The Summer Country

by James A. Hetley

  Shelter was too far away. The falcon swerved as though drawn to the duck by magnetism, flipped her talons forward, and struck with the force of a rifle bullet. Feathers exploded from the teal. Its body tumbled into the loose unmistakable cartwheel of death, and the killing scream of the peregrine split the air.

  Dougal closed his eyes and replayed the scene, a hard, predatory smile full of teeth turning his face into a cousin of the falcon's mask. The stoop, the kill--they were beautiful. The peregrine met all his hopes and dreams, and more. His heart pounded with her excitement and blood-lust, the fierce exultation of her power and deadly speed. He licked his lips and let his mind feast on her flight again.

  She didn't even land on her kill but circled back to his fist to land with incredible delicacy. Those talons could drive straight through his gauntlet and into the flesh beneath if she tried, but she barely gripped him. He could probably fly her from his naked fist.

  "Ah, you are so lovely, my dear," he whispered. His free hand offered her a chicken wing to tear, the blood and meat and destruction her pounding heat demanded. Her eyes gleamed with predatory fire as if she thanked him for the chance to kill. They were partners.

  The bird's power and nature married to his own will, that was what turned falconry into something sexual. When the peregrine killed for him, he trembled just short of orgasm. Now, he relaxed into the afterglow as he carried his feathered assassin across the soft grass and looked down on the crumpled body of the duck.

  Common teal, male, he named it automatically, one of the smallest ducks. It was such a prosaic name for such a handsome bird, with its mahogany head and soft green mask sweeping back from the eye, with its green wing patches glowing iridescent against gray and brown flight feathers in the afternoon sun. The falcon had broken his neck, swift beauty brought down by swifter beauty.

  Dougal soothed the peregrine with his fingers, caressing her lovely chest. As always, he thought out loud when alone with his falcon, the sound of his voice helping to maintain the spell of her manning.

  "Yes, my pretty one. You are such a deadly beauty, just like my darling Maureen. She is almost ready to come to my fist, come to my bed, my feathered assassin. Soon I will fly her against Fiona, against Sean, against my other enemies in the Summer Country. The truce is over. She will leave my wrist and fly free and strike the prey I choose for her and then return willingly, to me, as you return."

  The falcon preened on his wrist, cleaning duck down and a scrap of skin from her talons. The chicken wing had vanished into shreds.

  Such beauty. Such power. His. As Maureen would soon be his.

  He sensed it. The girl fought on, longer than he had thought possible, but she weakened. Her need to save her sister, that would push her over the edge, that would be the final straw. That had been nothing but chance, chance he wove into his plan when it floated by. Without it, he would still have succeeded. Success was only a matter of time and will.

  "Time and will, my lovely one." He smoothed the feathers of her crown, and she rubbed against his finger sensually, like a cat. "Even the humans understand it. Boot camp, brainwashing, tough love: call it what you will. I take the person apart and reassemble the pieces the way I want them fitted. Sooner or later, the subject does what I want, says what I want, truly thinks what I want her to think. Sooner or later she comes to obedience. And then I reward her."

  Because he was who he was, time compressed for him. What took humans tiresome weeks, he achieved in days. His own peculiar skills added the special touch, the little nudge which pushed the creature beyond obedience into love. Maureen teetered at that edge. He felt it, clearly. Soon she would become his newest, deadliest falcon.

  One of his serfs approached, and the peregrine swiveled her head, cocking it first one way and then the other as if considering the man as prey. The Old One smiled at the sight. A man was far too large for his falcon to eat, but she could actually kill him with a lucky strike of her talons. And she would try, for her Master.

  "Take the duck to the kitchen. Tell them to hang it until it is well aged and then roast it with apples and cloves. My bride will still be hungry when it's ready. She will want such dainty snacks." His face hardened, again. "Remind the cooks: tender and juicy. If they keep overcooking game, I will roast one of them for dinner."

  The man bowed silently, knowing better than to laugh; it wasn't a joke. He added the teal to his game-bag. Two hares, a pheasant, and a duck: not a bad afternoon. Dougal had been delighted when the peregrine showed she would take hares. Birds were her natural prey. She would eat well, back at the mews, and sleep.

