“You were dancing with her last night.” Dee giggled. “Good thing she wasn’t singing.”
“Oh.” Linn remembered Ban, and her huge, empty black eyes, and shuddered. “She gave me the creeps.”
“The banshee aren’t evil, just... sad. Mostly.”
“Mostly?” Linn echoed in disbelief. Then she stopped and stared. They had been walking down a hall while they chatted, and she had been letting Dee steer where they were going. Now, they stood in a huge hall. Overhead, flags hung out at an angle from the walls, so they were high overhead, but all the colors she could imagine in exotic fabrics. The tall, narrow windows with a point at the top she recognized as being gothic, and the stone floor was set into intricate patterns of different stones. The room shimmered.
“Wow...” She kept looking up, turning in place to try and take it all in.
“Come on, I want to show you the gardens.” Dee headed toward a small side door.
The sunshine outside was brilliant, and it took Linn a couple of minutes to adjust to it after the relative dim of the castle. The flowers smelled wonderful, but it was the trio of approaching figures which caught her attention as soon as she could see them well enough to recognize them.
“Boys.” She growled in disgust.
Blackie and Merrick flanked Spot, who looked rather misshapen. She blinked.
“What did they catch?”
Deirdre shaded her eyes. “Oh, goody, a stag!”
The three boys, two in cat-shape, had certainly caught something. Now that they were close, Linn decided some of that was trouble. Merrick sported a purpling shiner, and one of Blackie’s eyes was swollen almost shut. Spot, on the other hand, the small deer slung over his back, neck in his mouth, was practically prancing with joy, in contrast to the two surly ones. His whiskers were spread wide, and he was grinning catlike around his mouthful.
Deirdre pointed. “Bronwyn will want that. Thank you!”
Linn addressed Blackie. “What happened to you?”
He looked away, then sat gingerly and started washing his face carefully with a paw. Merrick just glared at her.
“What?!” Linn didn’t know what his problem was, either.
Linn decided to follow Spot. Maybe she could help with butchering. She somehow didn’t think she was going to get an answer from them. Linn was aware the boys were following her, but she wasn’t going to give them the satisfaction. Mac’Lir, however, appeared from a side path and took in the situation at a glance. With a grin and pleased tone, he exclaimed. “Boys! Good hunt!”
He was dressed in archaic clothing, a flowing white shirt and loose brown pants that had been rolled up to his knees. He was barefoot and had his hands full of green leaves. Linn eyed him with surprise. He looked nothing like the grand and mystic king of the night before. He didn’t even look like the lord of the castle, but the gardener.
“Good morning.” He smiled at her and held out the leaves. “Would you take these to Bronwyn?”
Linn stammered back, “Morning, and yes.” She was handed an armful of wet... spinach?
“There are few enough of us, we all must do our share.” Mac’Lir answered her unspoken question. “And it gives me a little quiet time to collect my thoughts.”
Linn nodded, thinking about that. He’d been gone a long time, and many changes had happened. She wondered what he thought of the car.
“Go on, now.” He turned back into the garden, and she kept going toward the kitchen door. It opened to Merrick’s knocking, and Bronwyn appeared on the step as she opened the door. She flung up her apron with a little scream.
“Boys! You are not bringing all that mud and blood into my clean kitchen!”
Linn bit back a giggle. “I can help with butchering if there is an outside place...”
Bronwyn was surprised, she saw, at the offer. “No, no... I have kitchen helpers. But thank you.”
Linn handed off her greenery. “This is from the king... he was picking it, I mean.”
Bronwyn shook her head, and for some reason Linn thought that she was thinking “boys” again, in much the same way she had just spoken to the cats and Merrick. But she didn’t say anything out loud, just took the greens into her apron, folded up at the bottom to make a pocket.
“Be off with you all now... Leave the deer.” She pointed, and Spot laid it on the grassy patch with a last sniff of pleasure. Bronwyn shut the door on them, and the young people looked at one another.
Deirdre spoke first. “Want to see the library?”
