by Tom Deitz
“You are back, Y’Alvar,” the biggest red-head said. “Tell us what you have learned.”
Y’Alvar flopped against one of the boulders. “I have flown south, as you ordered. It is as we have heard: Finvarra’s fleet sails this way and quickly—but Lugh sneaks around the southern coast to meet him, and I suspect a third force approaches as well, if the storm clouds I saw to the east are more than they appear.”
“So it will be battle then?”
“Aye, and uneven against us, unless our Lord has hidden allies.”
“Did you deliver the message?”
“Aye,” Y’Alvar replied. “Though our own kinsmen almost shot me before I could declare myself. Rumors are everywhere: Lugh has boats that sail underwater; the Powersmiths have withdrawn; the boy has finally revealed what Finvarra wishes—though we know the truth of that one, curse him.”
“No mention of the Mortals who stole him?”
“None. I was the one to bring word of that to Finvarra, where he stood on the deck of his flagship. It is a good thing I was warded, or I might have come back to you without my head.”
“He might yet,” Short Yellow chuckled, pulling out a wicked-looking dagger, which he began to sharpen. “If he learns it was you who could not find the key.”
“You set the wards, though. Thus, the fault is equal.”
“Aye,” Tall Yellow replied. “A moment sooner, and we’d have caught the Mortal at it.”
“What about these prisoners?” Big Red asked, lifting a shoulder toward Alec and Liz. “I trust you inquired of them as well?”
“Truly,” Y’Alvar told him. “And the word of the Ard Rhi is this: we are to wait here until he can send someone to retrieve them, and take no further action. He does not dare risk further exposure in the Lands of Men. Once he has them, he will use them to force Lugh to bargain: their lives for the return of Fionchadd.”
“But Lugh does not have Fionchadd.”
“Finvarra knows this, but also knows that Lugh will probably not know anything about his escape at all, the borders twixt Tir-Nan-Og and this World being closed.”
“Closed? I had not heard this.”
“They are not physically sealed, but that might as well be so; it was a vow—a kind of ban, with some complex bit of extra glamour thrown in the bargain, which almost amounts to a sealing. But in any event, we did not come here through Tir-Nan-Og, thus we would have to pass through too many sets of World Walls to get home, and that we cannot do.”
Short Yellow shook his head. “I have never understood all this about the Worlds and how they overlap in time. Not in a thousand years has it become clear to me.”
Liz found herself snickering at that. So she wasn’t the only one who found the multiplicity of worlds exasperating.
“The point is,” Big Red said finally, “that we cannot return to Faerie from here unless we go by sea, for we did not come here from there—precisely.”
“Never mind that to do so would also put us at large in Lugh’s land, which is not a thought I relish, not with the Morrigu searching every rock and stream for spies.”
“And the King himself, so I hear.”
“Curse him, too,” Big Red snorted. “Had Lugh not…”
Y’Alvar cleared his throat ominously. “I had not yet finished speaking.”
Chastened, they listened to him.
“The fact that Lugh does not have Fionchadd, though Finvarra demands him, will doubtless be an excuse for attack,” Y’Alvar went on. “Lugh will lose, for this close to his land he surely would no longer dare use the full power of Spear, it being harder to control the more Power lies in it, and it waxes every day, so I have heard. When Lugh falls, Erenn will claim Tir-Nan-Og. Then we can take our leisure to look for the boy—both boys.”
“Three boys, apparently. There was a third.”
“I saw only a small animal?”
“Which was also a boy. Did you not smell Power about it, though of an unfamiliar kind?”
“So humans shapeshift now?” Big Red mused. “This is a new thing in the world. I trust you told Finvarra this as well?”
“I told him all—or had it taken from me. My head still aches from it.”
“You have not told us what to do,” Big Yellow prompted, “nor how long we must remain in this noisome place.”
