by Scott Duff
“Got any more tricks, boy?” he snarled as he drew the Sword back to swing.
I was out of options. Out of power. Everything was really fuzzy. No help in sight. So. I did what every seventeen-year-old boy does when he gets in trouble over his head. Maybe it’s a Southern thing, I don’t know. I didn’t think it would work, but it didn’t matter, I did it anyway. It was an emotional thing.
“Dad! Help!” I shouted as loud as I could and I watched the Day—my tool, my weapon—rise up high into the bright blue sky and come down at me fast. There wasn’t any slow motion effect, like in the movies. I knew I was dead as sure as the Day is long. I saw it coming. And I saw it stop.
A foot away from my neck, it stopped in mid-air. My eyes shot to the elf’s wrist. Wrapped around it was a man’s hand. He wore a simple gold wedding band, a man’s left hand, then. MacNamara was jerked around to face the owner of that hand and I saw him, too.
“That’s my boy you’re fucking with, Mac!” Robert McClure shouted at the elf. His voice was deep and strong, just like I remember it. Then he hit MacNamara in the face with a hard right hand, sending the elf flying through the air again. He should be used to the feeling by now. He landed face down, sprawled in the grass with the Day Sword a few feet away, out of reach and sticking in the ground at an odd angle. “Nobody fucks with my boy!”
“Dad?” I whispered in disbelief. I’d been missing my Dad for close to a year and here he was. Finally. I could cry. If only I had the energy. I just stared at him. He was buck naked but healthy and strong. As strong as I’d ever seen him. Satisfied for the moment that MacNamara was not threat, he turned to me, worried.
“Lord Seth,” called Shrank, appearing out of the grass in front of me. I’d graduated from Master to Lord, I noticed. “We must leave. They are coming.”
I barely registered what he said before I felt the tremors. East and West. The Queens were coming. Damn. There wasn’t anything I could do against them except maybe die.
“Seth?” Dad called peering at the armor. “Is that you?”
“Yes, sir,” I breathed out and asked the Stone to pull the armor away. I didn’t have the energy to insist. He rushed in to grab me by the shoulders, to hold me up before I fell over. The armor had been keeping me standing till now. I hurt all over. MacNamara caused some serious damage to me and I hadn’t felt it through the adrenaline rush. Still, it wasn’t as bad as Felix hurt. My mind was really fuzzy though.
“My God, son, what have you been doing?” he gasped, holding me on my feet. That hurt, too, but I didn’t care. My dad was picking me up off the ground after a hellacious fight. Isn’t that what fathers did?
“Can you get us out of here, Mr. McClure?” Shrank trilled loudly, shooting up between us to get Dad’s attention. He knew the importance of the problems coming.
I felt my Dad’s power rise around us fully for the first time and I recognized the sensation as having been around me all my life. It was comfortable and soothing. It felt like home. It felt like Dad. And it was time to go home. A portal formed to our left, perfectly circular and clear of any energy perturbations.
“That’s not mine,” Dad said suspiciously, moving me away from it, blocking me.
“It’s mine,” I said calmly and quietly. “Let’s go home.”
Nothing else about this had been like a movie, so I wasn’t expecting this but I should have I suppose. Just like in horror movies, the bad guy jumps up…
“Die!” MacNamara shouted hoarsely through broken teeth and bloody lips. I got my slow motion this time. Whirling around into my Father, I saw the broken Liege rushing forward awkwardly brandishing a shattered sword at us, intent on me and closing fast. I was already raising my left hand between us and calling for the last of my weapons and pulling a trigger that wasn’t there yet. The elf didn’t finish one step before the first Bolt hit him in the center of his forehead. The second Bolt hit his heart. Third and fourth hit the center of each lung. I kept firing until every green Bolt in the Quiver was gone.
Dad put his hand on mine, gently pushing the Crossbow down. “He’s dead, son. You can stop now.”
I stared at MacNamara’s body for a second, still holding the Crossbow, just in case. I recalled a similar picture in a parking garage, not that long ago, of an elf-shaped pincushion. I sent the Crossbow home and the Bolts disappeared, one by one but rapidly.
