Dreamseeker's Road (33 page)

David followed her gaze, and saw the other Faery woman approaching, and could have kicked himself for not asking Rigantana about her—not that they'd really had time.

“So where'd you go for this?” Liz demanded fearlessly, when the woman passed around a cardboard tray of what looked and fizzed like Cokes. “Bogart?”

“I do not
travel
with mortal money,” the woman retorted. “There are also such things as lines, and I did not feel inclined to advance myself with Power. It is harder than you think to use it in this World—and there was no true emergency, since Alec McLean was not like to die.”

David took the tray and offered Alec a Coke. He gulped it ravenously; David chose another and drank it more slowly. The nameless woman was staring hard at Rigantana. Rigantana matched that stare, and David got an odd sense of rivals trying to glare each other down. “Greetings to you, Lady Rigantana,” the nameless one said at last, her voice cold as frost. “My companions owe you much, as do I: I whose part it is to collect, not bestow.”

Rigantana smiled back, but it was not mirth that curved her lips. “And greetings to you…Lady Morrigu.”

Morrigu!
The word curved around David's heart like a squeezing hand. Before he could stop to think, he was moving.

“Morrigu!” he hissed. “I thought so!”

And with that, he grabbed the sword Alec had set beside him, and leapt toward the Mistress of Battles.

Chapter XXI: Deceptions and Inceptions

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

“No, David!”
Alec, Liz, and Aikin yelled as one, their voices slamming against the decorative brick walls of the bus stop more loudly than the band tuning up down the street. David felt Aikin's strong arms lock around his chest and biceps, even as Alec grabbed his wrist and Liz pried the sword hilt from his fingers.

“Leave me the fuck
alone
!”
he shouted, rationality having dissolved all in a second, as a week's worth of suspicions proved true with the naming of their mysterious companion as the Morrigu.

“David!”
From Liz.

“Cool it, Dave, just cool it!” Aikin echoed.

“She killed my uncle,” David growled. “She
killed
him!”

But already he was resisting those restraining hands less vehemently. Anger had flashed and gone in three seconds: anger he hadn't known he possessed so fiercely. Anger forced to overload by the stress of the last few hours.

“Okay,” he grunted, and let Liz secure the weapon. He shrugged out of Aikin's grip, but still stood glaring at the Morrigu. “I'll let her defend herself, and then I'll— Oh, just fuck it!”

For her part, the Morrigu seemed easily as furious as David, but her rage manifested exactly the opposite way: in dead, icy calm; in a carriage that could have withstood glaciers; in a set of mouth that would have given Hitler pause; and in eyes that flashed a fire that could melt titanium.

“Well,” she said at last, glaring at Rigantana, “since this face no longer serves me, I suppose I should resume my own.”

And with that, heat like flame erupted in David's eyes. He shut them instantly, heard Aikin mumble a strangled, “damn!” but didn't open them again until his companions' breathing steadied.

And this time he knew her features: the Morrigu, Lugh's mistress of battles, she who oversaw all conflicts involving Tir-Nan-Og or its denizens. A tall red-haired queen of the Sidhe, she was; robed in crimson velvet, around the cuffs and hem of which marched an endless file of crows worked in black beads and faceted hematites. “Now,” she demanded, “what is this about?”

“You know what it's about,” David shot back, feeling that anger spark again. “You have to! You were there.”

“Suppose I was
not
,”
the Morrigu replied placidly, but with a sting of acid in her words. “Suppose, as they say in your land, I am innocent until proven guilty. What then are your charges?”

“You killed my uncle—David-the-Elder. Not you directly, but you were with the guy who did it. You seduced him—probably—and to impress you, he started flashin' 'round this grenade—he was a soldier, see—and then you got him stoned on hashish, and he…pulled the pin and threw it—at my uncle.”

“Christ!” Alec breathed behind him. “Now I see. It was in your dream, wasn't it?”

The Morrigu's eyes narrowed, as did Liz's. “
What
dream? What are you speaking of, boy? I have bedded many mortals, and some of them have been soldiers, but none were fond of hashish.” A pause, then: “Where was this supposed to have been accomplished?”