Y’Alvar glared at him. “Until Finvarra can send someone to fetch them; I thought I made that clear. It will probably be night, when there is less chance of being seen—and it will take less glamour to hide the ship.”
“Ship?”
“Ship. Morgalin has captured one of Lugh’s flying craft. He will bring it here with him.”
“Ah, now I understand.”
“It is time you did,” Y’Alvar sighed wearily. “And now, let us examine this curious crystal you had from the boy.”
Liz held her breath. So they were to be delivered to Finvarra, huh? But not right away. Maybe there would still be time to plan. She leaned back against the tree and tried to think. Beside her, she heard Alec whimper.
Chapter XXIII: Playing ’Possum
(Galunlati—day two—morning)
A shaft of morning sunlight shining straight into his eyes woke David—either that, or the cursed ’possum rooting in his armpit, or Fionchadd’s incessant moans. He blinked, scratched his nose, and squinted up through the froth of brown-edged leaves, then closed his eyes again and started to turn over. It was too damned early for this.
And then the ’possum licked his ear.
“Dammit, Fargo, stop that!”
Another lick, this time accented with a nip.
He sat up abruptly, if more than a little stiff around the back from having slept on solid rock. The sun was just slanting over the horizon, casting golden shafts of light among the trees. And he was turned just so he could see an infinity of tiny spider webs joining every bush and twig along a wide arc of horizon. There were long ones higher up, and short ones lower down, not webbed together in patterns, simply joining. And here, now, the sun transfigured them with subtle color, so that they glimmered red and gold and green in the morning light.
If only his back were better. He stood reluctantly, feeling his joints protest, and actually hearing one pop as he staggered over to the fire and checked it for coals. Fortunately, there was one. Dry moss made it a small fire, and he put a tin of water on to boil before trotting off to tend to necessary, if unheroic, business which suddenly would not wait. That done, it was down to the stream where water in his face refreshed him remarkably. Now almost awake, he turned his attention to Fionchadd.
The Faery was still moaning, but he didn’t appear to be any worse. As a matter of fact, he looked considerably better. Certainly those parts of his skin that had been red as a five-hour sunburn were now somewhere between gold and pink, which was basically their normal shade. And the awful blisters seemed to have gone down some as well, or at least those that had popped looked to be slowly merging back with the surrounding skin. Oh, he was thin, and it was true his eyes were swollen and his lips were puffy, but David was beginning to believe in Faery powers of regeneration. He wondered, suddenly, how the rest of him was doing—and, if they could still make their goal in time.
That brought him back to the hard side of reality: He had no idea where he was, whether north or south of Uki. He’d had no real goal in mind when he’d made the transition, either, and you were supposed to have one, or else it would take you to whomever you’d called upon—except that he hadn’t actually finished even that and hadn’t Calvin said something about reaching the wrong destination by accident last time they’d visited Uki because of some of that foolishness with the sun? All he’d really had in his head when they’d transited was an image of forest and a general desire to get south. So the scale had probably simply deposited him in the analog of where he’d been. Since then he’d been walking south, or so Finno said. But where now? Suddenly he wished very badly he’d paid a lot more attention to the geography of middle Georgia as it p
ertained to streams and rivers.
A check of the survival kit produced a bouillon cube.
He hated to risk sure food so early on, but still, the sooner he got fed, the sooner he could think clearly, and the sooner he could do that, the sooner he’d be able to search for edibles along the way.
And while the water boiled, maybe he’d relax a minute more. Wearily, he slumped down beside the Faery, folded his arms behind his head, and closed his eyes, but kept his ears open for the sound of water boiling.
What he heard was the ’possum hissing furiously at him as it thumped from a nearby tree onto his chest.
“What th—?” Then, “Calvin, you asshole!” And then he stopped himself. Calvin. He’d been so damned concerned about Finno he’d almost forgotten about his other companion! Well, it was about time he did something about it.
Which was a lot harder than it sounded.
