“I knew we should ha’ gone around the block,” Angus said with a shrug.
John took a couple of seconds to connect the suicidal screen door to their present circumstances. “I think we may have another problem,” He said, and looked up -- to see Lany in midair, two feet outside the railing, held only by a massive Scot’s forearm.
“Problem?” Kwaku remarked, following John’s gaze. “I see no problem. Dey are getting along well, yes?”
John ran to below the balcony. “Dallan! What are you doing?”
Lany’s muttered “Isn’t it obvious?” was drowned out by Dallan. “Bloody heathen, I want the truth and I want it now! I’ll accept nothing else!”
“Dallan,” John screeched, “put him down!”
“I will put him down if the heathen doesna tell me the truth! All the way down!”
“Boyeee,” Kwaku said as he sauntered over to where John was standing, his voice taking on the tone of an old-time ward politician. “Boyeee, you hold de trude in your hand.”
Dallan’s eyes narrowed. “I’m tired of yer games, Kwaku,” he bellowed back.
“It’s true, it’s true!” Lany choked out. “They had me stay to tell you!”
Dallan’s drill-bit stare turned from Kwaku to his current quarry, loosening his grip slightly as he did so. “Why shouldn’t I drop ye right now, right on that bloody blasted black heath …”
Finally! Lany found where his composure had hidden and dragged it back. “Because I have three children at home! You’ve already met one. Now, do you want them to have to grow up without a dad like you did?”
That stung. Dallan felt it, Lany knew he felt it, and Dallan knew Lany knew.
Much as he didn’t like it, Dallan thought, Lany had a point. He yanked him back over the railing, dragged him inside, and set him down hard on one end of the couch.
“Besides,” Lany added as he tried to twist the kinks out of his neck, “dropping me on Kwaku wouldn’t have done much damage, even if you got a direct hit.”
“Yer right,” Dallan said, doing his best to make it sound like an insult.
Lany couldn’t have cared less. “So you want to know the truth?”
Dallan grumbled to himself as he let go of him, landed in the nearest chair and crossed his arms over his chest.
“Even if you don’t like it?”
“I ken I’m resigned to that! Now explain!” The last two words were more of a sonic boom than a sentence.
Lany was as ready as he was likely to get. “Okay, here goes. First of all, yes, what you think are the Faeries are real, and yes, the Maiden is one, uh, sort of.”
A Scottish eyebrow rose in silent disbelief.
Lany sighed and leaned forward in his chair to look Dallan right in the eye. “Shona is what the people of my time—John’s, Kwaku’s, Mary’s and Padric’s—call a Muiraran. In the late seventeenth century, your time, your people would call them the Faerie Folk, though they aren’t faeries. They’re actually something else entirely. They just sort of got caught up into a lot of your Scottish folklore and legend.”
Dallan’s jaw twitched once, twice. He swallowed hard and closed his eyes, gripping the arms of the chair as he did. His eyes slowly opened, their green depths filled with memories, one memory in particular. He shook his head. “How could this be? That was so long ago.” His voice dropped to a whisper. “Nay, it canna be.”
“It can and it is, Dallan.”
Dallan continued to shake his head. “I dinna understand how, how can she be? She doesna look like… like a…” He abruptly stood.
Lany’s face went grave. “She was kidnapped as an infant and brought here to be raised, prepared for someone wishing to use her for his own purposes. She… she doesn’t know, Dallan.”
“She doesna ken what she is? How can she not know she’s a… a Mu…” Dallan’s eyes darted furtively about in silent question. “Master Lany, Shona… the wee lassie from long ago, I…”
“As far as we know, they’re one and the same. But only you can tell for sure.”
Dallan, his mouth half-open, fell back into his chair. “Great Mother o' God.”
Lany resumed his own seat, his face tight with fatigue and worry. "If she can’t accept our explanation of what’s happening to her, she will die. You’re bonded to her, she will listen to you. She may already be… in love with you, and I know how you feel about her. You are the only one who can save her.”
