The lake was dotted with perhaps a dozen ice houses, and wisps of smoke from most of them announced that even on a cold weekday morning, some crazy people would find the time to sit over a hole in the ice, watching for a trip to signal that a fish had taken the bait.
Well, thankfully something was taking some bait; nothing had last night.
Torrie tried to avoid handling the snub-nosed pistol in his pocket. He had had to learn how to use a handgun to Dad’s satisfaction—which didn’t come easily—but he didn’t much like it. A gun was an inert piece of metal, not like a sword, which became an extension not just of your arm but of your mind.
And then there was the fact that while he was a decent rifle shot, he could barely knock a can off a fencepost at ten yards with a full-sized handgun and was absolutely hopeless with a snubby.
Still, what could he do? It was one thing to walk around with his sword strapped to his back at night, expecting the darkness to hide the bulge, but in the daytime it would have stood out as much as the gun felt like it did. It was silly, but he felt like everybody he passed could see that he had a gun in his pocket.
When a siren blared from behind him, it was all he could do to not jump out of his skin while the cop car shot by, lights flashing as it sped past the lake, heading toward some problem down toward St. Louis Park.
Maggie flashed him a knowing grin. “It’s okay,” she said. “I feel the same way.”
It was silly, though. When was the last time anybody he knew had been stopped and frisked? Hell, even the time that that idiot salesgirl at Target had forgotten to demagnetize the magnetic gimmick on the Indigo Girls CD he had just bought, he had stepped through the theft detectors, the alarms had gone off all over the place, and the only thing that had happened was that the cop watching the exit just waved him through when he stopped and pulled his receipt out of his pocket.
Life was unfair. Maybe a black guy—no matter how law-abiding—would have to worry about such things, but a reasonably well-dressed, sober, vaguely working-to-middle-class-looking white guy just didn’t get stopped and frisked, not unless he went out of his way to look guilty, and probably not even then.
So he concentrated on not looking guilty for a moment, then realized that that wouldn’t work, and tried to distract himself, to just forget about the damn gun.
His left thumb stroked his knife where he held it in his pocket. He liked things with sharp edges. You could count on a blade, although Torrie wouldn’t want to be close enough to a Son of Fenris to have to count on one.
But it was hard to worry on a bright, brisk day, with the sun shining down, a half dozen strips of Nueske’s bacon and scrambled eggs warming in his belly, walking between Maggie and Dad. Tir Na Nog and the Sons seemed far away, and not capable of reaching out.
Maybe he had been mistaken. It was possible that it really was a wolf, and not a Son. When you hear hoofbeats, you should think horses, not zebras—not unless you’re on the plains of Kenya. But the piss, it had smelled like a Son. Torrie remembered that smell; it gave him nightmares.
And then there was this dwarf that had popped, injured, out of the Hidden Way.
Where was the Son?
Dad’s forehead wrinkled for a moment, and he broke into an easy jog that took him a hundred yards or so down the path.
Maggie’s raised eyebrow was a question. Torrie shrugged.
“Should we?…”
“No.” Torrie shook his head. It might draw attention.
They caught up with Dad just across from the pier near 36th, just beyond where a small sandspit stuck out into the frozen lake.
Dad’s face held that calm expression that Torrie had always both loved and hated. “There’s a print behind that rock,” he said. “He was here last night.”
“How can you be sure?” Maggie asked.
Thorsen led them to the rock.
It was hard to see, at first. The tracks weren’t as clear as the one behind Maggie’s apartment had been, and it could have been a large dog, he guessed.
He said as much. “The claw marks are deep, but there are dogs whose nails don’t get trimmed often enough.” There was no trace of that particular, acrid smell of wolf piss in the air, either.
“Too few tracks,” Dad said. “A dog walks clumsily, feet going here and there, not caring. A wolf knows where he puts his feet, and puts the rear paw in the print of the front. He does nothing by accident.”
