Sunshaker's War

by Tom Deitz

  “When the sun beats the eagle,” Myra said, and fell silent.

  David, crouched in the back, could only stare at her and wonder.

  Chapter III: Carolina Reverie

  (Sylva, North Carolina—Friday, June 13—sunset)

  The sun was still a hand’s breadth above the western mountains when Calvin McIntosh pushed through the screen door and padded onto the cabin’s porch. He scratched his bottom through a convenient hole in his jeans, settled himself into the unpainted rocker that in the last year or so he had come to think of as his own, and gazed out at the vista beyond the peeled pine railing: mountains upon mountains as far as his very sharp eyes could see—maybe all the way west to Tennessee or south to Georgia. Closer in were the beeches and oaks and ashes that crowded around the cabin, their leafy summits level with the porch’s cantilever floor because of the steepness of the slope. But they rapidly lost their definition as he stared further into the haze of the Smokies. And lingering near the sun were clouds, also in long, low layers, so that Calvin could not be sure where land ended and sky began.

  So be it, then. Maybe it was not wise to think of the two as separate. Everything was ultimately one; that was one of the things he had learned here at the haven he shared with Sandy.

  One of many things.

  Sandy Fairfax was somewhere in her middle twenties and taught physics in the local high school; he had only left his teens a month before and did nothing at all that would make sense on an employment form except wander around and learn, but somehow it had never mattered to either of them. He asked questions about things he didn’t understand, and she answered; she wondered about things she didn’t comprehend, and he speculated. She gave him science and economics and business and philosophy and ethics (and food to eat—what he didn’t hunt—and a fine motorcycle to ride a roof and a bed to share); and he gave her woodscraft and herblore and metaphysics and magic (and the sweat of his brow often enough, like today when he’d re-roofed the smokehouse). For though Calvin Fargo McIntosh had grown up in Atlanta, he was three-quarters Cherokee Indian, and trying very hard to become a wizard.

  This evening, however, the only magic he had in mind was that of contentment, of being in a place he loved, surrounded by fantastic scenery, and feeling good about his long day’s labor. He sighed happily, propped his strong bare feet on the railing, and took a sip from the cup of coffee he had brought with him from the supper table. Sandy was in there now, cleaning up, since he’d cooked (venison burgers and wild mushrooms). She’d join him shortly and they’d watch the sun set and the night arrive and talk about—who knew what.

  Maybe magic tonight, because they hadn’t in a while, and after all, he did know more about the arcane lore of his people than anyone living, probably—at least from firsthand experience; and by slow degrees had been initiating her into its mysteries as well. It had not been easy, of course; but who could believe there were Worlds beyond this one, that anybody could actually travel to if they had the art? Asking someone to believe that was asking a lot, especially to a scientist like Sandy. Eventually, he’d had to actually show her. Not by taking her to Galunlati; he had neither the power nor the permission to do that yet. But by performing the ritual and going there himself. That she could believe: him in the middle of his Power Wheel one minute, and gone in a puff of flame the next. It had hurt him fearfully—the transition always did. But it had been worth it, because it had lowered the last barrier between them. From then on there had been endless questions, and eventually Sandy had found herself trying to contrive a unified-field theory of physics/metaphysics to embrace the cosmology of all the overlapping Worlds.

  There was so much she didn’t know, too; and so many questions he could not answer, because he only knew a little about one World besides their own. She really needed to talk to his friends down in Georgia: Dave and Alec, and all. They’d spoken to the folk of one of the other Worlds and knew what was up. Yeah, maybe this summer he’d take her over there and they’d hash out some stuff. Maybe even next weekend—he had to go anyway, to be in Dave’s buddy’s wedding.

  He fished in the pocket of the sleeveless denim jacket that hung open over his chest, and pulled out the packet of photos he’d picked up that day from the Eckerds down in Sylva. He’d shot them the previous August, but never got around to developing them until now. A lot of ’em hadn’t come out, but enough had to provide a reasonable record of those friends he’d just been thinking of.

