Dreamseeker's Road (30 page)

Alec started to speak, but she silenced him with a finger against his lips. “You wonder if I love you,” she said. “And you wonder if you love
me
or the memory you have kept so faithfully. You wonder how you can ever fit loving one such as I into the World you know, or whether you are brave enough to dwell in mine.”

“Yeah,” Alec sighed. “You got it.”

“You also wonder how it is that I am alive and in my own right body, when you saw me die.”

Another nod. “Right again.”

“That at least, is simple enough to explain, as the others are not,” she said. “I truly died when you saw me die—that is, my body became inviable as a housing for my soul, for the agony washing through my physical self was more than my
other
self could bear, and so my soul dissolved the Silver Cord and fled. That which remained became merely so much matter; yet that which was
me
persisted. I could then have willed my soul into a child new-quickened in some Faery woman's womb, and grown up with full cognizance of who I had been. Or I could have exerted my will and gathered substance and become my former self in a matter of days. Neither would free me from Lugh's justice, only the Death of Iron. My choice was thus to serve my sentence at once or wait. I chose the former, for by then I knew that I
did
love you, that I
had
been a traitor to my king, and that it was my duty to surrender myself to justice—which I did. The rest is as I related when you came to me in a dream a few days ago: that since I feigned love to betray a mortal man and a Faery king, only
true
love would be the key to my release.”

“That's…what I thought,” Alec acknowledged weakly, with a sick feeling in his gut—for something had changed. When first they'd met they had shared a bond of loneliness—his of finding himself odd man out with David and Liz, hers of being a foreigner (how foreign he'd not suspected) in an alien land. She'd been exotic, but had seemed to enjoy his company, and had laughed and joked and shared naivetés with him.

But at least they'd been equals—so it seemed.

Now, however, a barrier had risen where he'd expected none, and he could no longer love her as Eva: another human, another same-aged friend. For
Aife
was his superior—in wisdom; knowledge, power, and actual (if not apparent) age. And it frightened him past knowing.

“You're…not how I remember,” he mumbled bleakly, feeling the weight of every word as it left his tongue, as though each were a shovelful of earth cast into his grave, shutting his corpse off from light.

Eva smiled and patted his hand. “Yet you came.”

Alec tried to smile back. He wondered if he'd hurt her, or if she was secretly relieved. He wondered if he even believed what he'd just said.

“So what does this mean?” he asked finally. “I came to rescue you, and I thought I was the…mortal man who loved you, and I
do
love you—sort of…and I want to love you like I used to love you; only…now I'm not sure about things, 'cept that I just want the best for you 'cause—this is gonna sound stupid—you're a good person, I think. But…well, hell. Can I still rescue you? Or does the…truth change everything?”

“Truth,” she echoed softly. “In
truth,
you loved me because I loved you—or seemed to. No one else did at that time, and the cold part of me saw that and knew you were ripe for manipulation, and so I did. But I likewise sensed the love you kept for your friend, and how he had hurt you, and how you hated yourself for hating him for loving another, and I could not help but love you for that. And to speak
more
truth: you loved me when you came here, and that is enough to win my release.”

“So, you're free to go?”

Aife remained where she was. “Yes,” she smiled. “But there is no hurry. Fast or slow, it is the same to Lugh, now that you are here.”

“My friends—”

“Time passes differently here than there, you should know that.” She touched his hand.

A thrill pulsed through him that had nothing to do with intellect. Her fingers traced the length of his thigh. He closed his eyes and shuddered. His face felt hot.

“So you do love me,” she whispered. “In a way.”

“Of…c-course I do,” he stammered, not looking at her. “I'm only human, and you're a beautiful, beautiful lady…”

“But…?”

“But I don't
really
love you. And to do…
that
,
I
have to
really
love you. I have to trust you. You have to be an equal—and you can't be.”

“Did you love me before?”

“Something…else was thinking then.”

Aife laughed. The fingers stroked higher, farther in… Closer. Alec swallowed again. His groin tightened in spite of himself. God, it felt so good, and it had been so long, and he'd wanted it so badly, and it ought to be the same because the bodies would be the same…

But the minds wouldn't.

