Dreamseeker's Road (25 page)

It'd all
been
woods, too: not once had they traversed other “places” or marched into lands, that by some fundamental…
oddness
were blatantly not their own.

Still, Aikin had gone this way, the Faery woman had assured them before her
change,
and they had no choice but to trust her if they would recover their friend. But surely even fleet-footed Mighty Hunter Daniels could not have come so far, not as curious as he was. Shoot, the first time he glimpsed anything even vaguely outré, he'd have been at it like a shot, notebook, ruler, and camera firmly in hand.

That image prompted David to vent a grim chuckle. It would've been his reaction too, a few years back. In fact, Aik reminded him of how he'd been the first time he'd come face-to-face with Faerie, unaware of its dangers. Though almost exactly the same age as his forester friend, he suddenly felt eons older.

So did his bod. For however energizing treading a Track might be, he was astride a horse when he hadn't ridden in a while; that horse held a probable grudge toward him; and his legs were paying the price. Already twinges were shooting up the muscles inside his thighs, where they stretched in unaccustomed ways to accommodate the mare's impressive girth. Never mind the friction all that bouncing and sliding produced, which, lubed by sweat both equine and human, would play merry hell on sensitive skin.

“This is a pain in the ass,” he growled to an altogether calmer Liz—and meant it.

Liz snickered back—probably because she knew it was expected. He loved her for that, too, and for not pushing, for letting him fight his own battle. And the really great thing was that if the chips were down, she
would
fight for him, beside him—or against him, if need be—to the death.

He hoped it didn't come to that.

Abruptly, the horse-woman slowed to an amble. David yipped softly: startled. There being no action he could take to locate his friend beyond trusting a possibly untrustworthy beast, he'd lost himself in reverie. But now, apparently, something had altered. The mare ducked her head—once, twice—and whickered.
There,
came her thought into his mind—for the first time since they'd left the Lands of Men.
If you strain your eyes, you can see.

David promptly leaned forward over the horse's shoulders to stare along the Track. The thick, dark briars, which had been head-high, so that their journey was like prowling the aisles of a wrought-iron warehouse in New Orleans after dark, now faded into a vagueness of whorling, lit by silvery gold. The sky was not to be contemplated—it rarely was on the Tracks, though it never held stars. And the Track itself was a narrowing point of haze.

But something moved in the distance: something that rose above the golden light and bobbed along away from them. Something that might be a shorter-than-average but pleasantly muscular young man. “Aikin,” David breathed—to himself, Liz, and the mare: all three. And also, perhaps, to the Track.

It is,
the horse-woman acknowledged.

“So what are you waitin' for?” he demanded harshly.

To see if anything
else
rides this way. Your friend may appear within quick reach, but as you well know, distances on the Tracks are deceiving.

—As David discovered when they were once more moving. For the figure ahead grew no closer, yet the longer they rode, the slower he seemed to progress, as though he were mired in molasses or reduced to videotape run in slow motion.

The landscape, by contrast, was shifting rapidly. With every step, the briars diminished in size and complexity of looping, and fell farther back from the sides of the Track, so that Liz could ride beside him constantly, her pretty, pointy features wary and intent. And as the briars receded, landscape was revealed: trees, like sequoias but with bark like silver fur, then a stretch of desert that lasted no more than five breaths. And then, all at once, the briars shrank to a near-invisible tangle, like hair-thin barbed wire left to rust for ages.

—And David found himself surrounded by rolling moor. He glanced at Liz, whose eyes had widened with wonder, then could not resist checking behind—where the moor continued unabated, marked only by a suddenly dull streak of Track. It was faded up ahead, too, and it took a moment to realize that was because it was raining. They had ridden into a cold, misty clamminess, and as they proceeded along at what some part of him knew was
not
a pace a man could maintain, the mist became drizzle, became what was well-nigh a thunderstorm.

They'd lost sight of Aikin, too, though that was because they rode uphill, and the Track, though it ran arrow straight, nevertheless followed the contours of that World, and Aikin had gone down the other side.