The boys all looked at her. It was obvious to Linn that none of them had any interest in that pursuit. She knew the cat-boys avoided it on general principle, but could read for school when they had too. She had no idea about Merrick.
“Let’s go see if Bes is back.” Linn suggested. She was a bit antsy about their adult having gone off without them, leaving them in a strange place. It wasn’t that she felt they were in any danger, but it was weird.
Bes wasn’t back, and Linn wound up in the library with Deirdre anyway. The boys had vanished. Whatever they had been tussling over while out hunting, they had still bonded in some mysterious male fashion over it, leaving Linn outside their brotherhood. She was bored.
So the summons from the king, in the form of the first child she had seen at Mac’Lir’s court, came as a welcome event. He was tiny, with a nut-brown face and hair, like he spent far more time playing outside in the dirt and sunshine than he was now, dressed up in a formal page outfit and bowing stiffly.
“You are requested in the Great Hall, to attend the king’s desires,” he announced.
“I don’t have any dress-up clothes,” She told him, torn between amusement at his formal garb, and concern that she was supposed to come up with a dress or something. He didn’t seem like the kind of king who stood on protocol... she remembered the garden encounter that morning.
“As you are.” The little boy told her pompously.
“Well, then...” she stood up. “Let’s go.”
Deirdre followed as well. They came to the Great Hall of flags, where Manannan Mac’Lir was seated on a carved wooden throne, with a small group of people around him. Some were standing and talking, others were at two tables, sitting and writing on paper. Linn had a fleeting thought to wonder what the king would think of a computer. She hadn’t brought her laptop along.
She stopped when the page stopped. He executed a neat little bow, and she looked up at Mac’Lir. “Am I supposed to curtsey or something?”
He laughed. “No, I know you aren’t my subject, and besides, you are charmingly different my dear.”
“I’m an American.” Linn shrugged. “I know what a king is, but I’ve never had one.”
He nodded. “Much has changed since I laid down to sleep. I am learning, but it will take time. Which I don’t have to spare.”
“I’m not sure how I can help, until Bes gets back.” Linn shrugged.
Mac’Lir looked surprised. “Have you looked at your hand?”
“Wha-” She looked at her palm, where he had put the feather last night. There was a black mark there, in the shape of a feather. “You tattooed me!”
“Not exactly. It will fade in time. I used the feather to give you all you needed to complete your quest. Then, you may return to me, having proven yourself, and I will grant your wish.” He leaned back in his throne, doing that sleepy-eyed contemplation of her again. Linn opened her mouth to give him a piece of her mind, and then shut it again.
This was, after all, what she had wanted. She’d volunteered for it.
“Am I going alone, then?” Linn really didn’t want that.
Mac’Lir shook his head, smiling. “You may take whomever you like. But you must go within the hour. I will also send Merrick with you, of my household. He is close to my heart, and will make a good champion for you.”
Linn felt her mouth drop open again, and made herself close it quickly. Of all the people she didn’t want, Merrick topped the list. Not that he’d done anythin
g wrong, but... he annoyed her. She turned and looked at Deirdre.
“Do you want to come?” Linn asked her.
Dee shook her head, looking sad. “I’m not ready for that kind of adventure, I’m sorry.”
“Oh, Dee...” Linn hugged her impulsively. “It’s ok. You don’t have to if you don’t want to. I’m the one that volunteered. I’ll leave Spot with you, so you aren’t on your own until Bes gets back.”
Dee nodded, her eyes a little watery. “Thanks. I’m not alone, but...”
Linn nodded. She knew she wouldn’t want to be alone in a place full of people she didn’t know. She turned back to Mac’Lir.
“I have to get my pack, and I am ready.”
“Brave girl. You are to go where the feather takes you, and return with the one who seeks my ruling. They cannot travel here on their own, they have not the strength.”
Linn could feel the palm of her hand grow warm as he channeled a little Power into it. The tiny nanobots, a legacy of a civilization so far in advance of humans as to appear magical, might be invisible, but they had a lot of strength even after all these centuries. Linn’s hypothesis was they were self-replicating, but on a very limited level, or the gods would have taken over Earth a long time ago instead of retreating as humans developed tech of their own.
