Fireshaper's Doom (28 page)

At once a bright-lit crack showed in the wall between the figures. Morwyn stepped aside for David to go through before her.

But even before the door came fully open, a wave of heat blasted against David’s face, and he became at once bitterly aware of the remarkable, pleasant coolness he was leaving behind in Morwyn’s quarters. He held back uncertainly.

And then the door had opened completely, and almost against his will he found himself stepping outside to gaze upon a plain of featureless whiteness that stretched as far as he could see in all directions. Heat blazed up from that whiteness like invisible fire, and the glazed glare of the pale sky was so bright that he dared not raise his eyes much above the horizon.

The air was clear and still, but the heat throbbed from the ground with such ferocity that it seemed possessed of some subtle, watchful life that devoured without moving, sucking out strength and will until only despair remained. David could feel his skin growing tight across his cheekbones. He blinked and stared at the ground, eyes watering; saw then the tiny pattern of cracks that fractured the whiteness like fragments of a jigsaw puzzle slowly being dragged apart.

“Damn!” he whispered to himself as he discovered that he had already begun to perspire, though he had done nothing more exerting than take a dozen paces. Hot air rushed into his lungs, and he gasped. It was like breathing fire. He took another step, found himself panting. His throat felt dry as the desert around him.

No!
This wouldn’t do. He couldn’t stand this kind of heat; nothing human could. If Morwyn expected him to go traipsing around in some absurd getup while the sun
(
was
there a sun?) boiled him alive in his shell like a lobster, well, by golly she was mistaken.

All at once he swung around to face the sorceress. “I thought you said your house was underwater, lady,” he shouted, his voice cracking as the greedy air sucked his tongue dry. “But if that’s so…well looks like the friggin’ tide’s been out a couple of thousand years. Find yourself another bloody fool to do your dirty work!”

“Fool indeed!” Morwyn shouted back, raising her arms. “If it is water you want, boy, then water you shall certainly have!” She clapped her hands once and closed her eyes.

And David found himself unable to breathe. He was underwater, he knew that at once, from the cold darkness around him—a cold so insidious and pervasive he felt his bones would shatter. And there was a pressure on his chest, a darkness clamped close against his eyes and nose denying him sight or breath. He made feeble attempts to swim…

But he could not rise. His waterlogged accoutrements weighed half as much as he did, and he could not push himself more than a foot or two above the bottom. His fingers ripped at the fixtures of the sword belt, but he couldn’t work the buckle. He kicked at his boots but they would not come off. The rising tails of the surcoat floated up to encumber his arms. And in his eyes and his sinuses and the back of his head a red pounding had begun, the significance of which was only too familiar.

I’m going to drown,
he thought grimly
. I’m going to—

Die?
came Morwyn’s thought
. You might. Perhaps I will simply discard you now. After all, you are not the only human who might suit my purposes. Perhaps your friend Alec McLean would like to try my quest. Do you think so? Shall I send for him, and leave you here to ponder?

“Or shall I fetch you back,
now
?”
Morwyn’s voice rang harsh in his eardrums as David found himself again on the blasted plain. He choked out his relief, then looked down, expecting to see the surcoat ruined, his feet in a puddle. But he was quite dry.

Morwyn stood in front of him; behind her was a vast sphere of flame half as tall as the sky, which, he surmised, was the outside of the room she had first brought him to.

“What did you just
do
?”
he gasped.

Morwyn smiled placidly. “Sent you through the Walls Between the Worlds. I take it you did not find that pleasant?”

“Not hardly,” he muttered sulkily, as he deliberately turned his back on her and began to stalk away. His defiance was pure sham, though, and he feared at any moment to find himself cast back again into darkness—until something occurred to him.

“Wait a minute.” He skidded to a halt and spun around. “If it’s that easy to pass between the Worlds, why even bother with the Tracks?”

“Because,” Morwyn responded patiently, “only where realms actually touch each other can such things be effected.”