“That was so cheesy horror movie,” I said blandly. “Pete’s gonna be pissed that he missed it.”
“Lord Seth, we must hurry,” Shrank trilled, flying close to my shoulder. I nodded and turned back to the portal. I stopped a few feet short, remembering I forgot something.
“Night! Day!” I called out. The Night sword picked itself up from the rubble and flew to me hilt first, disappearing as soon as it touched my left hand. The Day hummed, lazily swimming through the air end over end, hitting my right with a smack and resolutely staying. I was in no condition to argue at the moment.
Shrank popped up in front of me. “Will you save them, Lord Seth?” he asked.
“Huh? Save who, Shrank?” I asked. I was a little shaky.
He sort of leaned and swung back in the air at the same time showing me the field in front of me. It quavered like it had heat rising from it, like a highway or the desert in summer, and the field came alive with tiny figures. The brownies, with a few fairies thrown into the mix. That was who Shrank shot out of my armor to help.
“Dad,” I said, turning to my naked father. “Don’t let them hurt the little ones. I’m right behind you.” Then I shoved him through the portal. “Hurry, Shrank, they’re really close and I can’t hold this open long.”
Shrank whistled shrilly and the ground twisted in a psychotically wild way as the brownies ran for the portal. I couldn’t watch the mass as it moved by me, afraid I’d fall down and be trampled by millions of tiny feet, so I kept watch over the walls of the arena. Shrank flew in jagged lines across the field, trilling words in a Fae language I knew I could translate if I concentrated. Concentrating on my feet was enough of a problem at the moment. The pressure of the Queens presence increased noticeably.
“Shrank,” I said, warning him. I started walking backward slowly. They were closer now. Much closer. They were hunting and being very thorough about it, taking their time. The brownie tide had slowed considerably, but Shrank ferried a few stragglers to the front as much as he could.
As tired as I was, I gathered as much energy as I could and bent it to the dissimilarity spell, mixing in first my father, then Ferrin and Gordon. Peter, I wasn’t that worried about. He was with me. He’d have enough to worry about with me around. That was the last spell I could manage for a while. Closing the portal would be a release.
The Queens coalesced together at the oak tree directly outside the arena proper. They seethed, cycling in contrast to each other. I could not tell at whom their anger was centered, but I knew that the arena was their goal and they paused just outside of it.
“Shrank, we’re leaving. Now!” I yelled at the pixie, stepping backward again and again. The elves didn’t know fear, but I did and those two scared me. Maybe they wouldn’t tomorrow, but right then? Oh, yeah!
“That’s all I could find, Lord Seth,” trilled Shrank, alighting on my shoulder. I stepped into the portal, looking back over the field again. The Queens still stood by the oak tree, staring at the arena. That rather surprised me, but I didn’t wait around to ask. As I closed the portal entrance, I felt the land outside die. It was a peculiar feeling, terribly unpleasant. I understood it completely. Excising a cancer, a nasty malignant cancer.
“You did good, Shrank,” I said as I turned and exited the portal, releasing the hold over space. Shrank’s reply was drowned out by millions of chirps and trills. I looked up at Dad through bleary eyes. He was leaning against some tall gates with his arms crossed, gawking at me.
“What the hell have you been doing, Seth?” he asked me. “How do you even know about this place?”
“Huh?” I res
ponded, quite intelligently I thought. My gaze rolled up the gate to the top, where I recognized the sigils cast in iron there. I’d brought us to the Pacthome. And that’s why I could open the portal and Dad couldn’t. “Oh. Crap, wrong place.”
Then my eyes rolled back in my head.
Chapter 60
“Seth,” my Dad’s voice rumbled into my consciousness, deep and mellow. “You need to wake up, son.” I could feel the heat of his chest and arm against me as he spoke. I felt amazingly good, very hungry, and more than a little woozy.
“Why is it so cold?” I asked, sitting up slowly and looking around. We were still outside the gate and the brownies were giving us plenty of space. Night was setting in. And I was starving.