Dallan’s face became expressionless, his jaw tight. His eyes wandered the room, trying to absorb what he was hearing.
“Lany?” John’s voice carried through the apartment's closed door.
Lany sat back in his chair and let go a tired sigh. “C’mon in.”
John cautiously opened the door and stepped inside. He took one look at his assistant and went to sit next to him.
Dallan slowly looked at John, his jaw dancing. “She talks to me, talks without saying a word.”
“I know, Dallan.”
“Why did ye no explain? My God, d’ye think me incapable of… of believing? After all that’s happened to me? I dinna understand why I had to go through all that. Could ye no stop it? And she hurts like I do … I’ve yet to really hear her voice. She, she’s so…” His head fell to his chest, his whole body now shaking with unwanted emotions.
John stood and went to him. “The pain is part of the bonding, Dallan. I don’t like it anymore than you do.” He turned to Lany. “Did you tell him?”
“Most of it. What counts any way.”
John patted the Scot on the shoulder. “Dallan, the Maiden is dying. She must join quickly.”
“Join?”
John knelt in front of him. “Join. She must marry and mate, Dallan. Muirarans have what is called an‘inner heart’ that enables them to speak with other races, heal and ... well… all sorts of other things we won't go into right now." He shot Lany a worried glance.
Lany nodded for him to go on.
“Their ‘inner heart’ is like our own heart in a way, but it contains their spirit, their consciousness and an almost separate entity which has a mind of its own until a mate can take it into themselves and have control.”
“Take it, John?”
“Yes. Muirarans need a mate who can house and control that part of them, someone compatible with their inner heart. They need to join at a certain stage of their lives, before the heart becomes too powerful for them to handle. If no host is found, their heart outgrows the Muiraran and eventually dies, along with the Muiraran. The Maiden’s heart called to you, and when you answered, we brought you here.”
Dallan’s eyes pooled with pain, his voice no more than a whisper. "How did ye pick me out o' so many? I dinna understand.”
“Zara found you. Knowing the Maiden’s heart allowed her to search out and find a suitable host. You were the only one found. When the right time came along, Kwaku took you and began preparing you for the Maiden.”
Dallan’s face turned to stone. “Against my will.”
John nodded. “Yes, but he also saved your life.”
Dallan snorted. “Saved my life? And lost my brother’s! I dinna see how he saved me. I would ha’ escaped with the rest. He kept me from helping my family. He killed them!”
John swallowed hard and closed his eyes. “You and the Maiden bonded as children. You would have received the Call even in your own time. The result would have been the same, only you would have had no way to go to her. You would be unable to join."
“What are ye saying?”
“Once joined with her, you’ll take on her attributes and control her ‘inner heart.’ She’s like a sword, Dallan—powerful, deadly, sharp—but like a sword, she can do nothing if there’s no one to wield it. Her abilities and power, all that she is, you will be also. She cannot survive without you, and you cannot survive without her. The two of you will become one, sharing the heart she now possesses. When you join she will give it to you. She’s been caring for it since the day… since the day you gave her you
rs.”
Dallan’s jaw trembled. “My God. She still has it?”
“Yes, she still has it. It has become a part of hers, fused, grown together to create her ‘inner heart.’ She must give it back to you now, Dallan. If you don’t take it from her, she will die. Do you understand?”
Dallan’s entire body jerked. He balled his hands into fists and sank back into his chair. “The good-for-nothing heathen. He sacrificed my family, my wee brother… how could ye let him do it, John? Couldna he ha’ done something else? Found another way? Is that what it had to come to? Did no one think to give me a choice?” He snorted and stared absently across the room. "M’fl ur, cáite bi sibh?”His body quaked as the pain he’d been holding at bay, broke through the wall around his heart. “Flower, can ye no hear me?” His breathing turned ragged as he continued in Gaelic, his voice pleading.
“Eaton, this is how it started last night.”
John nodded. “Zara’s here don’t worry. She can take care of him. They’re out in the hall.”
Lany jumped up from the couch and opened the door. He glanced at Dallan then quickly to Zara. “Please, please don’t let him go through it again. He can’t handle it.”
