Fireshaper's Doom (35 page)

All at once he realized that he’d been here before. In this very field his previous journey to Tir-Nan-Og had ended—here he had met the Sidhe to complete the Trial of Heroes…and Fionchadd had been killed, and Ailill Windmaster brought low.

But there was nothing here to mark that episode now, only a well-beaten path in the grass, and farther to the left a glimmer of Track.

Something
was
different, however: close by the stream, though not connected to it, lay a small, deep pool, barely a yard across, almost like a well. Its clear waters looked very cold and
very
inviting.

And he was thirsty. Throwing caution to the winds, he knelt and scooped a handful of water into his mouth.

It was the best he had ever tasted—cold and vaguely sweet, with the barest hint of carbonation. He paused, and took another, longer drink, then unslung his empty wine flask and refilled it.

He splashed a final handful on his face and stood up, looking again toward the palace. A sudden dizziness caught him, giddy and invigorating. His blood seemed to dance to a faster tempo. He ran through a quick series of stretching exercises, and was surprised at the supple ease with which his body moved, in spite of its various encumbrances.

David started toward the castle, but had taken barely three steps before a flash of color to his right focused his attention once more on the ground.

At the far edge of the pool a small green lizard was watching him, narrow head upraised at a perky, interested angle. Its iridescent scales shone bright as faceted emeralds. It was the first animate thing he had seen in what seemed like hours, and he was frankly grateful. David knelt and extended a tentative finger toward it. The lizard backed away, skittering on wide-splayed legs, then crept forward again. Its tiny black tongue darted out and neatly flicked a drop of water from his finger.

David extended his hand farther, ran a finger along the flat skull, and at last, emboldened, picked the lizard up and placed it on his shoulder, where it remained by his ear, clinging tightly with tiny serrated footpads that felt like velcro.

And then he began the trek to Lugh’s palace.

Chapter XXXIV: Awakening

(Sullivan Cove, Georgia)

Little Billy Sullivan couldn’t sleep.

He was worried about Davy, mostly. It was past four-thirty in the morning by the bright green numbers on his new digital wristwatch (the one that turned into a car if you did one thing to it, and into a robot if you did something else). Four-thirty and Davy wasn’t back yet, and his mama and daddy weren’t saying much, though his daddy had come back an hour or so before, looking like he’d looked the day Uncle Dale got sick that time, and his mama hadn’t said a word but had cried a lot. They were sleeping now—or pretending to, Little Billy suspected. But he knew that they were worried.

And so was he.

He wanted to get up and look for Davy, but he had no idea where to start. His brother had last been seen at the gippy camp—the Gypsy camp, he corrected himself—so that might be the place to go first. But he couldn’t get there ’cause it was too far to walk (and dark besides, and he suspected there were things in the woods that sometimes had designs on little boys), and he couldn’t drive (though David had let him sit in his lap and steer the Mustang once, while he worked the pedals and shifter), and it would take
forever
on his little bicycle. So he didn’t know what to do.

He scratched his head, sat up in bed, and stretched. Flipping the curtains aside, he gazed idly out the window toward the dark wall of mountain that sheltered the house by day (and threatened it at night, he always thought). It was light out there. Funny, ’cause it really shouldn’t be, or at least not light like he saw. This demanded investigation.

He slipped out of bed and dressed quietly: jeans and T-shirt and new Reeboks, just like Davy’s.

Out the door, onto the porch, into the yard.

He looked up—

Saw the cross burning in the sky.

“Davy,” he said.

* * *

JoAnne Sullivan wondered how Big Billy could snore like that while all the current mess was going on. She wondered how he could even sleep at all. But he was, and that was a fact; she ought to know that by now, ought to know that Big Billy Sullivan could sleep through anything. He’d do what he could, and if that wasn’t enough, well then, it was out of his hands. If they’d started a search, he’d have been there in a minute. If the sheriff had suggested dragging the lake or riding in a helicopter, or inspecting the back forty with a magnifying glass, he’d have been first to say, “I’ll do ’er.” But as far as acting on his own volition was concerned, well, he was a little lacking there. He loved David, she knew that, though they fought a lot, as boys will who were trying to become men, and men will who were trying to stay boys. And he loved Uncle Dale as well. Loved her and Little Billy, too. But sometimes he took a peculiar way of showing it—like trusting those very people to look after themselves. “Davy’s a smart boy,” Bill had said. “And Dale’s been his own boss longer’n I been alive. If they ain’t back by suppertime tomorrow,
then
I’ll start to worry.”

But that didn’t help her any.

She wondered about Little Billy too—how he would take it if anything really had happened to his beloved brother.

And she was still wondering when she heard the little boy’s door squeak open, heard his footsteps padding down the hall, heard the back door swing open and then thump shut again, exactly as if the little varmint had tried to shut it quietly and not quite been successful.

Better check on him,
she thought
. Things been a little strange ’round here the last year or so.

She climbed out of bed, spared an almost contemptuous glance at Big Billy’s naked, snoring figure. No housecoat, just her thin blue nightie—it was warm, and who’d see anyway?

She paused in the kitchen, her finger on the light switch, then decided against it. It was awfully light out there already; a blue-white light was streaming into the kitchen. She crossed to the back door (open, except for the screen, to let the night breezes cool the house), and breathed a sigh of relief.

He was there, all right. Standing in the yard.

“Billy, honey, come back in,” she called softly, as she came down the steps.