“This is what it’s like at night here. It gets bitterly cold. Your brownies, or whatever they are, won’t survive a night and I can’t get them inside,” he said, direct and to the point. “You’ve either got to get us in there or get us out of here completely. And once we’re out of danger, I’d like to sit down and talk about what the hell has been going on! What have you been doing!” He stood up, wearing a pair of green athletic shorts made of similar silk as mine and a white wife-beater, ribbed even.
“Where’d you get clothes from?” I asked him.
“Your pixie friend provided,” he grumbled, flicking a finger in Shrank’s direction. The pixie flew into my sight, bowing slightly in the air.
“Shrank?” I asked.
“Yes, Lord?” Shrank called.
“Where did you get the clothes for my father?” I asked him.
“From the brownies, sir,” he answered.
“Shrank, we’ve talked about this,” I said, deepening my voice into a threatening range. He was leaving information out.
“Yes, Sir, we have,” he said. “But that was prior to your ascension to your present… position. It would be very much improper for me to offer information that you have not required of me. The penalties for such are rather extreme.” He bowed his head and bounced slightly in the air before me.
“Shrank, how exactly has my position changed?” I asked, suddenly very suspicious.
“You, Lord Seth, are the new High Lord of Faery,” Shrank said smoothly, bowing in the air.
“I’m an elf?” I asked, flabbergasted and ready to laugh hysterically at the thought of it.
“No, Lord Seth,” answered Shrank, nearly laughing himself. “But you still hold that honor. You have received this by Rite of Ordeal and Challenge, duly witnessed by both the Queen of Seelie and the Queen of Unseelie. That is why they both waited for you to leave the field before destroying all traces of Rat Bastard. Your chosen land has accepted the power you gave to it and will prosper for millennia. All that remains is to give your people purpose.”
“What does that mean?” I asked anxiously.
“That you must do for them what Lord Kieran did for me, only without the loopholes,” Shrank answered carefully.
“What?” I shouted in surprise. “What do you mean by that? I have to put a geas on a million brownies? I don’t know how to do that!”
“Then you should learn and quickly,” Shrank answered calmly. “Once night falls completely, the youngest will begin dying and by morning few will remain.”
I glanced at the sky and realized I had about twenty minutes before dark. I stood up quickly and regretted it instantly as the rush of dizziness greeted me. Dad jumped to steady me, whispering, “Slow down, there, champ.” I ignored him in favor of the bigger problem.
“Shrank, can this be temporary?” I asked the pixie.
“No, sir,” he said, changing his altitude to my shoulder height. “But it can be initially very small so that you can add to it later.”
“That’s a loophole I can live with,” I said. “What else?”
“I… don’t know, Lord Seth,” Shrank stammered out. “There are parts of the Geas that are not directly visible to me. It is like knowing your blood must flow to live, but not really knowing your blood is flowing, see?”
Letting out a frustrated breath, I said, “Shrank, would you object if I looked at Kieran’s?”
“Oh, not at all, most certainly, Lord Seth,” he said smiling at me, flying backward a foot.
I peered closely at him, pushing into the energy plane, looking for the spiraling rings floating around the pixie’s tiny soul. The Fae were only called soulless, and for many of the elves it was quite possibly true, but it was unfair in other cases. It was the soul that made the geas necessary. Otherwise, you’d just use a simple compulsion spell.
Copying Kieran’s geas in a much larger aspect, I started reading through the compulsion. Shrank was right. Two months ago, Kieran had written a very simple geas on him, once you got through the flowery language. Reading through all those contracts for the past month had taught me a thing or two about logical language, or illogical language in many cases. Kieran gave Shrank a lot of leeway. I started stamping out sections that wouldn’t change and reviewing what would need changing. I felt Dad at my back, looking at my work.
“How have you gotten this good at this in such a short time?” he asked me. “Is that desoan denari elish?”
“I don’t know what that is,” I said, not diverting my attention. “And if you’d been teaching me since I was younger, I’d be a lot further along than this.”
“desoan denari elish is one of the first elven languages,” Dad said, putting his hands on my shoulders and leaning in closer to read the fine green flowing script. “And don’t preach to me. Your mother and I have very good reasons for keeping you out of this world.”