Zara took a step forward, her face calm. “Do not worry, Councilor. I will see to him.”
At the sound of her voice Dallan lifted his head, looked at her and sprang from his chair. “Dinna come any closer, Lady.” He began to back up.
“I will not hurt you, Dallan. I am here to help,” Zara spoke in a voice so soft, so compelling, that Dallan stopped and actually leaned toward her. She took another step forward and let her human features fall away.
Dallan again backed up a step. “Great Mother… Saints.” He gulped air. “Dinna come any closer. Stay where ye are.”
She smiled at him. I will not hurt you, Dallan. I want to tell you of my people, of the Maiden, of your destiny. Please listen to me.
“Och!” Dallan squeaked as he sat down hard on the floor, his knees no longer able to support him. He shook with a barrage of emotions: fear, awe, pain and longing. He swore in Gaelic a few times then took in the other’s reactions to the creature standing before him.
John and Lany stood, their faces understanding and patient as they waited to see what he would do next. Angus was just closing the door, having realized it still stood wide open. Kwaku…
Dallan’s eyes met the heathen’s and locked.
Kwaku stood to his full height, his chest out, head high, looking every bit the part of a proud, brutal savage and, Dallan thought, royalty. As if he held the power to rule everything and everyone. Dallan’s face fell as he suddenly realized that in all probability, the heathen did. “My God, Lady.”
Zara came and knelt a few feet from him. “Shona…”
Dallan let out an anguished grunt, then doubled over with a harsh rasp.
Lany’s face became frantic, it’s color drained away. “Eaton…”
John held up a hand to quiet him.
Zara placed her own hands on her thighs, leaned forward and began to sing.
Dallan’s head was thrown back as pain seared his heart, cutting its way through his body, dragging the hated emptiness along behind it to fill any missed places with a dark, cold dread. The wee lass appeared out of nowhere to stand before him, her hair floating about her head and face with the wind, arms outstretched to him, beckoning, pleading for him to come. Calling.
She knelt before him in the place where Zara had been a few seconds before. He gasped and nearly fell backward as he took in the sight, eyes wide, his heart now open, raw and completely empty, waiting to be filled by the woman-child kneeling before him, the Muiraran, Shona.
The Maiden leaned forward, opened her mouth, and began to sing.
Dallan let out a gut-wrenching howl as his entire body absorbed her song, words and music flowing into him like water into water, joining, melding, mixing together, showing him the heart he had given her so long ago. The words burned, cleaning the savage wounds of wrath and revenge, closing up ragged tears of bitterness, his stubborn refusal to give in to his own need. They entered his heart, his veins to become a new blood, a new life source, traveling throughout his body, encompassing his very soul.
He tried to fling his body away but was held fast by an unseen source, empty hands gripping him with a force beyond his comprehension. The more words escaped her, the tighter the hold. The air in his lungs became like fire, the heat spreading outward to wrap around anything consumable.
A face loomed behind the heat, a man’s face. It drew nearer as the heat’s intensity grew, filling his vision enough to block out the sight of the Maiden. Confirmation came with the face to place itself before him like a sacrifice, daring him to take it, take and look at the awful truth to be found behind it. A face not unlike his own.
Dallan screamed. The face was his father’s. A face he had never seen, until now.
Rejection shot from its hiding place to take on the Maiden and her song. It hit her full force and all but knocked her to the floor as its pain clawed, ripped, tried to strip away her resolve to heal and bind. But the gift Dallan gave to her so long ago, now forged together with her heart, struck down the deep root of his rejection, banishing it, leaving him free to receive what she held for him.
To receive back his heart. A heart now joined with hers.
Lany screamed.
Angus rushed to help John hold him down. “What’s happening? Why does it affect Master Lany like this?”
“I don’t know! Kwaku, help!”
Kwaku stood over Zara, arms folded across his chest, eyes narrowed at the three men. He slowly walked over and grabbed the now-hysterical Lany by the back of his neck and lifted him from John and Angus’s desperate grasps. Lany kicked and swung at the air around him as Kwaku held him several feet above the floor, at arms length from his own tall body.
