could gaze on the sigil blazoned there—Or, an anvil gules, within twelve human skulls in annulo, argent—and know that Arawn had come calling.

  He wondered what reception he would find here, on the shores of Tir-Nan-Og. No one had challenged him—yet—as would certainly have been the case had Lugh still sat his throne. It must therefore be true that he did not. Arawn was sorry for that. Dana knew battle was one thing lacking in Annwyn, what with the Powersmiths on half his border and Rhiannon of Ys, who didn’t like to fight, on most of the rest. Otherwise—Prydain likewise had a queen, and one did not fight women unless they challenged first. Alberon of Alban was all but in hibernation, not moving from year to year from his rath in the north of his cold and gloomy Land.

  What Arawn needed was to fight an equal—a friend, even—though friend and foe changed with the centuries when one was immortal. He had already—briefly—gone to war against Finvarra of Erenn, with Lugh and the Powersmiths as allies, until those damned mortal children had quashed it with their images of doom.

  Lugh, however, or Nuada: now there would be battle indeed! How long had it been, anyway, since two High Kings hewed at each other with sword and ax and spear? Gwyddion (whatever he was: magician, man, or Faery) had once fought all day with Arawn’ s godson, Pryderi. Could he and Lugh dare any less?

  And if Lugh did not sit his throne—well, it was as he had told his queen upon departure: he could aid him and so place Lugh in his debt while still getting a fair stake of combat.

  Or he could feel out these Sons of Ailill and perhaps find better sport there. One—Turinne mac Angus, so said rumor—had managed to topple Lugh. And though Turinne was more wild than wily and more rash than circumspect, word also had it he was Powerful in his own right, though untrained and quick to tire. His thoughts ran diffe
rently, too, such as using mortals in his guard, and that made him interesting.

  But whatever befell would be interesting, Arawn concluded, fingering his new-forged blade. Five breaths later, his ship crossed the border ’twixt sea and land. “Well,” he announced to nobody, “Tir-Nan-Og has been invaded.”

  III

  (Tir-Nan-Og—high summer)

  Turinne grinned through the red mustache he had begun in parody of Lugh’s and turned wickedly gleaming brown eyes to Brighani, his new-made druid-chief, who stood before him in the prescribed robe of woad-dyed wool, studying the map that lay between.

  Only a map, yet more than a map, the landscape spread on the table had been worked in exquisite detail, showing mountains and valleys, rivers and cities, all in relief when unrolled. A slightly odd map it was, too, for it depicted the Mortal World—the Lands of Men—the Quick Folks World—however one chose to style it. What mattered was that all those places that now showed green mountains, lush fields, and sprawling cities would soon be a uniform watery blue.

  The gauntlet had been cast, after all, that very day at sunset (mortal sunset; it was late afternoon in Tir-Nan-Og); it was his duty to meet that challenge, defeat the challenger, and claim the victor’s prize.

  “You are ready?” he asked Brighani, though it was not a question.

  “Aye—one part is.”

  “One will suffice…for now. Rain and rain and rain. Rain without end. Rain such as mortals sing of in their oldest stories. But the waters in the earth must also rise.”

  “Aye, Lord, and that will be difficult.”

  “Not so hard as that other thing.”

  Brighani regarded him dubiously. “I know.”

  Turinne almost slapped him “Do you?”

  “I know that however much water we pour out there, in time that Land will drink it. It will flow to the sea. Mortals may die, but mortals will return. The Land must be drowned utterly.”

  “And for that it must sink.”

  Brighani swallowed hard. “I know the rite. That is, we do—we think. It was used but once before, for the sinking of Lyonesse. I am not certain it will work for a Land so much larger.”

  “It will work,” Turinne assured him. “If not for you, for someone else. But if you do not succeed, my friend, iron shall sever your soul from your body, and that drowned Land shall hold your tomb.”

  Brighani nodded—what else to do? And reached beside him to retrieve another map, this one thin as gossamer and depicting Tir-Nan-Og, the Tracks flat threads of gold within the warp and weft. He whipped it across the one already spread there, so that the Lands of Men showed through.

  “At your leave,” Turinne urged.

  Brighani beckoned a servant: a sturdy bodach girl, slim for their kind and clearly scared to death. She swallowed as she approached, but her hands were steady as she held out a slender ewer of opalescent glass. A thousand like it were ranked on shelves outside, each holding water from a certain spring, and each spiced with the lifeblood of a child from the Mortal World, though Brighani and Turinne alone knew that.

  “I will soon need another,” the druid snapped. “See that my hands remain full.”

  “Lord,” the girl murmured, and backed away.

  Turinne didn’t watch her go, nor did Brighani. But Turinne, soon to be Ard Rhi of the Daoine Sidhe in Tir-Nan-Og, watched very intently indeed as Brighani poured the water from that first ewer through the gossamer map of Tir-Nan-Og and onto the one below that depicted the Lands of Men.

  And in Sullivan Cove, Georgia, and three hundred miles around, rain began to fall.

  Turinne smiled and went to bathe for a coronation he’d ordered to proceed at once.

  IV

  (Clayton, Georgia—Sunday, June 29—just past sunset)

  Big Billy Sullivan sat bolt upright in his hospital bed and scared his wife clean out of her skin. Or at least so bad she dropped the diet Coke she’d bought out at Rabun Regional’s cafeteria smack-dab in the middle of the floor in the doorway to his room.