  The first was one of Mad Davy Sullivan standing alone in a high mountain pasture, with a line of dark forest to his right, and behind him a picture-postcard of sprawling lakes. A little shorter than Calvin, and built more like a gymnast than a runner, Dave was nevertheless wearing running togs: white gym shorts and a burgundy de-sleeved sweatshirt which depicted his school name and mascot: the Enotah County ’possums. He was also barefoot, and was pointing to his tootsies with one hand and shrugging theatrically with the other.

  Calvin couldn’t help but grin. He’d made that the last day he’d been there, when Dave had been unable to find his shoes anywhere and had decided to undertake his morning run without them. Not wishing to put his friend at a disadvantage, Calvin had joined him and done likewise. Unfortunately, it had been a mistake to try to out-macho that particular white boy. The stone bruises had nearly killed him, and it had taken nearly a week for the blisters to heal.

  The next photo was one of Dave’s home, a white frame farmhouse crouching atop a steep hill on the knees of a forested mountain, with a strip of bottom land on one side, and a series of hilly pastures on the other. Dating from around the turn of the century, the house had obviously been added onto several times, and sported three distinct porches, though only two were visible in this view.

  The following shot was of Dave and his Candy Apple Red ’66 Mustang, the one he called the Mustang-of-Death. It seemed to have had a near brush with its namesake, too, because it was missing the right front fender, and the passenger door was blue. He wondered if Dave had ever got it back like he’d wanted it after the accident—he’d never actually seen it intact.

  He skipped quickly by a series that showed the Enotah County landscape. It was not that different from the territory around here, though the Carolina mountains might be a touch higher than their Georgia counterparts, and there seemed to be a few more artificial lakes filling the valleys over there.

  And then he found a picture of a gaggle of teenaged boys standing in front of a neat Cape Cod bungalow. They were the MacTyrie Gang, Dave’s gaming and run-around buddies: tall, lanky Darrell “Runnerman” Buchanan, who was handsome in a foolish sort of way, and who, as a member of his high school track team, wore his hair in a scraggly pony tail Calvin was certain Dave wanted very badly to emulate. And dark-haired “G-Man” Gary Hudson, who also ran track, but was into serious body building (he had doffed his shirt and struck a pose for the photo). He was the one getting married—make that having to get married.

  Between them was slender Alec McLean, dressed very hi-tech in his black parachute pants and T-shirt, and with his spiky haircut and earring. That hipness was an illusion, though, because Alec was the most conservative—and, after Dave, the brightest, especially in science—of the lot. Finally there was the one he didn’t really know, because he’d been gone most of the time Calvin had spent over there: Aikin Daniels, just a solid, nice-looking middle-sized guy in silver-framed glasses, cammy fatigues, and a black T-shirt that depicted a howling wolf. Dave had said he was the sportsman of their crew, and something of a loner, though the gaming campaigns he orchestrated were noted for their imagination. He was also, apparently, the last one to learn about the Worlds.

  Only two pictures to go, now. The first was of Dave’s girlfriend, Liz Hughes, and showed a pretty, pointy-faced red-haired girl holding a camera of her own. She was very slender (exactly the way Calvin liked ’em), and had green eyes that radiated a challenging sparkle. In the photo she was wearing white cutoffs and a green Abolish Continental Drift T-shirt.r />
  The last shot showed the ruins of a mid-nineteenth century cabin nestled in a mountain hollow. The place had been knocked off its foundations, and was skewed every other way as well, with not a window pane intact. The front porch had been smashed to kindling, and large sections of the tin roof were missing. A crumpled burgundy Volvo lay stuffed into one corner.

  That was Dave’s uncle’s house: the one that had practically been destroyed when the Sidhe had ridden from their World to demand that Dave surrender Alec, whom they believed to have betrayed them. Calvin had been instrumental in setting things right afterward, and that had been the thing that convinced him to follow the way of the shaman and try to learn the secrets of his people’s magic, to which end he had returned more than once to Galunlati to study. As for Dale Sullivan’s house—he’d heard the old guy had given up on fixing it and had moved a house trailer onto the lot behind the ruins.