Well, wolf-dog hybrids weren’t unknown. It was a stupid idea, and generally they made lousy pets—too eager to strike out, and prone to chase sheep and goats, not caring about such formalities as property lines and fences. One of the Thompson boys had picked up one somewhere, but Shep Rolvaag had shot it just outside his own barn after the fifth or sixth time it had gotten into his chicken coop.
And maybe hybrids walked like wolves. Torrie might have argued the point, but he had seen where the tracks led. A dog might walk like a wolf, either from breeding or accident, but the prints of a large dog didn’t, in a quick set of three steps, turn into a bare human footprint.
Dad had already made sense of it. “Why change here into human form?” he asked. “As a wolf, the cold bothers him less, and he can better attack, or defend.”
A heel print was the only answer.
The heel of a boot, perhaps, or a shoe.
Maggie’s mouth was a thin line. “It’s where he left his clothes.” She looked up at him. “He was following you last night, but he was doing it in human form, not wolf.”
Dad nodded. “Yes. He’s been here long enough to settle in and … represent himself as someone local.” He shook his head. “I don’t have any idea of how to track him, not now. Do you?”
Torrie shook his head.
Shit.
Chapter Twelve
Bóinn’s Hill
The woods finally broke on a hilltop, and the valley of the Gilfi, the river that the Vandestish called the Tennes, spread out in front of them.
In the mountains, distances were deceptive. Harbard’s Crossing was probably just behind a bend somewhere down there, but it could easily be more than a couple of days’ march away, even if they could see it from here.
But it was pretty. What had been lush greenery was now a million shades of orange and red, painting the hills with a banquet for the eye. Rock outcroppings peeked through here and there, lending a look of solidity and permanence to an autumn display that could only feel transient.
Most of the ridges were fringed with bands of evergreens, a green beard for the brown and gray land of Tir Na Nog.
“You wouldn’t happen to have a AAA Triptik in your rucksack, Valin, would you?” Ian asked.
“Excuse me?” The dwarf was a good straight man, but a lousy audience. “I beg thy pardon, Honored One?”
“What I was saying,” Ian said, “is that I have some idea as to where we are.” He pointed north and east. “If we make our way down to the Gilfi and follow the riverbank, we should be able to make our way to Harbard’s Crossing.” That would be nice. A chance to drop in on Arnie and Freya would be pleasant, and it was always possible that Arnie could be prevailed upon to come along to the Dominions.
Ian chuckled to himself. He doubted that anybody would buy the notion of the wielder of Mjolnir as Ian’s manservant. Which would be fine with Ian. He had never really enjoyed having his landlord pretend to be his valet.
It would be a different sort of trip this time than the last, just as the last had been different than the time before. What was that about how you could never set foot twice in the same stream?
Valin’s thick brow furrowed, as though he was working on a thought and found the exercise both difficult and unfamiliar. “Yes, Honored One,” he said. “Of course we may do that. And if it is your wish, surely we shall travel that way.” He held out a thick, short-fingered hand. “But it would be better if I were to carry your gear, now that my strength has returned to me. May I?”
“No, you may not,” Ian said. “I can carry my pa
ck, and I can carry my sword,” he said. And, among my many skills is my ability to wipe my very own nose—and my very own butt, for that matter.
His shoulder was still sore, but not nearly as painful as it had been. It was as though there was something in the very air of Tir Na Nog that healed and refreshed him, or at least eased the inflammation around the strain. Whatever damage was left could be easily healed by Freya; her healing touch had cured much worse.
But he was not at all sure that Valin was being entirely candid about his own renewed health, and, besides, Ian could stand a short break.
“Let’s take five,” he said, and at the dwarf’s look of puzzlement he resolved, once more, to stop speaking in English to Valin. “Let us take a short rest,” he said. Five minutes was about right. Enough that it counted; not so much that your muscles started to cool off. You could go a long way in a day with only a few short rests, and still have enough energy at the end of the day to make camp.
He eased his rucksack down to the ground, then seated himself on a flat rock, gesturing at Valin to do the same. “Let me see your wound,” he said.
