by Sarah Remy
“Now run,” she said. “And save your friends.”
Chapter 18
The dullahan wore a barrow gate key on a twist of tanned leather wrapped several times around his wrist. Everin had not so long ago found a similar key concealed in a dead man’s coffin. Avani wore one on a chain around her neck, side by side with her vocent’s ring. Stonehill’s Widow had kept one on a bronze ring with passkeys in her vegetable shed. And Faolan had kept one on his belt.
The bronze barrow keys were not large, but they were unusual. The blade was sharply pointed, the bow and haft filigreed. Like the grille work across flatland sidhe tunnel openings, the keys were mortal made, crafted by blacksmith and magi together in attempt to keep the barrowmen contained. They were meant to be scarce and closely guarded and they had been, until the throne began to hunt necromancer instead of sidhe. After the magi were lost, so, too, were their barrow keys, scattered or destroyed.
Mal’s jealous wife had used one to set hungry barrowmen free on the Downs. Everin had used Faolan’s, deftly stolen and later returned, to escape the mounts with the dullahan. And now the dullahan wore one around his wrist on a strip of tanned skin cut from the back of a human priest.
“He meant to change his mind, in the end,” Crom Dubh confessed as he walked the perimeter of the desert gate, Everin at his side, Drem three paces behind and Pelagius two more behind Drem. Drem’s Desma disguise was fraying, whether because the lesser sidhe had been too long amongst desert steel or because Faolan was dead. An impression of Drem’s shorter form danced beneath Desma’s longer limbs and Desma’s yellow desert eyes had gone dark. Everin thought the addition of the Aug’s iron sword strapped on Drem’s back for safekeeping was probably not improving the sidhe’s situation.
“He was hardly a stupid man,” Crom Dubh said of the dead theist. “An obedient lap dog, until it came down to completing his master’s task. He was willing to do as the Masterhealer ordered, up to a point. The horses were no obstacle. But when it came time to relinquish the barrow key he balked.” The dullahan stopped to gaze upon the portal and inhale the perfume of pink-budded saplings. “I had no choice then but to kill him, of course. I’d come too far to let something so fragile as piety get in my way.”
The guards stationed around the gate moved aside to let the dullahan through. Crom Dubh’s feet were bare; he flexed toes gratefully on impossibly green grass. The rose-gold dawn spilling from the portal outlined a spread of otherwise invisible wings sweeping lazily back and forth in the night.
“I need but a short time underground to regain what strength the iron draws,” he said. “Drem, also, will come and rest. It has grown meager with too much time spent amongst mortals. Bring the blade, Drem. I do not believe Everin is yet resigned to his fate.”
Drem said nothing, shoulders hunched beneath the weight of the sword, face turned toward the gate.
“Nicanor is looking forward to your presence again in his lodge.” The dullahan turned and strode toward the stone arch. Drem followed more slowly. “He will feed you up and find you a horse and proper armor. When we ride, you will lead the charge.”
“And your geis?” Everin demanded. He could feel the weight of it now doubling, a shadow across his heart, that desperate pledge made against better judgment.
“Lead my army safely under the mountain,” Crom Dubh replied, “and I will discharge it.” He stepped beneath the gray stone arch and disappeared, there one instant and gone the next. The gate framed Drem briefly in rose-gold and then the lesser sidhe, too, vanished.
“This way,” Pelagius said. “Nicanor is expecting you, Erastos.” His tone said Everin had no choice in the matter, as did his cold grimace.
“I liked you better as a love-sick fool,” he said.
“I like you not at all,” answered Pelagius. “That way.” He pointed past the gate at Nicanor’s lodge.
Obviously, he believed Everin, unarmed, was not a threat. Everin was tempted to prove him wrong. Even with the newly roused geis heavy on his heart, he might have attempted flight, if only for a chance at smashing the dour expression from Pelagius’s mouth. But even if he survived the tussle, escape now would do Wilhaiim little good; Everin did not doubt the dullahan would find its way back through the tunnels with or without him. Of a certain Drem knew the flatland gates as well as any barrowman.
He knew the Crom Dubh kept him alive purely for reasons of entertainment. Everin didn’t mind playing sidhe games, so long as he came out ahead in the end. And he meant to.