  “You miss them, don’t you?” came a soft voice behind him, and before Calvin could turn, a woman settled herself on the bench built into the railing to his right. She was as tall as he was, and slender, with hair that would have been brown had the sun not been at it for years, and had it not been so long—nearly to her waist in back. In another time she would have been called a hippie, at least by looks and lifestyle. But she knew more about lasers than living off the land, more about halogen gasses than hallucinogenic mushrooms, more about quantum theory and cosmic string than canning and macramé. At the moment she was wearing a dashiki a friend had brought her from Malawi, and sipping delicately at a glass of Chablis. He frowned minutely at that, for he never touched the stuff by principle, never mind he was still not quite of legal age.

  The frown became a wry smile as he shuffled the photos back into their mailer and returned them to his pocket. “Yeah, I miss ’em a lot.”

  “You could call them, you know; I don’t mind.”

  Calvin shifted restlessly. “I know you don’t, and I’ve tried, as a matter of fact—’bout half a dozen times in the last two weeks, tryin’ to find out what’s up with this blessed wedding. But all I get are those damned recordings.” He adapted a nasally computerized tone: “ ‘We’re sorry, but your call cannot be completed as dialed, please check to see that you have the correct number,’ or ‘We’re sorry, but all circuits are out in that area, please try again.’ Oh, I got through once, but Dave couldn’t hear me, even though I could hear him. Something really weird’s goin’ on with the phones over there—apparently they’re havin’ some really wild weather, or something.”

  Sandy’s brow wrinkled thoughtfully for a moment. “There’s been stuff on TV about that, something to do with alternating high and low pressure systems that seem to pop up and vanish without any warning, but just in that one place, possibly due to sun spots. A huge amount of rain more widely spread; lots of wind and lightning. I’m not surprised the phones aren’t working half the time. Maybe you really should go over.”

  “Maybe I will.”

  “’Course you’ve been saying that for months…”

  “I know, but—but I need to work with Uki, and when I’m not doing that, I just like to hang out and do nothing. Learnin’ magic takes it out of a guy.”

  “Hitchhiking to Mexico was nothing?”

  “I had to find out some things, get a feeling of being in a place with some real history. I hate this idea of all time bein’ now. Everything that is came from somewhere else, or some thing else. There’s nothing original in the world. But it’s when people won’t see that that trouble starts. People aren’t apart from biology and history, they’re a part of biology and history.”

  “Very sage—for a mere beardless boy.”

  Calvin stroked his smooth chin. “Do you disagree?”

  “I don’t think so, though I’d need to meditate on it some more.”

  “Well, seein’ other Worlds, other planes of reality, kinda makes you doubt your own. You sorta develop a need to anchor yourself as strongly as you can.”

  Sandy curled her feet under her and took another sip of wine. “So how does that jive with prophecy, then?”

  “What d’ you mean?”

  “Well, doesn’t your friend have a prophetic stone, or something? How does that work?”

  “Oh, the ulunsuti. It’s the crystal from the head of a monster that lives in Galunlati, called the uktena. I’ve told you about helpin’ to kill one, right?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Right, well, basically you concentrate on the crystal and on what you want to know, and it just kinda shows it to you—including the future, if that’s what you’re askin’ about. To do anything major, you have to prime it with blood.”

  “But does it show you the future, or simply a future?”

  Calvin shrugged. “Can’t say.”

  “Arrgghhh!” Sandy grumbled. “Just when this was starting to get interesting. But seriously, I really would like to know more; any chance you could borrow it? Or maybe take me over to see it?”

  Calvin frowned. “Well, it belongs to Alec—was given to him quite specifically. He’s got enough sense of the rightness of things not to let it out of his hands. It’s really a big responsibility, and he takes it like one. But if you’d like to go over sometime… Hey, how ’bout tomorrow? I really do need to check up on the blessed wedding plans anyway.”

  She shook her head. “Gotta work on those damned end-of-the-year evaluations all day. But sometime, seriously. I think if I understood how the ulunsuti deals with time I could come closer to sorting all this out.”

  “Well,” Calvin said, as he polished off his coffee, “what I have to figure out is how many shingles I have to split in the morning to roof the garage.”

  “Thought you were going down to Georgia.”

  Calvin shook his head. “Who can say?”