But for now, she clenched her hand around the mark he’d made, and nodded goodbye before retreating to the room where she had left her things. Someone had taken her dirty clothes, and they were folded neatly and clean on the bed. A cloth-wrapped bundle proved to be food when she investigated, and her water bottle had been refilled. Linn wasn’t sure whether she was upset someone had touched her things, or happy for the help. This whole trip had her off balance – it had from the beginning when she’d been separated from Bes on the High Path.
Hopefully that wouldn’t happen this time. She was going to take Blackie, and had to take Merrick, and who knew if he could walk the High Path. He’d come to get her in a car, after all. Linn sighed and put her backpack on. Time to get this done. Maybe it would be easy.
Chapter 7
Merrick met her and Blackie by the door to the garden.
“Have you ever taken the High Path?” Linn asked him. He was dressed in a very modern jacket layered over a t-shirt and jeans. Hiking boots completed the ensemble. At least he looked like he could pass as normal. Blackie, on the other hand... Linn sighed. She really didn’t know what to do about the big cat. He looked like an escapee from the zoo.
Merrick answered her. “Yes, but only with someone else. I don’t have the power to do it myself.” He looked like he’d bitten into a lemon. Linn guessed it was hard on his pride to admit that.
“I can, now, and I couldn’t before, so maybe you can learn.” She offered a good thought for him.
He shrugged and turned away. “Where are we going?”
“I have no idea.” Linn held out her hand. “But it’s time.”
Blackie nudged his head under her hand, and Merrick slowly held out his for her to take. She closed her eyes, gathered a sense from the feather-mark on her hand of time and place, and then took a big step. When she opened her eyes again, they were on the Path. “Keep moving,” she warned the others, having learned her lesson well. “I don’t know how long this will take.”
Merrick just grunted acknowledgment, looking around. He hadn’t let go of her hand, either. Linn could feel the feather tattoo pulsing in time with her heart.
“Why are you mad?” Linn decided she would make conversation to pass the time.
Merrick looked startled. She went on. “Is it because Mac’Lir asked you to take care of me? Because I can take care of myself.”
“No... I don’t mind that,” he said.
“You were fighting with Blackie.” Linn could feel Blackie twitch his shoulders, like he was trying to knock off a fly. Merrick looked amused.
“We were just messing around. It’s a guy thing.”
“I don’t understand guys.” Linn stuck her tongue out at him.
Merrick took a deep breath, and then burst into laughter. “I don’t understand girls, either. You’re ok, though.”
“Gee, thanks. Ouch.” Her hand was suddenly burning. She let go of Merrick’s hand and shook it in the air. “Ow!”
He looked alarmed. “I felt that.”
“It hurts!” Linn thought quickly. “Let’s get off the High Path.”
It was hard to collect her thoughts and land them, with her hand throbbing, but they stepped out into a... strip mall parking lot? She looked around. It was nighttime, and the parking lot was lit with only one streetlight, which was flickering like it was about to go out. The stores were dark, and she didn’t think most of them would be open even in the daytime.
“Where are we?” Merrick asked.
“I don’t know. But my hand feels better.” She shivered. The night air was cool, and she was worried about someone seeing Blackie.
“Can you use it to figure out if we are close?” Merrick had turned so he could see behind them, and Blackie was looking out into the darkness as well. Linn decided she could risk closing her eyes and using the sight to try figuring this out.
When she focused, she could feel a mental tugging off to her left. She looked.
“Well, I think we need to go around this.” Since she was fairly sure that what they were looking for wasn’t inside that store, with the boarded-up windows. And what kind of name was “Shur-Sav?”
“Before someone sees us.” Merrick looked as uneasy as she felt.
The alley behind the stores was completely dark, and pitted with potholes that Linn was having trouble avoiding. Merrick and Blackie started steering her around them after she stepped in the first one.
“You ok?” Merrick asked in a low tone.