He gripped Pelagius’s shoulder in a friendly manner as he passed him. “Keep smirking, you bastard,” he suggested hoarsely in the man’s ear, squeezing flesh. “I owe you a bruise or six, and my time will come.”
Nicanor welcomed Erastos with open arms, kissing Everin on each cheek and embracing him like a brother. The older man had grown frail in Everin’s absence, but not so fragile that he could not lead his tribe into battle. The tattoos on his chest and thighs were faded, but the number of feathers in his long hair and on his sleeves had multiplied exponentially. He wore Rouen gold on his fingers and toes. The feathers and gold, and the proximity of his tribe to Crom Dubh’s lodge, meant the sand lord was still prospering.
“The war to end all wars,” he proclaimed, settling Everin in a nest of sand-colored cushions and pouring him clean water to drink. More even than his embrace, the water was an indication of Nicanor’s joy over his friend’s safe return. “I do not think I will miss this arid land, Erastos, though it nourished my family for longer than any living man can recall. It has grown stingy, unfruitful, bitter. For generations we have watered it with our blood and not regretted a drop spilled, but now even our most generous sacrifices are ignored. There are too many of us, or not enough desert, and we are all stretched thin.”
Everin, looking openly around Nicanor’s lodge as he sipped water, could see the other man spoke truthfully. The tent was full to bursting with members of Nicanor’s tribe. The children playing quietly in one corner were small and skinny, visibly malnourished. Their mothers and sisters, wrapped in diaphanous white chitons, were sharp-boned and listless. Even the warriors moving unobtrusively in and out of the lodge were too lean, their bare chests verging on sunken. Nicanor’s tribe had always been wealthy, and from the feathers in their hair and the embroidery on scabbard and kilt, they still were, but now they were also starving.
Camel roasted on two spits outside Nicanor’s tent, and outside every nearby lodge, scenting the air deliciously. Soon enough there would be plenty of meat to go around, at least for a short time.
“You look well.” Nicanor lowered himself groaning onto a large cushion. His goblet brimmed to spilling with beer. “But for the welts tarnishing your pretty face.” He glanced Pelagius’s way from under lowered lids. Pelagius, standing patient guard by the tent flap, did not appear to notice. “Crom Dubh said only that you came over the mountains from the west with a tinker’s brood. I never thought to see you again, much less learn you’d left us for the mercenary life.”
“I grew tired of making bricks and killing snakes.” Everin set down his goblet, water half drunk. He was expected to finish the cup entire lest he give offense, but it was difficult to lie with that most tangible confirmation of Nicanor’s affections in hand. “It was good pay for easy work. Besides, I wanted to see what was on the other side.”
“I paid you well,” accused Nicanor mildly. He sighed, took a drink, then set down his own cup. “So, then. What is it like, on the other side? Rolling hills, green as the grass surrounding the demon gate? Rain as often as sunshine? Rivers of all sizes flooding the land? And plentiful game, I’m told, so plentiful a man can throw his spear with eyes closed and always take down a gazelle or mountain lion.”
As Nicanor leaned forward in curiosity so did the women and children of his tribe drift close, captivated. Even the most attentive guardsmen turned their heads to listen as they walked the lodge’s inner perimeter. In their regard Everin recognized more than a passing interest;
he saw desperation. Nicanor, noticing the fresh tension in the room, extended an arm. The children, all ten of them, came at once, dashing over the sisal rugs to sit at his knee. Lads and lasses of all ages, their yellow desert eyes round with excitement.
“I’ve told you tales of Erastos and his bravery,” Nicanor said. “Now Erastos will tell us tales of our new home on the other side of the divide.”
Pelagius, standing in the doorway, made a low sound of derision.
“Pelagius,” Lord Nicanor said calmly as he settled the youngest child in his lap. “This is a family gathering. You may wait outside.”
“But, my lord, I am here on Crom Dubh’s orders to see that Erastos is kept safe.”
“And who would do Erastos harm here in my lodge?” Nicanor looked not at Pelagius but at Everin, and Everin, shocked, realized many years too late that Nicanor had never been fooled—from the very beginning had always guessed that Erastos was not completely the desert warrior he pretended—and Nicanor had welcomed him into his home nonetheless, given the exiled king a chance to be something more.