  “I’ll leave it to you,” Sandy sighed. “I’ve gotta go warm up the old calculator.”

  She left him alone, then; and Calvin once more stared out into the evening. To the west the sky had darkened perceptibly and the sky was awash with clouds like hovering buzzards. He thought he heard distant thunder.

  Chapter IV: Commencement

  (Enotah, Georgia—Friday, June 13—evening)

  “…and now the valedictorian of this year’s senior class: David Kevin Sullivan.” And with that monotone introduction echoing tinnily around Enotah County High’s Burns Memorial Auditorium, Dr. Anthony Taylor returned to his seat between the county school superintendent and the local probate judge.

  David took a deep breath and stood, hearing his cheap gown rustle and feeling the burgundy nylon briefly catch on a ragged corner of the metal folding chair where he had been waiting nervously next to Barbara Ann Justus, who was second honor and head cheerleader, and Nat Berrong, the superintendent’s son, who had done the invocation. His footsteps sounded impossibly loud as they slapped across the well-oiled boards. Damned Sunday shoes! He’d wanted to wear his Reeboks, but his ma wouldn’t hear of it, just like he’d wanted to wear jeans and no tie, and been denied for the same non-reason. The ponytail, however, was still intact and neatly secured with a burgundy-and-silver velvet ribbon. Another deep breath as he stepped up behind the podium and fished out his index cards. A third, as he gazed out across the expectant multitude and began.

  “Friends, family, faculty…” he commenced, then had to pause to clear his throat. Someone on the front row giggled, and he felt his cheeks grow warm. “Friends, family, faculty,” he repeated. “I guess you all just heard Principal Taylor say who I am, and what I am; and I guess you all know why I’m here. I reckon, too, that you’re all expectin’ the same kind of speech you hear year after year: about the challenges of the future, and steppin’ out into a brave new world, and all that stuff. But I’ll tell you something right now: I was gonna make a speech like that. I rehearsed a speech like that all last week, even memorized it, ’cause that’s the speech they gave me to say, and I may be about to get myself into a heap of trouble by sayin’ something else now, but I
’m going to anyway, ’cause if I used the one they gave me it’d just be one more piece of high school, one more example of doing what other people tell you to do, and not thinkin’ on your own, which is what life’s supposed to be about.”

  He paused nervously, eyes darting everywhere, feeling Dr. Taylor’s glare burning into him exactly as it had when he’d been summoned to the office in the eighth grade for pulling the fire alarm. “One thing, though,” he went on, “you don’t have to worry about me tellin’ you off, or cussin’ you out, or anything, I’m not. I’ve got a speech I’ve worked up myself, and that’s the key word: myself. I’ve got a fair store of facts floating around in my head right now, but I figure today’s the first day of the rest of my life, so the first thing I gotta do is start putting ’em together myself.

  He went on, repeating the words he’d composed over the preceding week, the one he’d committed to memory along with the other he’d actually recited at rehearsal, careful to maintain his mountain drawl so folks wouldn’t think he was too uppity. Somewhere around a third of the way along he sensed the whole place relaxing as the audience decided he wasn’t going to say anything too incendiary in spite of his by-now-universal nickname: Mad Davy Sullivan. His basic text was simple: school was grist for the mill, you learned facts, but the things you really learned were things about getting along with other people: making friends, sucking up to teachers, when to tell the truth and when to lie… It was all amazingly savvy, he thought—and would have been, if he’d come up with all of it himself. But the truth was, it was mostly a synthesis of things he’d heard Uncle Dale say, or David-the-Elder say, or even Liz. Surprisingly, a little of it also came from his father; they’d had a long talk or two over Christmas. By the time he’d got to the middle, he’d gone onto automatic and was scanning the crowd, picking out faces he’d already found before: his folks—Big Billy in suit and tie for the third time David had ever seen him so, Little Billy likewise but with the tie askew, Uncle Dale in white shirt, clean khakis, the stubby ponytail of his own that had scandalized David’s ma when he’d shown up in it that evening. She was there too, of course, looking absolutely smashing, as she could do when she wanted to, though the padded shoulders of her black-and-purple dress were maybe a little extreme.