John and Angus sat stunned as a series of threats spewed out of the usually calm, apathetic Assistant Councilor, while Dallan several feet away, sat fully encompassed by Zara’s projected image of the Maiden’s song.
Kwaku’s eyes narrowed further as he watched Lany struggle, then threw the lanky form in the air, spinning him around to grab him by the front of his shirt, never once letting his feet touch the floor.
Lany’s tirade continued. “No! I won’t take this from you anymore. Get away from me! Get away before I show you what I mean!”
Kwaku shook his head, carried Lany to a corner of the living room and stood him directly in front of a chair, then looked over his shoulder at John and Angus with a raised brow, as if asking permission.
John shrugged his helplessness, leaving it to the Time Master’s own judgment. Kwaku shrugged back, turned to Lany and put his fist into the man’s gut. The yells were cut off as the air left his lungs. He doubled over in time to have Kwaku’s fist plant itself squarely on his jaw, the blow sending him into the chair behind him with enough force to push chair and occupant up against the wall. He sat stunned and silent a moment, opened his mouth as if to ask a question, then passed out.
Kwaku poked Lany with a finger, got no response and turned to John. “He is sensitive to my wife’s ministrations. He will be fine now.”
“Aye, I would be too if I were knocked out cold.” Angus muttered, his eyes going from a now-subdued Dallan to the forcibly subdued Lany.
“Kwaku,” John began, “what happened? Sensitive is one thing, but this?”
Kwaku stood behind his now-silent wife, who knelt directly in front of Dallan, both the Weapons Master’s hands in her own. “De Boyeee is your main concern, Lord Councilor. Mos-go-fi-an will survive and be at your side shortly. He is of no consequence right now.”
“What?’ John crossed the room to where Lany sat sprawled. “Look at him! Something’s not right here!”
Kwaku wedged himself between the chair and John. “When Mos-go-fi-an is ready and able to tell you, he will tell you. It is his secret; it is not my place. For now, tend de Boyeee. Mos-go-fi-an needs tim
e to recover properly.”
John recognized the finality in Kwaku’s voice, one that indicated he would not discuss the matter further. “Okay.”
“De Boyeee will be fine. My wife has given to him much of her own bond with de Maiden, freeing her heart completely. He is now ready for her. De Joining will be tonight.”
“Tonight!”
“Yes, Lord Councilor. I will see dem joined tonight, or not at all.” Kwaku turned and silently left the apartment, leaving the rest of the company to handle things as best they could. He had to take care of some unfinished business with the former Time Master, Philip Brennan. He knew that tonight, the Maiden would make her final Call, and that Dallan, with Zara’s help, would be ready to answer it. The company from Genis Lee could not afford any trouble now.
Love has no other desire but to fulfill itself.
To melt and be like a running brook
That sings its melody to the night.
To wake at dawn with a winged heart
And give thanks for another day of loving.
Kahlil Gibran
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
Sinclair sat atop Shona’s chest, his face inches from her own, ears pricked forward, tail swishing. Kitty’s other cats were also in attendance, all on the bed, on top and surrounding the young woman Kitty always knew was different. She didn’t know until today, however, how much.
Kitty took a cautious step forward causing the cats on the bed to growl at her, a reminder she drew near the set boundary. “All right, I’m backing up again. See?” She took a slow step back and stood perfectly still. “Oh gawsh, I can’t believe this is happening. This is so freaking me out! Wake up, Shona!”
Shona did not answer. Her features were settled into a face completely unfamiliar to Kitty, yet still Shona’s. Kitty fell into a nearby chair and continued to stare transfixed at her friend.
Sinclair watched his mistress a moment then turned his attention back to his perch. He laid down where he was, placed his face as close to Shona’s as possible and began to purr loudly. The rest of the tribe joined him, purring as loud as they could, settled like sentries around the sleeping woman.
Time Masters Book One; The Call (An Urban Fantasy, Time Travel Romance) Page 36