“He is tribe,” Nicanor said. “I will see to his safety myself. Step outside, Pelagius, and leave us to celebrate Erastos’s happy return amongst ourselves.”
Pelagius left the tent without another word. Everin, stricken, finished his water gift in one swallow.
“Go on, then, Erastos,” Nicanor urged, “tell how it is on the other side of the mountain, what fortunes await us once our victory is satisfied.” He stroked his chin thoughtfully, making the children laugh. “Tell us true, does every tree bear delicious fruit, and every cock pheasant lay a golden egg?”
Everin made a show of clearing his ruined throat. “Apples and pears,” he began. “Worth more than any golden egg for their sweetness. As for golden eggs, what needs you gold, Lord Nicanor, when you can drink your fill of clear water for free?” He lifted his empty goblet in silent toast.
Afterward, when the candles were snuffed and the children asleep, Nicanor withdrew a pouch from the folds of his chiton. Taking a pinch of black opion gum from within, he tucked the drug between his lower lip and teeth.
“Today is for resting and eating, perhaps our last chance before Crom Dubh returns.” He offered Everin a pinch and shook his head when Everin declined.
“You never were one for the small pleasures in life,” Nicanor said. “Perhaps to your advantage. Since Khorit Dard’s defeat opion has been harder to come by.” He yawned and stretched, indolent, and lay back on his cushion. “Though Crom Dubh has promised us Roue again, once this western business is finished. There are tribes already massing on their border. Khorit Dard was an old man, and gone soft. Roue will not find Crom Dubh so easily chased off.”
Everin grunted. “I’ll admit I never thought to see the desert united in allegiance, much less tribe lodges settled peacefully together in one place. It goes against the tribe’s very nature.”
Nicanor’s eyes gleamed amber in the candlelight. “Starvation will turn even the boldest wolf docile. Desperation makes for strange bedfellows.”
“And afterward?” Everin wondered. “When the flatlands are won and every man’s belly is full again, desperation forgotten? The desert is a vast place, the flatland one quarter its size. We will be one million sand fleas fighting over a single pheasant’s carcass. Peace won’t hold. Tribe will turn on tribe once again. What then?”
But Nicanor’s expression had gone unfocused, his mouth slack. The opion was working upon his senses, blunting his edges, softening his wit. Everin suppressed a shudder. That any man would so willingly dull his own intelligence seemed abhorrent, but Nicanor had always preferred indolence to rumination, and how very tempting forgetfulness must be on the eve of war.
“Black Crom is no upstart chieftain chasing dominance,” Nicanor assured Everin. “He’s proved himself many times over these long years. His foes fall always before him and his allies rise to greater heights. He makes the proper blood sacrifices, and in doing so has tamed the demon gate. He has guaranteed our success. So long as he holds sway, no tribe will step out of line.”
“I imagine the same was said of Khorit Dard,” said Everin, “while the opion was flowing freely.”
Nicanor, dreaming already with his eyes open, didn’t reply. Everin, resigned, stretched out on the rug alongside and sought sleep. The rose-gold brilliance thrown off by the sidhe gate turned the tent’s white canvas to pink even in the daylight. Pelagius’s shadow loomed outside the door. The desert beyond was loud with industrious noise as men and women prepared to break camp. Everin rolled onto his back and covered his face with his forearm, blocking the light. The bruises on his face and ribs ached. His body was old and overused. He expected he would die in the next day or three, pierced by a flatland spear as he led the desert charge, or cut down by a warrior’s scimitar from behind.
Surely the dullahan didn’t intend to let him live even after the geis was broken, no more than the dullahan intended to let this game of mortal against mortal go on much longer. Sidhe grew bored very quickly and soon after boredom, broke their playthings.
The healing scar on Everin’s throat itched. It made him think of Faolan.
He came back to himself with Desma’s cold hand on his shoulder. Already up and on his knees before waking fully, Everin reached for his sword, forgetting it was in Drem’s care.
“You’re wanted,” the sidhe said. It stood taller for time spent in the barrows but the Desma disguise still flickered dangerously.
“I should kill you,” Everin snarled. “For being a sneak and a liar. Faolan trusted you.”