“But don’t the Worlds overlap all over?”

“Indeed not. Think of two sheets of parchment on which maps are drawn, which are the Worlds. Both maps are crumpled and then laid flat again. Yet they no longer lie so close together as heretofore; some parts touch, some do not. Now imagine that there are golden lines drawn on both maps: those represent the Tracks, curved or bent from
your
point of view, but not from theirs. Then thrust golden needles through those sheets, joining them one to another, and you begin to gain a notion of how the Straight Tracks function. And of course there are
many
more layers of Worlds than I have spoken of—nor do they all lie in layers.”

She took a deep breath. “Now—if you have finished pouting, and are willing to walk a very short distance—we will soon be at our voyaging.” She stepped past him and strode toward the horizon.

David followed with some reluctance as Morwyn led the way across the plain. They had covered three hundred paces (David had been counting, to distract himself from the heat) when a rift suddenly opened in the land at their feet: a rift with walls so clean and sheer that it had been invisible within the masking heat-haze until they were almost upon it.

David found himself standing on the brink. Perhaps ten feet below, at the bottom of the narrow canyon, a wide, shallow river glided languorously, its water clear as glass, with more of the white sand visible on the bottom. The river ran arrow-straight from horizon to horizon. And almost at its further shore a strip of golden glimmer showed where a Straight Track lazed upon it.

Morwyn led the way down a flight of wide steps cut into the bank to their left, and a moment later they stood upon the square lower landing.

“This Track leads to Lugh’s realm,” she said, pointing to the right, “but from a seldom-used direction. I do not think Lugh will have set a watch at the place it enters, for this land is most times empty, and Lugh has no interest in it. Perhaps he has even forgotten it. Indeed, were I not what I am I would not know of it myself. But a Fireshaper does well to know all of the Lands of Fire.”

David stuck his hands on his hips in exasperation. “But I thought the borders were sealed, even against the Tracks.”

“And so they are: one may not step from the Tracks into Lugh’s kingdom, for the fires of his sealing prevent it. Yet if one were to find the right place of entry, then find a way through the sealing…”

“Which you, of course, know how to do.”

“Of course: the sealing makes use of Fire in its elemental form, and since the sealing is a thing of Fire, a ship made of Fire may make that passage safely.”

Morwyn smiled, and reached into a red velvet pouch that hung at her left hip.

David could not help but gasp when he saw what she held out before him an instant later.

It was a tiny model ship, perfect in each detail, from the needle-spear of the single mast to the delicate webbing of furled sail and rigging, to the high, curling stern and even more impressive prow which was marked by a gleaming dragon’s head no bigger than the end of his finger. A low, flat cabin lay behind the mast, and the dramatic swooping sides were scalloped with what appeared to be tiny shields. It reminded David of a Viking ship, though there were no oars, and he didn’t think the cabin was typical.

“Very pretty,” he said with forced indifference. He liked models and intricate craftsmanship and suddenly wanted very much to hold the object. “Small, though. Mighty close quarters for two people.”

“Is it?” Morwyn challenged. “Perhaps it only
seems
so.”

Before David could reply she set the boat gently into the still water beyond the landing, then brushed a long nail across the head of one of the tiny dragons on her ring. Its mouth popped open obediently, and a tiny flame shot out. She turned it toward the model, the flame continuing to spark on her knuckle, and set it against the miniature prow.

David held his breath in dismay as the toy ship caught fire.

Yet in spite of the flames that enwrapped it, it did not seem to be consumed. In fact, as the fire took hold, the ship began to grow, to swell, second by second, seeming to draw substance from the flames that lapped about it, so that in two breaths it was a yard long, and in four the size of a small canoe. Ten breaths later it had reached the size he imagined by rights it should be. And all the while fire leaped and curled around it.

