Dreamseeker's Road (21 page)

“No.”

The knife moved closer—to no obvious effect.

“Would you get off me now?”

David didn't move. “What about Alec McLean?”

“What about him?”

“You seen him in…the last day?”

“At the club last night, for an instant. He did not look happy.”

David exhaled wearily and rolled off the woman. She did not move, but sat up in place and brushed at her sleeves, where leaves had stuck to them.

“So are you from Faerie?” David asked.

“It would seem that you think so.”

“Goddamn it!” David spat, jumping to his feet. “Go
d-
dammit!
I
don't
need
this, lady! I've got a problem that involves that piece of Track there; you know how to work 'em; and I'd
appreciate
it if you'd just…cooperate!”

“So you assume that if you bully me, I will be delighted to do your bidding? Well, think again—David
Sullivan
!”

“I'm…sorry,” David mumbled softly, not meeting her eyes. “Sometimes you don't have much choice—or don't think you do. Sometimes you gotta take a wrong action over none.”

“So what do you want from me?”

“You can start by tellin' me what's goin' on in Faerie. Why're so many of you guys suddenly turnin' up here?”

“The Borders are closed,” the woman replied. “One would be a fool to defy he who ordered traffic between the two suspended. No one from
there
dares venture here, and no one from here who finds his way there will be allowed to return. Which you should think on long and hard.” And which, David noted, was not an answer.

“
You're
here.”

“Perhaps I am a fool.”

“Would this fool have a name, then? Or would you rather I just
called
you that?”

“Of course I do!” the woman flared. “But I certainly will not give it to you! Now tell me what you want and let me be about my business. Nothing good ever comes of your kind trafficking with mine—as you well know!”

“No,” a third voice broke in from behind them, “it doesn't.”

David twisted around—and with a mix of relief and dire concern saw that it was Liz, dressed in full woodsman's kit, easing out from behind the blasted oak.

“You heard that, did you?” he asked, with his best helpless grin.

“Sure did.”

“How much?”

“Started with ‘he did not look happy.'”

“So you know?”

Liz nodded. “I take it this is the lady you saw at the 'Watt?”

“One of 'em. The one that freaked Alec.” David turned back to the Faery. “You still haven't told me why that other woman left when she saw you.”

“And you have not told me why you have come here.”

David puffed his cheeks. “I'm probably takin' a chance with this,” he sighed. “But…I'm lookin' for two of my buddies.”

The woman's lips grew thin. “And you think they are upon the Trod?”

“If that's what you call it. At least one of 'em is, I'm almost sure.”

“Tell me, then!”

David did, as sketchily as he could, beginning with Aikin, who was their more immediate concern.

The Faery scowled darkly when he paused for breath—but, he was relieved to see, not at him.

“So are the World Walls leakin'?” he asked abruptly.

“They might be,” the woman hissed. “It is not for me to say.”

David was on the verge of a scathing retort, when the Faery rose. “I will make a bargain with you,” she announced. “Since it is because of a creature of Faerie that your friend has passed this way, it is for Faerie to find him. But I will do that thing only if you will promise to ask no more questions about my activities here.”

“Not even your name?”

“Especially not that!”

“Nor what you're doin' in mortal substance, hauntin' rock and roll clubs, and pretendin' to drive Ford Tauruses?”

“Not them either.”

“You said ‘friend,'” Liz broke in. “What about Alec?”

“You have not
told
me about Alec.”

“You haven't given me a chance,” David shot back—and laid out that tale as well.

“How do you know he is on the Tracks?” the woman inquired when he had finished.

“He…didn't actually
say
he was on the Tracks,” David admitted, gaze fixed hard on the Faery. “He said he'd ‘gone Tracking.'”

“And,” Liz put in, “he went wherever he did from Athens—and how many Tracks can there be near here?”

“Many,” the Faery retorted. “But only one that our kind could access from your World.”

David took a deep breath. “How 'bout if he went straight through the World Walls?”

“
Mortals
cannot pass through the World Walls!”