Best to think logically. Item one: shape-shifting was risky at best; the beast brain tried to take over, and the longer you wore that shape, the stronger it got; and Calvin had been in this one much longer already than David had ever worn another skin. Item two: he’d sort of helped Calvin along when they’d begun, basically in the interest of time, so the guy might not have had time to prepare for it. Having both David’s will and the sudden acquisition of ’possum-ness thrust upon you at the same time was bound to be more than a little traumatic.
Still, evidently the ’possum liked him, ’cause it hadn’t run off yet. So there was probably some part of Calvin hanging around in there. The trick was to get it out.
But how?
Maybe the way he got him in?
It was worth a try, he supposed.
Very slowly he slid to a sitting position, keeping the ’possum on his stomach. With equal care he extended his right hand and gently touched its head, then, when it did not resist, first patted, then stroked, then scratched it. It seemed to enjoy the experience; or at least it grinned in that toothily winsome way only ’possums can do. Very slowly he increased his grip on it, holding it behind the forelegs, feeling its tiny heart suddenly accelerate. With his other hand he dragged out his uktena scale, still on its thong around his neck. Then, very gently, he slid his scale over until he could set one of the ’possum’s surprisingly human-looking paws atop one of the points, and his hand over both it and the other.
“Okay, Fargo,” he said. “I don’t know if you’re in there or not, but I’m gonna try real hard to change you back, and I’d appreciate it if you’d help if you can. I don’t know if you’re able to think but if you can, I want you to think human too.”
The ’possum blinked its beady eyes at him, twitched its pointy nose—and yawned.
“Calvin!”
That got its attention, but it bristled, started to try to twist away.
“Okay, then, kid—if that’s the way you want it.”
And with that he pressed the ’possum’s paw into the razor-sharp edge of the uktena scale, and closed his eyes against the pain as it likewise sliced his own hand. He tried not to think of the pain, focused on only one thing: Calvin. Dark hair, dark eyes, atypically stubby nose for one of his kind, wide cheekbones, ruddy skin on a strong, muscular body.
The ’possum hissed, wriggled, turned to bite him—and then he could no longer hold it, though he kept his eyes closed, trying vainly to maintain the image. It hissed again, and then that hiss became a trill, which became a scream. He felt a sudden weight on his chest, and when his eyes popped open by reflex, he found himself eye to chin with a genuine naked Cherokee Indian.
David blushed and scooted back, but Calvin stayed where he was, his eyes half-wild.
“Calvin?” David dared. “Fargo? Edahi?”
The last evidently triggered some hidden key, and David could practically see the memories flooding back.
And then it was Calvin’s turn to blush, and very carefully stand and back away.
“Th…thanks, man,” he stammered, and David could see his eyes sort of half-way crossing, almost as if he were trying to look at his own tongue in wonder. He noticed his hands, then, and then the rest. Eventually he squatted down.
David nodded toward Calvin’s knapsack. “Think you’ve got some clothes in there. Finno’s here but out of it. Breakfast is on. Welcome to Galunlati.”
Calvin shook his head, then noticed the boiling bouillon and wrinkled his nose in disgust. “You’re gonna drink that?”
“It’ll do till I get something better. Besides, I’ve noticed what you’ve been eatin’ lately.”
“A lot better, probably.”
“Spiders? And roaches?”
Calvin looked horrified at David’s straight face, but then the facade cracked, and David giggled, and then they were both laughing like fools.
“Jesus, man, it’s good to have you back,” David panted when he finally regained control.
“Not as good as it is to be back, I’ll wager,” Calvin replied. “Now what’s the deal? Last time I knew anything we were in a high hurry to rescue Finno. Obviously that worked. Last thing I remember clearly was something about a lion-faced fish—that and bein’ cold as a witch’s titty.”
“In a brass bra, after being dead twenty years in Antarctica.”
“Etcetera, etcetera, etcetera.”
“But seriously, man; I guess I’d better brief you.”