David shrugged. “The Middle East. Lebanon—Syria. Maybe Iraq or Libya or Tunisia. They wouldn't tell us for sure. It was screwy.”

“I have not seen the Levant since before you were born,” the Morrigu informed him.

“So you say!”

“I will place my hand on that Iron blade there and swear, if you like—if that is required to prove my honesty.”

David shook his head. “Pain's nothing for someone like you. It wouldn't prove anything.”

“Though you've trusted my honor before?”

“That was before!”

“Very well, let me look in your mind and see what it is that has made you think this thing.”

“Like hell!” David flared. “No tellin' what'd happen if you did that!”

“Perhaps I already have!”

“Okay, David,” Liz put in. “You know what you're talking about, but the rest of us have no idea. So how 'bout you tell us? You're not gonna get anywhere just yelling.”

David puffed his cheeks and scowled. “Oh, fuck it! Might as well, I guess.”

And with that, he related the tale of the vision the ulunsuti had given him on Lookout Rock. And as he spoke the details came rushing back as clearly as if he'd witnessed those events scant seconds before. Almost he couldn't finish, almost those recollections became too much for him. By the time he concluded, he was sweating. He drank deep of his Coke, noting absently that his hands were shaking. Liz eased around to massage his shoulders.

Throughout his narrative, the Morrigu had held her peace, though he suspected she was prowling around in his mind, perhaps in quest of lies, perhaps merely seeking clarification of some point he'd missed, some spin or impression it hadn't occurred to him to relate, or language made impossible to reveal. Her face had remained impassive, though her jaw had tensed once or twice.

Finally, she took a long, slow breath. “It was not me,” she whispered; and her tones bore the ring of ritual. “It was almost certainly my…sister Neman.”

“The…one who rode with the Hunt?” Liz ventured.

The Morrigu shook her head. “That was another of…us.”

“Macha!” David blurted suddenly. “Of course.”

Liz looked at him askance. No one else spoke at all, though Rigantana raised an eyebrow in delicate amusement. “I begin to see why Nuada regards you so highly,” she observed.

“'Cause I remember my folklore?” David shot back. “Big deal.”

“Yeah,” Alec grunted. “I avoid that stuff like the plague.”

David glared at him, then looked back at the Morrigu and took a deep breath. “It's rude to talk about people in front of them,” he said. “It'd be best if the lady explained it herself. 'Sides, I might be wrong.”

It was the Morrigu's turn to lift a brow. “Courtesy becomes you more than ire,” she informed him. “But you are correct…mostly. There are three of us. Sisters is the most convenient term, but we are closer than that. Three at one birth, and so alike in our bodies, minds, and thoughts that we were literally one. The Babd, they began to call us, for none could distinguish us. Sometimes we could not distinguish ourselves, and perhaps that is what drove two of us mad. Or perhaps I am also mad, in a different way, and do not know it. Of the three, I am the Morrigu—a title, actually; I never give my name. I am also the most conventionally sane—and the role I have claimed for myself is that of encouraging heroes. It is my joy to take raw clay—mortal men, even, like yourselves—and shape it into something more. Sometimes men—or women—fail and are cast aside. Sometimes I succeed beyond my dreams. Sometimes—”

“You were doing that on the Tracks, weren't you?” Liz broke in. “You were testing David, to see what he'd do if he faced the Hunt. Even when you made us run, you were watching him.”

The Morrigu smiled faintly. “Yet the threat was real, and my shame at being less brave than a mortal was real. And my fear of the Hunt was real as well.”

No one responded.

“But to continue my tale,” the Morrigu went on, “my two sisters are called Macha and Neman. Macha you met—if that word is appropriate—a few moments ago. She is the least sane of us, the one who glories in death and destruction for its own sake, without regret or guilt. Mostly she rides with the Hunt now; but wherever there is battle—violence—disaster—there will she be, for she is the reveler among the slain.”

“I know,” David breathed. “I…saw.”

The Morrigu nodded. “So mad is she that she cannot confine her madness. It leaks from her like foul water from a sieve, and though I love her as my sister, I detest the things she does.”