All at once dark shapes loomed out of the downpour. David first thought them a circle of impossibly tall, black-clad men. But then he rode close enough to tell even through the slashing veils of water and a faceful of sodden blond hair, that they traversed a circle of standing stones atop a high round hill. And when they'd passed through that circle and started down the opposite slope, they once again saw Aikin.

He was much closer—no more than a hundred yards—and this near, even with the rain and the glimmer of the Track that presently had much the look of gold-lit steam, they could likewise see the distinctive shape of an enfield loping ahead of him, its supple, foxlike body arching out of the yellow fog, then lost within it once more.

But why was Aik running?
He'd been jogging when they first sighted him, and hadn't looked back once in the interim. And in spite of the rain, surely he could see
something—
or
hear them, for the horses' hooves had certainly rung loud when they'd passed through the circle of stones.

But if anything, Aik seemed more frightened. For the first time David kicked his mount in the flanks. “Hurry!” he snapped, “don't lose him!”

It is not us he fears,
came that voiceless reply. “Screw this!” David spat, and shouted:

“Aikin!” His cry rang harsh in the stormy night—but the rain and the mist and the cold seemed to force it back down his throat, or drown it, as though beneath a soggy blanket.

“Aikin!” he yelled again. “Goddamn it, Aik, it's
us!
Dave and Liz! Slow the fuck down…Mighty Hunter!”

And with that the dark shape scampering ahead did slow—and turned, as though frozen with despair, to face them. Lightning flashed obligingly—the first since they'd come there—and showed a face David knew: wide cheekbones, pointy chin, (hatless) dark hair a smudge of points across his brow.

And all at once, though the horse had seemed to move no faster, they were upon him.

David dismounted before the mare had truly halted—and spoiled the reunion by touching down in a strip of mud and slipping, to sprawl flat on his back in rich, earth-scented ooze. His first clear view of his friend was as a shape cut out against a circle of driving rain, while walls of some nameless knee-high flower-herb-weed rose around his head and to one side a black horse looked blithely on. Aikin grabbed him under the shoulders as he scrambled up—and clamped him in a
very
thorough embrace.

“Forgot you don't like huggin' guys, huh?” David laughed giddily into his buddy's ear.

“I don't,” Aikin muttered back—and hugged him harder. “But it's better'n bein' scared shitless on some weird-ass moor.”

Liz had joined them by then, within reach, but not intruding. David drew her in, and for a moment the three of them stood there, arms locked around each other's shoulders, heads so close that even in the rain they could feel the others' breath.

“So,” Aikin gasped shakily. “Am I bein' rescued, or are you guys lost, or what?”

“The first,” David replied. “I
hope
.”
He raised his head abruptly, for it had just occurred to him that the tenuous agreement with the Faery woman had not been well-defined, and now that they'd found their friend, she was free of obligation. Yet she still stood there, on the Track, beside the white stallion, maybe two paces off. And then he remembered something he'd been trying very hard not to recall, which was why the Faery had feared to join them in the first place.

“The Wild Hunt,” David blurted, before he could stop himself.

Aikin—across whose shoulders his arm still lay—stiffened and met his eyes with a gaze at once resigned, hopeless, and grim. “I thought you were him,” he mumbled. “I heard your horses and thought you were him comin' back.”

David gaped incredulously. “You've
met
him?”

Aikin took a deep breath. “You could say that.”

“And
lived
?”

“I
guess I'd have to say yes
and
no.”

“Jesus Christ!” David gasped. “How?”

Aikin slapped him on the back. “How 'bout if we talk about that later? Say back at your place, assumin'… Oh shit!”

“What?”

“The enfield! It was here and now it's gone again.” Aikin looked around, puzzled. “It saved my life—twice.”

There is a first time for everything, then,
the horsewoman snorted.
But if you desire to return to your
own
Land—which I especially recommend tonight, with Himself out Riding—I would be glad and more than glad to see that accomplished.

“You'll get no argument from me,” Aikin admitted.