  "Yes, my love. You will eat well, but not as well as you might wish." The falcon's eyes relaxed, lulled by the sound of his voice and the power of his Blood behind it. He didn't need to hood her.

  "Yes, my precious killer. Just like Maureen, I must keep you sharp. A well-fed hunter is a lazy hunter. If you fed on that teal, you would gorge yourself, and I could not hunt you again tomorrow. Just like Maureen, you must always want that little something more which only I can give you."

  Her eyelids drooped, and she dozed on his wrist, bathing in the joy of killing and the calm warmth of his presence. Food, and sleep, and the fierce exultation of deadly flight: these were her world.

  He gave them to her. She had forgotten that he had first taken them away. He was her god.

  Soon Maureen would see him the same way. Then he could use her to attack those keeps of renegade slaves and the traitors of the Blood who sheltered them, carve the human cancer from the belly of the Summer Country. Then he could quit twitching every time Fiona looked up from her cottage and her nasty little games.

  He frowned and shook his head. Balance Maureen against the loss of the dragon, and he still came out ahead. However, he would have preferred not to pay so high a price for her, no matter how great her power and beauty.

  The dragon, too, had been beautiful.

  Dougal turned and took one last glance over the fields, breathed deep of the rotting marshes. Again he spoke to the falcon, and himself. "Those are Fiona's fields you flew, my darling. In human terms, you and I were poaching her preserves. Our truth is a little deeper than that, isn't it, more like a reconnaissance? Testing an enemy's defenses? I'm sure she felt my footsteps on her grass, knows each time we probe and where. It's all part of the game we play."

  Fiona being who she was, he needed to check the edges on a regular basis, see what plants she might have sent creeping along as advance scouts of an invasion. The marsh was one way he fought back, wild land conquering her pasture. In Scots terms, they were border lairds, never truly controlling any ground their troops did not stand on with weapons bared.

  One of his troops materialized out of the brush, licking his paws. Blood spotted Shadow's nose and cheeks, and the fastidious cat groomed it out of his charcoal fur. Dougal saw a rabbit in the leopard's thoughts, and Sean creeping through the forest, and Maureen's sister by a pool. He thought about setting the cat to hunt down one or both of them, and shook his head. He never discarded tools before their usefulness was done.

  Instead, he told the cat to prowl, and started the climb back to his keep. I need more guards, he thought. Losing the dragon leaves a hole in my defenses. Shadow should stay in the keep, with me.

  Perhaps Liu Chen would discuss the cost of importing another worm from the Celestial Temple. Chinese myth holds such exquisitely dangerous animals. No one else would have exactly what I need, the hunger and the cunning and the beauty.

  Or maybe the dead dragon's mate would succeed with that clutch of eggs. Only time would tell.

  He climbed through the tangled, dangerous wildness of his forest, testing his eyes and ears and Blood against the defenses he'd set. Finally, grassland opened out around his keep--the open hilltop that provided a clear view of anyone approaching, a clear shot at anyone approaching.

  Padric waited, summoned by guards who knew better than to let anyone approach the keep unnoticed and un-met. The master falconer took the
peregrine gently on his arm and smiled as if the bird was his, the training of it was his, the pride of mastery was his. Sometimes Padric stepped above his station. Dougal didn't think he was a harsh master, but he insisted that humans know their place.

  "She missed one stoop on the pheasant, and was slow to come back for the second. Have you been feeding her too much?" The accusations were half-true, at best, but they would serve to remind Padric of who ruled the keep and mews.

  Padric's smile vanished. "No, master. Only the standard working ration." He quickly ran experienced fingers over her legs, her crop, through her flight feathers, down her back and tail. If she had a flaw or injury, those fingers would know. The peregrine studied him in return, as if she questioned his fitness for the hunt.

  "And how is the woman doing?"

  "Not well, master. She wastes away. She loses weight much faster than she should."

  Dougal nodded. "That's her magic wrestling with mine. Make sure she gets no meat, no fats, no sweets--nothing with energy or blood in it, nothing to feed her powers. You've only given her the skimmed-milk cheese?" Starvation was a two-pronged weapon in his strategy, weakening both her will and the power flowing in her veins.