The dwarf had already lowered both of his rucksacks to the ground, had one open, and was reaching inside. He produced a curved silver flask and held it up with a thick hand and a broad smile. “Your chirurgeon sent this along for you,” he said, bringing it over. “He said to tell you that it is for medicinal purposes, and you are to feel free to take some if you need such medicine.”
That sounded like Doc. Ian accepted the flask. “I thank you, and him, and I still wish to see your wound.”
Not that he was tempted. He didn’t drink. The way he figured it, Benjamin Silverstein had done enough drinking—and beating, and shouting, and generally acting like an asshole—for the two of them, and Ian tried hard to bring the average down.
Nothing wrong with getting a little buzz on, mind. Ian had been known to take a toke of pot every now and then, among friends. But he had never seen a pothead beat the shit out of, well, anybody.
“But there is no need—”
“Then there will be no problem.” Ian made a beckoning gesture. “Now, if you please.”
“Yes, Ian Silver Stone,” the dwarf said, his flat face impassive. He dropped sharply to the ground, like a toddler falling back on a diaper, and began to unlace his shoes with clumsy fingers. Why he thought he needed to take off the shoes in order to drop his jeans was something Ian didn’t know, and couldn’t think of a polite way to ask.
Shoes and socks off, finally, the dwarf rose, unbuckled his belt, and then dropped his jeans. He wasn’t blushing, but he couldn’t meet Ian’s eyes. He probably wasn’t used to being naked around humans.
Or maybe, among dwarf women, size did count, and Valin’s short, albeit preposterously thick, penis was something to be ashamed of.
There wasn’t exactly a polite way to ask.
But the wound had healed, well, miraculously. The stitches were still in place, but the flesh they held together was pink and healing, no trace of scab or blood, no redness from a spreading infection. Valin reached tentatively to touch at it, then drew his hand back.
“It looks good, but I’m surprised Doc Sherve didn’t put a dressing on it.”
“He did. I took it off.” The dwarf looked down at his toes. “It itched.”
It itched. The dwarf had taken his bandage off because it itched.
Ian would have made some sort of speech about how any idiot knew that when a fucking doctor put a bandage on a wound and told you to leave it on, you fucking left it on, but…
But… but it was healing, faster than Ian would have thought possible, and this was Tir Na Nog, and maybe he should just leave well enough alone. “Very well; you might as well get dressed.”
He sat back on the rock, thumbed the flask open, and tilted it back, just for a taste. Instead of the whiskey he had expected—not that he could have told good whiskey from bad—it was some sort of chocolate-orange liquor. Nice tasting, but Ian didn’t drink.
He flipped the top back on and tossed the flask to Valin, who deftly picked it out of the air and put it back in the rucksack.
“No, no,” Ian said. “Try it.”
“I?”
“No, the vestri standing next to you.” Ian softened the sarcastic reproof with a smile. “Yes, you. Is there a problem with that?”
“Yes.” The dwarf looked skeptical. “It’s…just not done.”
“Vestri don’t drink?”
Valin’s crooked smile revealed a missing tooth. “Some vestri have been known to. But it’s not proper to drink from the vessel of an Honored One.”
“You don’t have to have any of this stuff if you don’t want to, but I don’t see the harm.” Ian gestured at the gray Gilfi, far below and away. “When we get to the river I plan to take a drink. Are you planning to go thirsty?”
“No. But that is different.” The dwarf furtively eyed the flask, as though considering how different it was or wasn’t, then pushed it deep inside the rucksack, putting the temptation out of his way.
“If you say so.” Ian rose from the rock and stretched carefully. “Well, shall we be off?”
“Yes, Ian Silver Stone,” the dwarf said. “In whatever direction you order.”
That was the second time Valin had said something to that effect. “You don’t think we should go that way?” Ian asked.
“It is not for this one to say,” Valin said, not meeting Ian’s eyes as he gathered the gear together. He had taken on a formal mode again, which probably meant something, although Ian wasn’t sure what.
“And if I were to say it was for you to say?”