“Do,” Calvin urged. “And while you’re at it, why don’t you pick us some of those blueberries?”
David looked puzzled for a moment, then glanced over his shoulder to see a low bush crammed full of the largest ones he’d ever seen, sprouting from the stones behind him.
He needed no second prompting and filled his mouth with them at roughly the same rate he filled Calvin in on the facts.
“Yeah,” Calvin said, as David inspected the suddenly inadequate-looking broth an instant later while Calvin was dressing in the shorts and T-shirt he’d found in his knapsack. “Sounds like you did all you could, considerin’ the circumstances. Dad’ll probably be pissed to find the fence down and the pups out, but it won’t be the first time he’s been that way. Besides, just imagine the alternative.”
“What alternative?”
“Suppose you guys had taken shelter in the house and claimed sanctuary, and then the parental unit had come home and found the Sidhe outside masqueradin’ as Hari Krishnas or something. Can you imagine that? Like what happened last year at your Uncle’s house, only with nosy neighbors in the loop. I almost wish we’d done it.”
“Give me a break, guy, we’ve got serious problems.”
“Two, I make it—besides reconnecting with our folks: Gettin’ old Finno where he’s supposed to go, and somehow meetin’ up with the Powersmiths. We never did really work any of it out, beyond a few vague ideas.”
“As I recall we had a lot of other things on our minds,” David said dryly. “The thinking was we’d work on that as we travelled; thereby, to quote Mr. McLean, ‘making maximum effective use of available temporal resources.’”
Calvin giggled. “And you sound like him too.”
“But seriously. Any suggestions?”
Not with Finno like he is. I suppose the only reasonable thing is for us to go on like we have been, if Finno’s ambulatory. See if we can find water and make a raft or canoe, or simply float.”
“To Savannah? That’s five hours by car from Atlanta!”
“It’s faster’n walkin’, though, and not as tirin’. Remember, we’ve only got a couple of days, max, and probably a lot less. It’d take weeks to walk to there.” David’s heart sank. “If only we could teleport or something. I still can’t believe we lost the rest of the blasted scales.”
“I can’t believe it either,” Calvin replied pointedly.
David paused thoughtfully. “What about this?” He indicated the scale that had worked the change.
Calvin shook his head. “No go. Like I said, they haven’t been activated. Also we’ve only got two and there’s three of us, and they require the
blood of a sorcerer—that business with the deer was unique to the ulunsuti, and even then we had Alec helpin’ out—who is a sorcerer, kinda, though he won’t admit it. And anyway,” he added, “we don’t have enough to do the amount of World hoppin’ we’d need to do.”
“There’s an easier solution, of course,” David noted carefully. “If you’re willin’ to risk it.”
Calvin raised an eyebrow. “What?”
“You’re not gonna like it. And I promise I won’t blame you if you say no.”
“I’m better at listenin’ than readin’ minds.”
David took a deep breath. “Okay, then: You use your scale to change shape to something that’s fast, a bird maybe; and fly north, and try to find Uki and get him to help us. We know he’s got more scales, maybe he’ll lend us some.”
Calvin’s eyes widened in horror. “Uh, no way man. I just did that and it scared the hell out of me. I’m not about to change again so soon. I might never come back.”
David shrugged and looked away.
“Why don’t you go?” Calvin said finally. “You’re better at it than I am.”
“Maybe so,” David replied. “But it scares hell out of me too. Besides—and I’m tryin’ to play Alec and be logical here—I need to go with Finno in case we have to deal with Faerie. I mean, this is your World, the one you know most about. That’s mine, I’m therefore the logical choice.”
“Damn logic!”
“I’d have said that once too,” David replied. “But then Liz gave me this.” He reached into his neckband and pulled out the medallion. “‘Head and heart,’ it means. Logic and emotion. Right brain and left brain, or whatever. Everything you do’s a conflict between ’em.”