“Not by our own power,” David countered. “We can…. That is, Alec can. He has something…magical that lets him.”

The woman's eyes narrowed. “And what might this something be?”

David shook his head. “I don't think I oughta tell you. And if you know as much as you hint, you know anyway. But if you'll help us find him—and Aikin, of course; you probably need to find him first—if we
do
find him, I'll ask him to show you.”

“You are a very great deal of trouble, human,” the woman snorted.

“I'm also very curious,” David snapped. “And I promised not to ask you any questions—and believe me, I've got a boodle, like, why you were in our World when the borders are supposed to be closed. Or—”

“Enough!” the woman growled. “I have said I will seek your friend. If I must, I will search for this other as well—
when
I
have concluded the first.”

“He's been gone longer,” Liz added helpfully.

“But time runs oddly on the Tracks around here,” the woman gave back. “Yet if what you related is true, he cannot have gone far. I should be able to determine
that
very quickly.”

“We're going with you, of course,” Liz said into the ensuing pause. She stepped smartly forward and wrapped an arm around David. He patted the hand that curved around his waist—and nodded agreement.

The Faery glared at him. “I would prefer that you did not, but it seems pointless to argue. Very well, come—or stay.”

And with that, she caught the horse's reins with one hand, and strode toward the Track.

David was there in a flash, grabbing her arm as she made to step upon it. “I'm not that big a fool,” he snorted. “You could be on that thing and gone!”

“I do not break my word,” the woman spat icily. And stomped down on that strip of barren ground.

The Track flared to brilliant, shimmering life. David gasped. It had been a long time since he'd seen a Track activated, a very long time indeed. His wonderlust flamed strong within him, like a leaf catching fire from a coal. Taking a deep breath, he followed the Faery—still gripping her arm—and, with Liz bringing up the rear, came full upon the Track. Its light promptly lapped up around him, and with it came that subtle flow of invigorating energy he'd almost forgotten. He breathed a happy sigh.

And released the woman's arm. “Sorry,” he told her, with a lopsided grin. “I just kinda felt like I had to.”

The Faery raised an eyebrow, then turned and surveyed the Track, where it arrowed toward the west. Immediately, she stiffened, then squatted down and extended her hands over the glowing, shifting surface. Almost David thought he saw images form there, but it made his eyes burn even worse and he had no choice but to look away.

For a long moment the woman remained motionless, then rose. Her face was grim. “Your friend indeed came here,” she said. “I have sensed both his presence and that of a female enfield. But he is beyond help,” she continued, her voice falling to a whisper. “For the Wild Hunt has also passed this way, and more recently—and if the Hunt is on his trail, he is doomed. Even I dare go no farther.”

David could only stare dully at the ground and shake his head. “No,” he said at last, grateful for the comfort of Liz's hand in his own. “You can stay here if you want, but I got him into this, I've gotta get him out.”

Chapter XIII: Over the Hills and Far Away

(The Straight Tracks—no time—night)

He had seen them now—and wished, most fervently, that he had not.

Caught in the open when the first mounted figure crested the ridge behind him, with the ruined spike of tower that was his goal still nearly half a mile distant, Aikin had found no choice but to fling himself flat where he stood and try to hide—in a particularly dense patch of gorse on the tower side of the car-wide stream he'd leapt scant seconds before. The foliage had obligingly frothed over him, providing a prickly screen—at least from visual surveillance by
ordinary
hunters. Fortunately, he was clad, in part, in camouflage. And fortunately, too, the fact that he'd crossed a body of water would give most things tracking him by scent pause—if that scent was not already obscured by the layer of mud, moss, and heather sheddings that begrimed the front of his body. Now if he could just keep quiet and still, he might have a chance—only that could be a problem, given how cold and wet the ground he sprawled upon was. In spite of himself, he shivered. But he shivered worse when he peered through the scanty twigwork at the dozen-odd figures silhouetted against the writhing sky.