  "Exactly as you said."

  "Good. And the rest?"

  "She mutters. She talks to people who are not there, sees things that are not there. Now that we've unchained her, she sits and rocks back and forth, staring at the walls. The last time I checked on her, she didn't even see me. Her eyes were open, but her mind was far away."

  "Good."

  "I was happier when she tried to hit me." Padric raised one hand to his cheek, to one scab among the many on his face. Something lit in his eyes then, as if her defiance meant hope for him. Then sorrow followed, the thought of where the woman was now bound, and what was planned for her. Padric's eyes dodged Dougal's.

  Ah, Dougal thought. It starts with pity and grows into admiration, just like with the cats and falcons. You've lost your heart to our prisoner. I can let you love Shadow or the hounds, but we can't have that with the mistress of the keep. Such a powerful witch, she is. She's spelled you away from fealty, without you knowing--without even her knowing what she's doing. So great she'll be, once I've trained her.

  He reached out with the Power, running fingers over Padric's emotions as he had soothed the peregrine with his touch. Padric was a valuable tool. Dougal couldn't afford to lose him yet. Not quite yet.

  He felt the loyalty build, the warmth, the trust. He felt Padric break loose from the thin net of Maureen's weaving, felt the ragged bindings of obedience grow strong again.

  Dougal wrapped his control in steel and set a watch on it. He shook his head in wonder. The signs had been there to read, and he had nearly missed them. Now he would be on guard.

  "Remember, she must believe. If she thinks you're acting, the moment will pass. I would be most displeased."

  "She won't break. She'll try to claw your eyes out when you come to rescue her, just like she did two nights ago."

  Padric's eyes still glistened with unshed tears. Dougal scowled at the sight. "Shadow tried to claw both of us during the training. Now he serves me gladly. The peregrine bated until she nearly died from exhaustion. Those were only stages we had to pass. Keep to the plan."

  "Master, if we keep this up much longer, she will die."

  "No. She'll give up. No bird or beast or woman can stand against my skill."

  Padric swallowed something bitter. "Remember Ghost."

  Dougal remembered. Shadow's littermate, a female, black on black and a slimmer, deadlier grace: Ghost. She'd fought. When Dougal came to her cage, she'd throw herself against the bars--clawing toward him rather than away. She'd known why she was caged. She'd known who had caged her.

  "True. Some animals can't be tamed," Dougal murmured. "Ghost preferred to die rather than obey." He shook his head. "Fiona isn't that strong."

  "This isn't Fiona."

  Dougal blinked at the reminder. Sometimes he confused the two women, the captive he held in his dungeon and the one he wished he held. But Maureen would be better: stronger and more beautiful. Maureen wouldn't haunt his nights with dread and failure and mockery. Maureen would help him destroy Fiona, destroy the fear and the acid laughter.

  "No, she isn't Fiona. And because she isn't, she has no training in her power, no understanding of what she does. That is why my way must tame her, turn her to my will. That is why she'll surrender. My Blood is stronger."

  Maureen would be the most powerful witch in the Summer Country. Dougal would control her. That was his revenge, revenge on all the Fionas of the world.

  "My Blood is stronger," he repeated.

  "Why don't you take more part in taming her, if your powers would make such a difference?"

  "The woman isn't a hawk. She has a memory. Shadow is our smartest beast, and even he remembers poorly. We want this woman to love me, rather than just obey me. Everything that she hates must come from you, not me. I must be her rescuer. If she learns to hate me, it could slumber like banked coals and rekindle moons from now."

  Padric stood, holding the hawk and thinking. Dougal read his face. Pain sat there, and confusion, and fear. Yes, my slave, he whispered to himself. You are building hatred in the heart of a powerful witch. You, personally. Think about what that means. Just don't think too much.

  "Do exactly what I told you. This will be the final stroke. She hates and fears all men. You will strike to the heart of that fear, and push her straight into my arms."