“Then this one would say that the route via Harbard’s Crossing would add almost a day to the trip. If we head north, we can reach the Village of Mer‘s Woods in a day or so, even if we swing west, further into Vandescard, to avoid spending the night too close to Bóinn’s Hill.”
Ian’s sense of direction spun for a moment. He had been near here before; he and the others had just used a path along a ridge that ran parallel to this one. He pointed. “Bóinn’s Hill is that way, just over that ridge, maybe three, four hours away, if we hurry.”
Valin’s ruddy face went pale. “Yes, but surely you’re not thinking of spending the night there?”
“Yes, I am.” Ian grinned. Yes, the hill was haunted, but he was on good terms with the spirit haunting it. “I’ve done that before. Twice, in fact. Let’s go.”
The dwarf made no move. “I would not spend a night on Bóinn’s Hill, Ian Silver Stone.”
“All will be well, Valin. We’re welcome.” Well, at least he was explicitly welcome, and Bóinn wouldn’t turn a companion of his away.
“I would not spend a night on Bóinn’s Hill, Ian Silver Stone. Please do not tell me to. It’s hagridden, and the very idea scares me so much that I can barely hold my water.”
Ian could have argued the point, but the day wasn’t getting any longer, and he was getting increasingly irritated with the way that the dwarf alternated between bowing and scraping on one hand, and nagging and insisting on the other. A little consistency would have been nice, for a change.
“Well, then, you can sleep in the woods nearby; I’ll spend the night on the hill.”
“As thou wishes it,” the dwarf said, ducking his head in something halfway between a nod and a bow. His face could have been carved from stone.
They reached the base of Bóinn’s Hill just at sunset. The trail swung wide to the west, as though it was every bit as much afraid of coming close to the hill as Valin was.
“Ian Silver Stone,” the dwarf said, eyeing the slope nervously, “there is an ancient burrow but a short march ahead; we can spend the night comfortably sheltered from the wind and rain, surrounded by nothing but the good wishes of long-dead vestri.”
Ian nodded. “That sounds like a good idea. I’ll meet you there in the morning.”
“But…”
“Can you mark the trail so that I won’t walk by and
miss you?”
The dwarf’s expression was of fear mixed with something else that Ian couldn’t quite figure out. But it wasn’t necessary to figure out everything. That was a mistake that he should have outgrown. Get all your ducks in a row, and all you have is a row of ducks. Figure out everything, and all you get is knowledge. And there were many times when knowledge was a vastly overrated commodity.
“Of course, Ian Silver Stone. This one lives to serve and obey,” the dwarf said. If there was any sarcasm in his mind, it didn’t show in his voice or his face.
The climb up the hill was easier man it looked, which was the first time that Ian could recall a climb or a hike ever being easier than it looked. Usually, the grasses snatched at your ankles, pebbles slipped from beneath the soles of your shoes, and roots and vines hid waiting in the grass to snare and trip you, and if that was only what it felt like, well, that was what it felt like.
But this was different. It was almost as though the hill welcomed each step.
Which wasn’t, all things considered, entirely impossible.
The top of the hill wasn’t quite as he remembered it. The four ancient stone pillars were still there, but either they had been moved, or Ian misremembered them as having been in a rough line.
Now, they formed a shallow arc to the north of a huge, spreading oak that Ian had seen before, but only in a dream.
In a dream.
He dropped his rucksack to the soft, welcoming grasses and ran to the base of the old, gnarled tree, more than half-expecting that it would vanish at his touch. But the rough bark of the trunk was hard and real beneath his fingertips, and the golden leaves clinging to a low branch were crisp and cool.
“Bóinn?” he called out.
There was no answer. Only a whisper of wind rattling the leaves overhead.
Ian smiled. This was his tree. He had planted the acorn himself, and watered it with his own urine, but that had been only months ago.
Fear washed over him in a cold wave. It would have taken dozens of years for such a tree to have grown. Could that much time have passed in Tir Na Nog since he had last been here? Enough time for an acorn to grow into an oak?
The Crimson Sky Page 14