  “I wish,” Big Billy growled, in the first words he’d said since he’d lapsed into unconsciousness right after she, Dale, and Little Billy had arrived that morning, “they’d stop that goddam howlin’.”

  JoAnne froze; the blood turned to ice in her veins; for a moment she actually stopped breathing.

  “What howling, honey?” she managed, grasping the wall for support. “Ain’t nothin’ but the wind gettin’ up. Looks like rain.” Only a small part of which was true.

  Big Billy glared at her, which wasn’t what she needed when she’d been sure more than once that she’d seen him awake for the last time. And it was just like Dale and Billy to be out roaming around in quest of dinner she doubted any of them would more than taste when Bill returned to himself.

  As to what they’d said—she wouldn’t let herself believe it. That was the wind, not the family banshee, who’d appeared once before, when all this crazy shit had started, and warned of Uncle Dale’s impending passing.

  David had tricked it then. But David was off in who-knew-what godforsaken place likely gettin’ himself killed. The one thing she knew was that that thing was attached to Sullivan blood. So it would be Bill. Or maybe Dale. Shoot, maybe Dale had had a heart attack; God knew he was old enough and maybe the thing couldn’t tell ’em apart. Or maybe it was Little Billy: car wreck, or something. David was gone, so it couldn’t be him…could it?

  “Get me my clothes,” Big Billy demanded, yanking the IV from his arm. “I aim to die at home.”

  Chapter XVIII: Cutting Edge

  (Enotah County, Georgia—Sunday, June 29—twilight)

  Alec had the world’s worst case of déjà vu. Only it wasn’t that as much as memory, memory that said it hadn’t even been three days since he’d been squinting through a rain-streaked windshield at a thoroughly soaked, storm-wracked Enotah County. The only difference this time was that he was squinting through the windshield of Myra’s Dodge Caravan instead of David’s Mustang, and that rather than David, Liz, Aikin, and a cat that was sometimes an enfield, his companions were Myra, LaWanda, and Piper—and Aikin, and Aife, who’d once been that enfield. Which was the only thing that had gone right lately as far as his specific self was concerned, if even that had gone right, which he doubted, given how preoccupied Aife had become.

  Absorbed in the grimoire as she was, she certainly hadn’t been much company on the frantic run up from Athens they’d begun two hours ago, as soon as they’d found a phone after returning from Tir-Gat. A quickie to David’s folks’ place had produced a very confused Elyyoth, who’d handed them off to a barely more coherent Scott, who’d given them the quick-and-dirty about a certain spike and the repercussions thereof, adding that Dave and company were back and on their way over from Devlin’s. That gave Dave’s crew an hour head start, which was fine, as it meant Myra’s gang wouldn’t have to take charge.

  They had both kinds of mojo, too, though Scott had been excruciatingly vague about what Dave had learned in Galunlati. One thing was clear, however: they had more going for them than they’d had a day gone by.

  If only it was enough.

  Scowling, he shifted in the seat, downed the dregs of the journey’s third Jolt Cola (just about a day now, since he’d slept), and tried not to ask the questions that were burning his brain in two.

  Like what, exactly, the spell that worked the Silver Tracks was supposed to accomplish and, more to the point, how were they to access it if it had sunk into Aife’s mind and couldn’t be recalled? Like how Piper could sleep through all this chaos. Like how LaWanda could stay so calm and centered and stern, almost like one of the Sidhe. Like why Aikin hadn’t figured out that maybe playing the silent type wasn’t cool when planning needed doing and his second-best friend was about to go insane.

  Like how Myra could see anything through all this goddamn rain.

  At least it wasn’t as bad as the last trip, though like that foray, it got worse the closer to Sullivan Cove they came.

>   Finally he could stand it no longer. “What specifically,” he asked Aife, “do you think we should do?”

  She blinked up from the grimoire, which seemed to be showing a bit of wear, if not actual deterioration: likely due to its removal from the World of its making. “About what?”

  It was all Alec could do to restrain himself. Instead, he stroked the jar that contained the new ulunsuti. “About which mojo to use: ours or Dave’s or—”

  “May not be our choice,” Aikin called from the front. “They get there first, they may go ahead with…whatever.”

  “Christ!” Alec spat in total exasperation. “All these fuckin’ variables! I mean, Lugh’s off God-knows-where, we have no idea what the rebels are up to besides making it rain, and…and what do these folks know about us, if anything. Never mind that Annwyn’s on its way and Erenn’s not far behind.”

  “With a bunch of not-so-innocent workmen camped in the middle,” Myra concluded. “Though I imagine they’re putting them up somewhere else, except maybe those rent-a-cops Scott mentioned.”

  “Like anybody’d be out on a night like this up to no good,” Aikin snorted.

  Myra flicked her left turn signal on, which seemed ludicrous, given the empty highway. It took Alec a moment to realize that they’d reached the Sullivan Cove road.

  No lights showed at David’s house, but Kirkwood’s T-bird was there. Still, when Myra made to press on to the Cove itself, by way of Uncle Dale’s place, Aife’s face suddenly went blank. “No,” she countered, pointing up the dark frothing river that ought to be the Sullivans’ drive, “turn here and keep going. We need water, and we need a Place of Power.”

  “Water we got down here,” Myra snorted. “But you mean—”