Eventually the flames began to subside, as though they were absorbed into the wood and metal and fabric of the ship itself. The air cooled, and the last persistent flicker of green about a copper shield boss winked out. A breeze from the west set the water to rippling, and the rigging to swelling gently in its wake.

“Neat!” David cried in spite of himself.

“It is the Power of the Fireshapers,” Morwyn responded flatly. “A simple thing, in truth. Indeed, mortal men do much the same.”

David stared at her. “You’re kidding!”

Morwyn shook her head. “It is common with your kind, is it not, to draw the water from a thing, so that little remains but a dry shell, and then renew it at need by returning that water to it?”

David nodded slowly. “Freeze-drying, dehydration, whatever.”

“So it is with this ship, except that instead of adding water I used fire. I could do the same with my dwelling.”

“God,” David whispered. “I sure haven’t seen the
Sidhe
do anything like that.”

“Nor will you,” Morwyn replied archly. “The Powersmiths could rule the Worlds, if we wished to,” she added, her voice at once very still and solemn, her eyes taking on a distant glaze. “We suffer them to reign: the Sidhe and the Alfar and the Tylwyth-Teg all.”

David discovered he had no reply, so set himself into uneasy contemplation as Morwyn gestured the ship toward them. A moment later its sides scraped gently against the steps. She motioned David on board, then followed him into the bow.

“Your sword, now: draw it.”

David commenced fumbling with the peace-ties and a moment later had freed the weapon.

It gleamed in the hot air, sun-fired lightning: a simple silver blade and plain golden cross hilt bound with pale gray leather. But the balance suited him perfectly, as he found by making feints and lunges across the deck.

Morwyn frowned. “Such frivolity becomes neither you nor the sword. Now give it to me, for it will be our guide.”

David rather reluctantly handed the sword to Morwyn—hilt-first, as he had heard was the proper manner.

She took it, tested its weight, then grasped its quillons firmly in her two hands—and plunged it into the deck within the narrow vee behind the high, curving neck of the dragon figurehead.

It entered the wood like a blade thrust into water. A subtle shudder rolled across the planks beneath them. David reached impulsively toward the blade.

“No!”
Morwyn cried. “Leave it. Neither boat nor weapon are damaged. The sword is made of the same metal as the Iron Road; as long as it stands there, the Road will draw it onward. Once you have come to land again, withdraw it; it will be your guide as well. You have only to heed its tugging.”

“I was wondering about that,” David muttered.

The sorceress did not reply, as she made her way to the stern and took up the tiller with her right hand. A flip of a finger set the great sail unfurling, almost catching David unaware as it billowed out behind him a little above his head.

He swung around, ready to protest, but then awe filled him. A magnificent rampant dragon was embroidered in gold on the shimmering scarlet fabric of the sail. Turning again, he moved back to the prow, to stop finally beside the sword. He rested a cautious hand on its pommel, felt it thrum beneath his fingers, oddly comforting.

As wind filled its sail, the ship began to glide across the water. Morwyn pointed the prow toward the glitter of Track by the left-hand wall of the canyon— And then they were there, darting on the slightest of breezes, while Track and sword kept them locked on their path and the slim prow cut the water with knifelike ease.

A guilty eagerness woke within David. He was enjoying himself, and he felt certain he shouldn’t: he was racing headlong into danger, with one set of lives threatened if he failed, and another life threatened if he didn’t.

But as the dragon ship raced forward, and the sail rose red and glorious behind him; as a cool breeze slid around it to caress his hot cheeks, bringing with it the sweet sound of Morwyn singing in the stem; he decided, for the nonce, to give over. He’d relax, take it easy. Let Morwyn call the shots.

And hope that none of them hit him.

Chapter XXVI: Waiting

(Tir-Nan-Og)

In the morning stillness of Tir-Nan-Og, Lugh’s throne room was cold and lonely. Fog had crept inside and now floated in furtive, anxious tendrils about the floor. Beams of sunlight slanted through the windows to the left, touching the walls and pillars with the pale tints of dawn.