Good,
said the horse-woman promptly.
It is not wise to argue with folk from Faerie—when one walks its Borders so blatantly, in defiance of Lugh's ban.

“What ban?” From Aikin.

That the Borders 'twixt the two be closed; that those from other Worlds found here not be suffered to leave.

“So you're breaking the law?” Liz wondered.

Perhaps. But here we are still on the fringe.

David puffed his cheeks. “I hate to be a dweeb,” he began, “and I know I owe you about a dozen favors…but talkin' in my head is
really
distracting. So do you think you could, like, go back to bein' a woman, and…do something about this blessed rain?”

I could easily accomplish the former, but I prefer wet hide to wet hair. As for the latter, it is not for one such as I to command someone else's sky.

David cocked his head and lifted a dark brow hopefully.

You
might
want
to close your eyes,
came that “voice” again.
You did not seem to enjoy it…last time.

David grimaced sourly but looked away, using gentle pressure on his companions' shoulders to urge their acquiescence. To his surprise, Aikin didn't resist at all. “Gosh, MH,” he chided. “You mean you don't
want
to watch someone do magic?”

“I've had enough shape-shifting,” Aikin muttered, and fell silent, gazing out at the sodden moors. The rain had grown softer, its steadily falling sheets now less like well-soaked whips than soggy feathers. David stared at the ground, at the puddles of dark water filling the low places there. One lay right at his feet and he found his gaze drawn to it, even as he heard the Faery woman gasp and a series of odd sounds commence, their edges dulled by the hiss of the rain. He resisted the urge to turn around, to confirm what his earlier glimpse of the
change
had suggested: that this woman, in some aspect, was the very likeness of the Morrigu, if not the lady herself. Only…he'd be a fool to do that now; probably was, anyway, to even think suchlike, if the Sidhe read thoughts as easily as he suspected.

David, therefore, kept his gaze firmly focused on the pool between his sneakers. His body shielded it, so that it was like a black mirror, but as he peered at it, wondering what was happening behind him, he caught movement there. He blinked in mild alarm, but hunched over, intent on that odd new occurrence—and felt his eyes tingle as they did in the presence of magic: gently, though, not the agony that had assailed him when the woman had shape-shifted earlier. And then as he watched, that movement became a wavering figure which resolved into the very image of the mare. David flinched reflexively, but there was no pain as he watched the horse flow and shift, become a woman/many women/all women, then subside into the form he recognized from the woods at Whitehall. And for the briefest of instants before that shape resolved, he was certain he gazed on the Morrigu. His breath hissed sharply and he tensed but held his peace.

“I am finished,” came a woman's voice at his back. David turned hesitantly—and saw exactly the same woman he'd seen earlier, save that her face and hair were soaked. But
not
her clothes, he noted—not yet—wrought, as they apparently were, of glamour. Aikin had turned with him, and David heard his buddy's breath catch, and recalled that Aik had never, to his knowledge, seen a woman from Faerie. A pretty woman was still a pretty woman, and Aik liked pretty women.

David nudged him in the ribs and cleared his throat. Aikin covered a preposterous grin with a cough. “Where's McLean?” he asked unexpectedly. “I thought he usually tagged along on these little outings.”

David gave him the short form of his roommate's disappearance.

“Which I guess makes it my fault,” Aikin sighed when he had finished. “Hey, but wait; when did you say he AWOLed?”

“Cammie reported you missing this morning—October 31. I hit your place 'round eleven, and called Liz before noon. He cut out somewhere in there.”

“Twelve hours, basically,” Aikin mused. “I've been gone twelve hours in our World—only it felt more like twenty minutes here.” He glanced at the Faery woman. “Uh, pleased to meet you, by the way,” he added. “And thanks for helpin' these guys find me. And… Well, I hate to ask this, but…”

“I have already decided to escort you back to your World,” the Faery finished for him.

“What about Alec?” Liz reminded them. “We've still gotta find him—and if
he's
on the Tracks, and we're on the Tracks…well, it just makes sense to look for him while we're here.”