Black was the ruling image: black man-shapes astride black horses atop a ridge of black-shadowed earth. Black spears stabbed the heavens there, and black banners snapped and worried around the nervous wind. One figure was taller than the others—or closer, or both—and that one alone wore a helm—Aikin
hoped
it was a helm—crowned with the rack of an impressive stag.

Abruptly, the eastern clouds ripped asunder and gave the moon free rein to play—and play it did, across those figures a quarter mile away. Yet even at that range Aikin caught the gleam of metal on armor and shields and weaponry—and once, he was certain, on what should have been eyes.

The moon showed other eyes, too: living ones, smaller, more closely set, and eddying about the horses' legs like paired embers of hellish red in a blot of knee-high smoke.
Hounds,
he knew. A hunting pack. But neither Host nor hounds poured down the slope to pursue him, though the pack was nosing the very spot where he'd lingered.

Aikin wanted very badly to bolt, but managed to hold his peace, to watch and wait, with his chin resting on one hand, while, beneath a foot-high bank before him, a pool of calm water shone like a blued-steel mirror, choked off by debris from the swifter flood.

So what were those guys gonna do?

“Shit!” he hissed into his hand. Something had moved not a yard beyond his nose. For an instant he thought it was the dratted enfield returning at the worst possible time, but then he realized that it was something in the water itself—a reflection, perhaps. Only it didn't exactly look like one, and as he continued to stare at that dark water, the movements upon it—or within it, it was hard to tell which—stabilized into images: all too familiar ones.

It was the Hunt—no longer atop the ridge. But how had they come so close so fast, to be reflected here? Except, wait— He raised his head just enough to scan the horizon. Yep, there they were, right where he'd left them, still not giving chase. And then one of those shapes shaded its eyes, and he saw that gesture continued in the water, and knew. There was something magic about this silent pool: he had wondered what the Hunt was about, and the water had shown him—still was, when he stared at it again.

And this time he saw the horned Huntsman as from no more than a few yards' distance: a tall dark shape beneath a voluminous cloak that might have been fabric or fur or feathers, and which billowed about him in frantic tatters as though he had ripped clouds from that thunderous sky and made of them a garment that had no other goal but to flee back to the heavens once more. He could see that one's head better, too, but still wasn't sure if the rack was grown from the Huntsman's flesh, or part of his regalia; for those antlers issued from elaborate bosses set on either side of an intricate silver cap helm, the long ear- and nose-pieces of which obscured the man's face, save for his sweeping black mustache—and his eyes.

—His eyes: a deep-set glitter in the darkness beneath the embossed browridges, that scanned slowly back and forth as he surveyed the valley in which Aikin sheltered. Slowly…slowly—and then, abruptly, he jerked his whole head around. Aikin flinched reflexively and tensed all over again, but then the Huntsman raised a complexly shaped and figured horn to his lips and blew a note like lightning striking a winded trumpet, and with a grunt from his mount (a black horse in black bardings) and a rustle of armor and jingle of mail, he and his Host swept back across the ridge.

—Out of sight to Aikin's mortal eyes, but not to the pond. It was like watching a video there, complete with Dolby sound, only a zillion times scarier. He wondered, suddenly, if the Hunt knew it was being observed by possible quarry—or cared. For maybe a minute that company rode across the moors, until one of the hounds belled loudly, and the Hunt veered in a direction Aikin
thought
might be toward the place he'd entered this World, and all at once he caught movement in the bushes directly in its path.

For the second time since he had hidden, he mistook that frantically leaping form for the enfield, for it was roughly the beast's size and color. But when it burst out on a stretch of open ground, Aikin discovered it was a person.

Sort
of a person, he amended, for the figure was less than waist-high. By its size and wizened features, its bare feet, and the patched and ragged clothes (rusty breeches and a sleeveless patchwork tunic belted with golden links), he surmised it was one of the band of small folk he'd encountered what was probably less than a quarter hour ago. He wondered too if the figure might not have come in search of him—to confound his torment with further slings and arrows, or help him return whence he'd come.