“Fine...” Linn whispered back. Her ankle hurt, but not badly. The dark was spooking her.
Her eyes adjusted to the dark slowly, and they walked along the back wall. Linn wasn’t sure what they were looking for, but when she saw the pinpoints of light around the door, she was sure that had to be it. She walked up to it and knocked. Out of the corner of her eyes she saw Blackie fade into the shadows.
Good, she still wasn’t one hundred percent sure this is where they were supposed to be. She could hear footsteps approaching the door. It jerked open, inward, and bright light spilled out over her and Merrick, standing just behind and slightly to one side.
“Who t’hell are you?” The man with the gun demanded.
Linn eyed it. That shotgun barrel looked monstrously big from this side. He held it low, and with his finger on the trigger. She flared her hands out to the sides, holding them so it was obvious they were empty. She really, really hoped Merrick didn’t do anything silly.
“Mac’Lir sent us.” She spoke softly, meeting his eyes and hoping he had a clue what she was talking about.
He blinked rapidly. Then he leaned forward, peering around them, and making Linn very nervous as the barrel of the gun approached her sternum. Behind her, she could hear a low growl from Merrick.
“Get in here.” The man ordered, with a jerk of the gun barrel. He stepped back slightly to allow them past, but kept the weapon pointed at the teenagers. Linn was having second and even third thoughts at this point, but she stepped past him into the empty storeroom. Merrick followed, and she could see now that he had followed her lead, keeping his hands well away from his body and conspicuously empty.
“Who are you?” The man demanded again. Now another man walked through the hanging plastic strips from the main part of the store, also carrying a gun. Linn’s heart sank.
“I think we may be in the wrong place.” She told them, trying to keep her voice level and calm. “We came from Manannan Mac’Lir in response to a call for help.”
Linn didn’t dare close her eyes and look to see if either of them had an aura of power. She kept eye contact with the first man, waiting to see what he would do. He looked at the second man.
“D’ye think th
ey’re cops?”
The second man snorted and shook his head in disgust. “Sometimes I think Mama dropped you on your head. They’re kids. Tie them up, and then we can figger out what t’do with them.”
Linn held very still as the man tied Merrick hand and foot, then her. She wasn’t about to try and be heroic with that gun trained on them both. To her relief, Merrick didn’t, either. If their captors left them alone, she could get them out of the mess she’d gotten them into. Once they were both bound and lying on the cold concrete floor, the second man dropped the muzzle of his gun, and walked over to the first one. Faster than she could really see, he drove the butt of the shotgun into the younger man’s belly.
“You idiot!” He screamed as the first one folded up onto the floor, keening with pain.
Linn laid still and pretended to be not-there, hard. Older man, clean shaven, but with long greasy gray hair tied back into a queue, kept yelling.
“What are you gonna do with them, huh? It’s one thing to have a lab right here in town, it’s a whole ‘nother thing to dispose of two kids!”
Linn shivered. The man kept ranting. “You and your stupid chants. Every stinking time something goes wrong, you call on Mac’Lir, like he’s a real god, or something. Now look what you’ve done!”
Linn closed her eyes. Partly, this was to try and suppress the nervous giggle she could feel welling up inside her. Either the guy’s chanting had worked, or it hadn’t... and her arrival kind of proved it did. The other reason she closed her eyes was to focus her inner sight and see what power they might have.
The man on the floor had a flicker of Mac’Lir’s sea green power, not a lot. The other one had nothing. She thought she could guess why they were here... and it made her very curious about how this whole summoning thing worked. For instance, would it call her grandfather if she did it to him? It wasn’t like all the gods were linked by their nanotech, or they couldn’t have fought for centuries without at the least, telegraphing their every move to their opponents.
Linn had spent the last two years studying the power of the gods in her spare time around school, and playing on the beach. She knew it was leftover technology so advanced as to look like magic. What she didn’t know, yet, was how to properly use it and possibly replicate it. That, she had decided almost as soon as she had guessed what it was, she would make her life’s work as she grew up.
The God's Wolfling (Children of Myth Book 2) Page 5