There was
more
honesty between them, which should bring them closer—yet it didn't.

“Love me,” Eva murmured.

“I shouldn't. I—”

“You have nothing to fear,” she said before he could finish. “I am your perfect lover, the only woman with whom you can let go completely, without guilt or fear. I know your body, and so you have no need to be shy. You have known mine, and so no new mysteries await you there. You were clumsy before, but you have had years in which to recall and refine and perfect your desire.”

“I…” Alec tried again. But her hand slid inside his shirt.

“Oh hell,” he gasped. “Why not?”

*

Cold awakened him.

God, he
was
cold too!

—All over!

Wind blew chill across his shoulders—his thighs, the small of his back, his feet and buttocks. He rolled onto his side, drew himself in a tight ball, one arm clasped around his knees while the other fumbled for the furs to tug over him—and for Aife to draw her into one last guilty embrace.

He found neither.

Only more cold, and a harsh-edged wetness some dim part of him identified as grass.

Grass?
When before there had been soft furs and prickly velvets and Aife's skin.

…Aife's skin. Over and over, he'd stroked and kissed and caressed Aife's silky skin.

So where was she now?

And why was he so cold, when Aife's odd prison land was desert-hot, and her body warm, and the ardor that had suddenly inflamed him hotter than the hottest fire?

Perhaps those things had simply moved.

He uncoiled a fraction, and stretched farther, noting that whatever he lay on was cold and rough.

Like the ground.

An eye popped open.

“Oh, God,
no
!” he groaned into cool night air, as goose bumps marched across his limbs. His stomach turned giddy cartwheels, but his brain went totally numb.

He was squinting at a date: 1961. That date was carved on a slab of lichened granite as gray as the walls of Aife's tower.

But
not
a tower: a tombstone.

Others showed beyond it: arches of gray in a greater darkness that spoke of night.

Night in the Lands of Men.

In a graveyard on a cold hillside.

Alone.

Abruptly, he sat up, hugging himself, rubbing his bare arms and shoulders as he shuddered uncontrollably. He bowed his head, not caring if anyone saw him, naked as he was and somewhere he probably ought not to be after dark. Tears blurred the landscape into an abstract vision of gray and black, with only the dull yellow glow of the starless sky to give color.

—But no hope. He gazed on the color of hopelessness.

It had happened again!
He'd given his love to a Faery woman and she'd used him: taken him for all he had, soul and body too, and abandoned him. “God, I must have ‘easy fuck' written all over me,” he spat. “I must have a screw slot a foot long in my back.”

He pounded the tombstone with a fist. Pounded till it hurt. Blood glazed his
knuckles.

“Why?”
he screamed at the sky. “What the fuck did I ever do to you? What's so fucking wrong with wanting somebody to love you?”

His voice died away into sobs, and he curled up again on the ground, arms wrapped around himself as though his own flesh was his only comfort.

“Shit,” he grunted, when tears would no longer flow. And with the sound of his voice came the realization that whatever agony rent his soul, a casual passerby would only see some weirdo doing something kinky on a grave. They wouldn't know that he felt as dead as one of the local residents—inside.

He sat up again and wiped his eyes, blinking at the landscape, at the sky glow that said he was near a city. “So where am I?” he asked the tombstone, peering shakily around, even as more chills wracked him. Twisting about, he made a slow assessment of the environs. As he did, his gaze brushed something he hadn't noted before, there in the lee of the tombstone: a pile of fabric, a pair of sturdy boots.

His clothes.

He almost wept, as his life became one small element simpler. Pawing through them, he found underwear and jeans and pulled them on. He felt for his pockets automatically, and located his wallet, his checkbook, his keys. (Why would someone take such things to Faerie he remembered wondering, when he'd put them there.
You think they've got teller machines in Tir-Nan-Og? Think someone's gonna ask for your ID?)

And then that coldness that had only barely relaxed its grip on his heart clamped down again with full, vicious force.

Where was the ulunsuti?