  Dougal read obedience in the slump of Padric's shoulders. The human turned away, carrying the peregrine back to the mews, carrying his own burdens back to the dungeon and the last act of Maureen's training. Dougal smiled and shook his head.

  The dragon had been rare and beautiful. Humans were not rare at all, and few of them were beautiful. Padric was worth far less than the dragon. His value had been part of the balance from the very start.

  Dougal waved those thoughts away and considered dragons, planning his approach to Liu Chen. For the moment, Maureen sat lower on his priorities.

  Padric must do what needed doing until the final scene.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  "David!"

  Jo stumbled to her feet, twisting around to look for his familiar form. He'd sounded close.

  "David?"

  No David. Not down in the sinkhole, not silhouetted against the afternoon sky, not poking his head out of the dark secret frightening cave that swallowed the stream. No rescuer. No rescue. She was still stuck in this fucking hole.

  She slumped back on her favorite rock, inhaled the smell of damp stone and rotting leaves and a faint cinnamon trace from the ferns, and sighed. Nothing had changed. It even sounded the same, the ceaseless thin hiss and burble of water cascading down on rock.

  Only the rope was new, and the lump with one arm draped over the rim high overhead. She'd never even known his name. She felt unreal, looking up at him, the sort of dissociation from her actions that psychos were supposed to feel.

  And she'd thought Maureen was the homicidal maniac.

  Schizoid or not, Little Sister had never killed anybody. Here Jo went, shooting a total stranger who might be her only way out of this goddamn pit. And she'd complained to Momma about a little round of talking to the trees?

  Maureen. The whole mess was her fault. She’d come here with that mocking shadow, made this place real with her schizoid delusions. She'd dragged Jo after her, and Brian and David, dragged all of them into danger. Jo felt like strangling the little twit. All this bat-guano was her fault.

  "David?" She whispered his name again, almost praying.

  Her only answer was the hiss of falling water, like an AM radio tuned to a station so weak it was just a voiceless pulse in the static. It formed vowels and consonants and even syllables at times but never a coherent word. She shivered.

  The passing rage had left her cold as well as hollow. She pulled Maureen's damp jacket tight around her and huddled close
r to the dying fire. The waterfall muttered behind her back, and she quit trying to force words into its voice. It wasn't David.

  The stranger had said David was a blood sacrifice, not dead but dying in some obscene gift to the land. The thought turned her knees to jelly and left a throbbing knife-sharp headache in its wake. She couldn't do a damn thing about it, trapped in the bottom of a fucking hole.

  Damn Maureen!

  She closed her eyes, tired of forever seeing the same rocks and clumps of moss, the same rough dark circle cutting off her vision overhead. She had to relax and recharge and make one last try at climbing out. Maybe she could loop the rope over a protruding lump of limestone, or tie a rock on the end and see if she could snag it somewhere up above like a grappling hook.

  Just relax. She had to let her mind ride on the pulsing hiss of falling water. Forget about Maureen, forget about David, forget about the lump with the dangling arm. She let her empty mind search for the mystic's center, calm in the heart of storm.

  Relax.

  Listen to the water.

  {Touchhh} formed out of the water's song.

  {Ssssomething} followed, a hissing tumble of syllables.

  {Livinggg} echoed with a sigh.

  The voice of the water sounded like David, like his whispered thoughts at three in the morning when they both hovered on the edge of sex-drained sleep. Their words would tiptoe around the edges of telepathy, single thoughts or words or half-formed noises completed in the other's brain.

  She opened her eyes, and the sound became falling water once more. Touch something living, it had said. She sat on bare dry rock. The wet moss glowed faintly in the light from overhead. Crimson and gold edges drew fine lines around the fronds of the ferns, as if they shone with an inner light that leaked out into a static corona.

  It had to be refraction in the mist, an underground rainbow from the afternoon sun. Her vision buzzed like she had just downed three cups of coffee.

  Touch something living. Her hand reached out, tentatively, to a clump of ferns, as if her body had given up on impossibility and the rational forebrain that sneered at such foolishness. Next thing, she'd be reading fiery letters carved in tablets of stone, hearing voices from the burning bush. It was time to call for the men in white coats--maybe they'd pull her out of here.