“This is the first language, but desoan means ‘twice’ so that doesn’t make sense,” I told him. “And thanks to a combination of Lucian’s magic, St. Croix’s torture, and your Pact spell, Mother is in an infirmary at the Cahill’s in a coma.”
“What?” he shouted at me, twisting me around to face him, shocked at what I told him.
“Not now, Dad. I’m busy. Give me a few more minutes, please,” I said and calmly turned back to the geas in front of me. Dad moved to jerk me around again, but the Stone slipped a shield around me before he could get a grip on me. He slid off, jerking awkwardly and starting shouting obscenities. The Stone obliged with a sound baffle and dampened him out after a moment. Now if it could do that to whoever was beating on the wards, maybe I could concentrate and get this finished faster.
A minute later, I stepped back and reviewed the simple geas. That’s exactly what it was, too: simple. It looked very similar to Shrank’s but it lacked both directives and yield. Basically it said, “Do as I say. Period.”
“Shrank, can you read this?” I asked the pixie, waving at my very first attempt at a geas.
“Mostly, Lord Seth,” Shrank said. “It is very… elementary, but it should work for a month, maybe two. They will need more guidance than this for the future, though.”
“Mostly we’re worried about tonight, Shrank,” I snapped. “This should allow them to connect to the land for now. Then we’ll talk to Kieran. See if he knows what to do, because I don’t have a clue.” Rubbing my hands across my face and through my hair tiredly, I finished with, “Get everybody together, I guess. Let’s get this done.”
Shrank turned in the air and let out a long, shrill whistle. The ground around us shimmered like rising heat and thousands of tiny faces appeared looking up at me. Dad had quieted by that time, listening to Shrank and me, and now was once more in awe of the number of brownies and fairies in front of him.
As one the entire group chorused, “Greetings, Lord Seth,” in perfect English.
I smiled at them. “Hello, everyone. I’m very happy we were able to save you from that Rat Bastard and I hope you all live long and happy lives. I am… unprepared for this so we will have to do this again in a short time. I apologize for that and hope this is not too uncomfortable for you. With that in mind, let’s get this done, shall we?”
Again, as a chorus, “We thank you, Lord Seth.”
; Shrank was all eyes and dropped jaw. I noticed but was in a hurry now with sunset mere moments away. Reaching out for the ward, I pinpointed every Fae being in the land instantly and found all but Shrank without a geas, as expected. Racing back in my memory and picturing Kieran by the oak tree before entering MacNamara’s circus, I started moving and replicating the magic he’d done. Replicating it three hundred forty-eight thousand, nine hundred and ninety two times. I didn’t have to count; I just knew. And that was just the number of brownie clans. Oy. Then I spread it out to every one of them. Over a million had passed through the portal, somehow. Damn.
Dad watched intently as I worked the geas. It was an old magic and it took quite a bit of my concentration to push that much power out to so many tiny places. I tried to be gentle, but how could I tell for sure? There were over a million tiny spheres of luminous cobalt blue energy surrounding each fae, slowing as the geas took hold and showing the sphere to be three bands spinning randomly. Kieran’s were three bands of gold. Mine were different. Mine were two bands of gold surrounding a band of blue.
I leaned back in the grass, panting, once the final rings snapped into place. There was a collective gasp from them then they stumbled around dizzily for a few minutes, giggling happily, slowly disappearing into the surrounding woods. They stayed clear of the fences, though, and out of the compound. I understood the dizzy part. I was plenty dizzy myself.
“Shrank,” I said, drawing his name out really long and slow. “Take a look at these carefully. They don’t look like Kieran’s.”
“It is entirely possible that they would appear different to you and not to me, Lord,” trilled Shrank. “But I shall try my best.”
Dad sat down in the grass beside me. “That was… amazing, son,” he said, quietly. “Never seen the likes of it before. How long have you been studying behind my back?”
“Behind your back?” I asked, turning to look at him, incredulous. He didn’t know. “What is the date?”
“January seventeenth,” he answered, eyebrows coming together in suspicion.