He'd fished it out of his pack during a lull in their lovemaking and shown it to her, then placed it atop his clothes beside Aife's bed (even in the heat of passion, he was neat)…

And here was the sword, and the frigging pack… He emptied the latter—to no effect.

Desperate, then, he sprang to his feet, slapping at his pockets, though sense told him that was stupid. His boots then? He checked them.

Nothing—of course.

Recklessly—panicked—he sorted through the rest of his clothing and found no oracular stone. Somehow he finished dressing, then knelt and patted the earth around where he'd lain, slowly, methodically, lest his writhings had knocked it away.

No luck. He knew in a way he could not explain that the ulunsuti—the jewel from the head of the great uktena, that a shaman in another World had given him in trust—was gone.

Biting back another frustrated shout, he flopped against the tombstone, hands thrust so deeply into his pockets that he half expected to feel startled devils protesting his invading nails.

He touched paper. Fresh, crisp paper, that his fingers knew without knowing was not that of the Lands of Men.

Holding his breath, he withdrew his hand.

The paper was folded twice, sealed with wax, and utterly wrinkle-free. The seal smelled like Aife's skin. Still barely breathing, he fumbled it open.

The whorling alphabet was none he knew, and the language could not possibly have been English—the balance of long words to short was wrong, and there were too many diacritical marks. Yet he could read it:

It is only fitting that one who has caused so much grief should give pleasure in return.

I begin to see what Aife saw in you.

*

And that was all. No name. No thank you. No apology.

And no Aife!

Somehow that got through to him: Aife in the third person.

That had not been her!

Then who had it been, that had lured him to a pocket universe, lied to him, seduced him, stolen—apparently—the ulunsuti, and sent him here in one final bitter flourish: a naked wannabe-knight on a cold hillside?

Not Aife!

Which both gave him hope and filled him with new despair, for now it was all to do over. All that dreaming and dreading and anticipation and hope and fear, all that psyching had been in vain.

Not Aife.

“Fucking shit!” Alec growled at the night—and rose from the tombstone.

And as he did, the wind shifted and brought with it the sound of music.

Loud
music.

Rock and roll played with conviction outdoors.

It came from beyond the curve in the road at the bottom of the hill. Squaring his shoulders, he started that way, and had not gone far at all before he beheld a familiar landmark.

A pyramid it was, made of marble or granite, and roughly a yard on a side. Trinkets lay about it: gauds and baubles, feathers, bright stones, and the paraphernalia of kitsch.

He recognized it, though, had made pilgrimage to it like countless other freshmen seeking the graves of dead rock heroes.

He didn't need to see the name graven there. No other tombstone was like that one, nor situated so. It was the grave of Ricky Wilson, once of the B-52's.

He was in Oconee Hills Cemetery.

In Athens.

And by the full moon glimmering dimly in the gra
y-
gold sky, and the music that sounded louder even as he made his slow grim way along, it was likely Halloween night.

True
Halloween.

When the dead were said to rise.

Alec hoped they did. Maybe they could give him some pointers on how it felt to be alive.

Chapter XX: True Hallows

(Athens, Georgia—Saturday, October 31—night)

It looked like a Dance of Death: one of those medieval woodcuts wrought by guilt-laden Germans, in which a phalanx of skeletal, decaying, and/or demonic creatures perpetrated unspeakable torments on not-always-so-innocent peasants, all illuminated by raging bonfires. Yeah, that's how the revelry down Clayton Street
looked,
even if the flaming Dumpster was neither medieval nor city-approved. The rest, however, was spot on: people of all ages, roaming sidewalk and street alike, capering with wild abandon—in cloaks and wigs, spandex, sheets, and towels—and the pillage of a thousand thrift store raids. It was the whole world in microcosm—the whole lunatic
fringe,
anyway—with traditional ghosts, witches, and vampires ranged against their Generation-X analogues: rock stars, movie icons, and cultural celebs, with a healthy dose of off-color libido thrown in. As for cackling demons…well, easily a dozen bands, in clubs and street alike, tortured the very air with electric cacophony.