“And Neman?” David prompted.

“Neman is a trickster. She has no honor, only a craving for amusement. Most often this consists of inciting confusion among the ranks, so that men fight against their own comrades—”

“Friendly fire,” Aikin blurted out. “She's the goddess of friendly fire!”

The Morrigu cocked her head. “Essentially that is true, though she is no goddess, no more than any of the Sidhe.”

“That asshole who killed my uncle thought she was!” David retorted. “He called her an angel.”

Again the Morrigu nodded. “It was reasonable for one such as he to think as much, for what other term do such poor ignorant fools have for immortal beings whose beauty surpasses their own? No, do not interrupt”—when David would have protested—“you were correct, in a way.”

“How?”

“Since those men who meet her most often think of her as a goddess, they often call her one—and she enjoys that adoration. Sometimes she even takes that ‘form' and pretends to be a deity of whatever folk invoke her. And for those without manifesting gods—like most folk in your World these days, such as that man in the Levant—she might well claim to be an angel.”

And with that she fell silent. David felt her eyes on him, burning with resentment and accusation. “Now do you see?” she concluded.

David nodded numbly. “I see that I accused you falsely, and I'm sorry—but that doesn't really
change
things! I mean, David-the-Elder's still dead! One of your sisters still screwed around and got him killed, and that's just impossible to forgive. I don't know what I can do about it, unless you can take me to wherever she is and let me kill her with iron, but—”

“Uh-uh,” Aikin inserted. “You don't wanta do that, man; you just think you do. It'd feel good for about five minutes and then you'd hate yourself for the rest of your life. I mean,
think,
man: that guy who killed your uncle, he didn't like him, so he offed him: pull the pin, throw the bomb, bang! You're pissed at Neman. So you—”

“Yeah, I get it,” David growled. “And you're right. But it still hurts, guys. It hurts so goddamned
much
!”

“I know,” Aikin acknowledged. “But I've seen more death than any of you folks, even if it's mostly animals, and as of today, I've been on both sides of a hunt. And while I still believe that killing's part of nature, killin' like
you're
talkin' about's not a thing you even want to think about doin'.”

David fell silent. They were right, dammit. He didn't like it, but they were. Killing anyone—anything sapient—was not a thing a man could do and still call himself civilized—or sane. Certainly not when done for vengeance's sake. He stared across the street, where someone had set another Dumpster alight, to where music thundered like the drums of hell. To where the Dance of Death had swept closer down Washington Street…

“Oh shit!” Alec exclaimed abruptly, pounding his knees with his fists. “I just remembered something!”

“Like what?” From Aikin.

“Like the ulunsuti! See, if Rigantana's right, and her mom stole it…well, gee, I mean she doesn't know what to
do
with it. She doesn't know how it works!”

“She will find out,” Rigantana shot back instantly. “Objects of power are her special study.”

“Yeah, well, it's not from her World, though,” Alec retorted. “It's from a World at two removes from Faerie, so who knows what'll happen if she tries to use it? Sure, she knew enough to send me a false dream through it, but that doesn't mean she knows everything. Like, the worst thing is that four times a year you have to feed it the blood of a large animal or it'll go mad. I don't know what that
means,
exactly, and I don't want to, but I don't wanta even think what'd happen if that occurred in Faerie, or the time differential screwed it up, or if it reacted some weird way to Faery blood or the blood of Faery animals, or—”

“Not good,” Rigantana broke in, sounding very human again. “And unfortunately, I have no idea what my mother knows about it, only that she has almost certainly been watching you with her arts, so that whatever she attempts is
probably
safe, as far as she's concerned.”

“Great,” Alec groaned. “Just peachy.”

“I didn't think you
liked
it,” Aikin observed. “I guess you don't have to worry now!”

“Only about Uki,” Alec shot back. “Only that a shaman in another World gave it to me and could be really pissed if something bad happened 'cause I was stupid. Only about the Worlds,” he added. “Like if gating from here to Tir-Nan-Og fucks up the World Walls, who knows what'll happen when folks start zapping between Ys and wherever. And is it gonna be, like, a permanent gate, or what?”