“To keep you safe, little king,” Drem agreed. “And here you stand, battered but breathing. Safer, I think, under Crom Dubh’s nose than Pelagius’s fists. Twice I’ve rescued you from your own stupidity.” Pivoting, it strode from Nicanor’s lodge.
Everin had fallen into the sleep of the exhausted, and more time had passed than he liked. Outside the tent it was deep night, although the sidhe gate kept darkness at bay. Nicanor’s tribe sat beneath the open sky, sharing meat and beer. The children, faces greasy, giggled and pointed at Everin as he skirted the cook fire. Nicanor, sitting in place of honor nearest the spit, called out in greeting.
“Erastos! Come and eat! I’ve saved you a plate. Tonight we feast!” He clapped his hands and his family around him whooped excitement. “Tomorrow we ride!”
A surge of unexpected affection made Everin hesitate. But Drem was waiting and not patiently.
“Soon,” Everin replied. “Save it for me a while longer.”
Nicanor nodded and turned away to speak to a near companion. Everin took a long look around at the happy gathering, memorizing faces as he had not thought to do when last he parted company with Nicanor and his family. Now he knew better.
“Will I see him again?” he asked Drem quietly as they crossed between lodges. The wind was picking up again, battering tents and pennants and threatening to throw sand.
“From the back of your horse in the morning. For the rest, who am I to say?” Drem executed one of its cryptic shrugs. “Does it matter?”
“For a time he was kin,” Everin explained. “So, aye.”
“Kin is always kin,” returned Drem coolly. “You cannot say that he was and then he was not. He is or he is not.”
“He is,” said Everin as they approached the door of the dullahan’s tent. “And if I do not see him again after tomorrow, I will miss him.” As he missed Avani and Liam and now Faolan. It shamed him that he’d chosen a solitary life over affinity. He was realizing too late that, like Nicanor with the opion, he’d taken refuge in apathy.
Pelagius, stone-faced, waited for them outside the dullahan’s lodge. He parted the tent flap with his hand and preceded them inside. Crom Dubh waited within, alone, absorbed in his own thoughts. Smoke from the opion brazier wreathed the tent, stinging Everin’s eyes.
“Crom Dubh,” Pelagius said, drawing the dullahan’s attention.
“Ah, good.” He brightened
. “Come and see.” When he beckoned, unseen pinions rustled. Like Drem and Desma, the dullahan’s human guise was also suffering, blurring at the boundaries. When it smiled at Everin, that affable mien turned cloudy, like ink dropped in water, before recoalescing once again.
A rectangular, multicolored rug lay unrolled on sisal beneath the dullahan’s feet. At first Everin assumed it was a peculiarly patterned carpet, but as he reached the dullahan’s side, he saw it was a map made tapestry, colorful thread turned topography.
“I’m told it’s a fine likeness. There were not so many stone edifices when the Tuath Dé still walked free, nor do I recall the forest being quite so thin. But the coastline is the same, and the southern flowing cataracts.”
It was a fussy likeness: the flatlands recreated in cotton and wool and silk. Wilhaiim, picked out in silver ribbon, shone against floss-white cliffs. Royal keeps north and west were labeled with their corresponding devices done out in the most delicate cord. The Mors was a froth of blue braid and white lace, as was the sea. Crimson pin-flowers demarked the king’s red woods. And around the whole, in a repeating pattern of knots and knit, ran the temple’s spear and chalice.
Avani, Everin suspected, would have found it in bad taste.
“It is mostly to scale,” he acknowledged. “But I’ve never been overly fond of ribbon.”
Crom Dubh pushed a basket into Everin’s hands. His breath stank of places under the earth. Everin peered into the basket so he didn’t have to witness the monster under the grinning disguise. The basket, sisal like the rug under his feet, was filled with large, bronze-headed pushpins. They rattled, betraying the quiver in his hands.
“It’s time to scheme,” the dullahan proclaimed happily. “Mark the gates. Every gate, don’t leave out even one.” He scrubbed hands together, mimicking mortal glee, and Everin heard scales scraping. “Take your time but don’t dawdle. Pelagius gets easily bored. Isn’t that so, Pelagius?”