And then
she
saw the cross in the sky.

“Pretty sight, ain’t it,” an old woman cackled from the shadows by the barn.

Chapter XXXV: Toro
! Toro!

(The Straight Tracks)

“So what do we do?” Alec asked, casting a dubious eye toward the sanguine surface of the lake of blood. “I don’t want to have to deal with
this
again.”

Uncle Dale pointed to the left of the body of noxious liquid. “You may not have to, boy. This here Track leads into the lake, all right; but looks like ole Ailill’s trail kinda curves around to the left-hand side—right in front of where them funny-lookin’ animals is, I’d be willin’ to bet. Can’t quite make it out for sure, but
somethin’s
shore got them things interested over there. Gotta be that ole Crazy Deer’s trail. And if I’m not mistaken, that’s another Track over on t’other side, straight across from this’un. Prob’ly picked it up again over there.”

Alec frowned, his cheeks puffed out thoughtfully. “Maybe, maybe not,” he said. “It’s not always that simple with the Tracks. And there’s still that closer one that comes out of the woods right where the Watchers are. He could have gone that way. Hell, he
could
have been eaten by now—those things are carnivores. But there’s no way we can find out unless we check, and somehow I don’t think the Watchers’ll just stand by and let us prowl around between ’em. We’re still a fair ways off and I don’t think they’ve scented us yet, but if they do—look out!”

“Ailill is bleeding more,” Froech broke in from the ground beside them. He had been examining a line of blood that stretched along the sand in front of them. The droplets had fallen so close together that there was scarcely space between them.

“God, how
can
he be?” asked Alec. “He’s been going on like that for twelve hours or more, our time. He can’t have that much blood
in
him.”

“Oh yes he can,” Nuada replied hoarsely from where he sat in front of Regan, still beneath the eaves of the forest. “Do not forget that our bodies are not alike. Human blood clots faster than Faery blood, yet also flows more freely. But still, the Dark One must surely be weakening.” He broke off as a coughing fit wracked him.

“He is not the only one weakening,” Regan said. “If we do not find rest soon, it will not—”

Nuada interrupted her. “Ailill is not far in front of us now, and if we hurry, I think we may soon catch him. I would like to see that.”

“Except that there’s a couple of small problems,” Alec noted.

“Yeah, like the Watchers, for one thing,” Liz said. “And like the lake, for another.”

“But we don’t have to go into the lake,” Gary pointed out. “If the trail goes around it.”

“Do you
want
to face the Watchers, Gary?” Liz shot back. “They may seem slow and ponderous, but they can move a lot faster than you think, and they’re meat eaters. Just ’cause they
look
sort of like glyptodonts, doesn’t mean they are.”

“So you’re saying we should cross the lake and try to pick up the trail on the other side?”

Liz nodded. “It’s shallow. We can wade.”

“Yeah,” Alec agreed. “We could do like we did before and use our iron-tipped staffs to keep the worst of the blood off.” He paused, looked around. “That is, if anybody’s still got theirs.”

“I have,” Gary volunteered, handing his spear to Alec.

“I’ve still got a knife,” Liz added, patting the sheath at her hip meaningfully.

Regan’s face was grim. “We lost many a weapon in the confusion of Fionna’s attack.”

“Well, maybe one’ll do it.” Alec sighed. “So let’s be off, before those things change their minds.”

Nuada opened his eyes, his face a mask of pain and weariness. “It is not as simple as that, I fear. I am wounded; and if you were to bother to look at Froech, you would see that his sides, too, bear some tokens of his encounter with Fionna.”

Alec spared a glance at Froech, and noted that the Faery boy did, indeed, show deep gashes along his bare ribs, though they seemed to be well on their way to healing. Still, there was more than a little fresh blood to blend with that which was already crusted there.

“So what’s the deal, then?”

“It is the quality of the lake of blood that if a wounded man enter it, and his blood once mingle with the substance of the lake, then the lake will suck him dry. I would prefer not to risk such a thing—nor, I think, would Froech.”

Froech shook his head. “That is more than I am willing to dare.”

“What about using the Track?” Gary suggested. “Use it to get around the lake by passing through a World where it doesn’t exist, or something.”

Regan’s brow furrowed. “It might be possible, if any of us commanded more Power than would spin a wheel, and we could thus bend the Track to our will. But even were we to do that, it might take us long and long to return to the trail on the other side.”

“Huh?”

“The way might seem clear to you, but the distance could be deceptive.”

“But we’ve
got
to do something, and soon,” Liz observed, a hard edge to her voice. “That closest Watcher keeps glancing this way.”

“Yeah,” Alec added, “and if we
don’t
act soon, there’s a good chance that not only will we be attacked, but that the trail may be obliterated. I mean there’s always a chance it
doesn’t
rejoin the Track again.”

Liz cast a hopeful look at Froech. “Isn’t there anything you can do, Froech? Surely this is all familiar to you. And you have more Power than anybody else.”

The Faery boy shook his head. “I used nearly all the strength I had in my battle with Fionna, and what little the Track has added in sealing up my wounds. And as for the Watchers, Lugh alone commands the talisman that masters them. He showed it to me, once, when I first came into his service.”

Alec took Liz by the arm. “Hey! Remember last time?” he said urgently. “Remember how the beasts didn’t follow us into the lake? They’d nose the stuff, but wouldn’t come in.”

Liz’s face brightened. “You’re right, Alec!” She glanced at Nuada. “What about it, Nuada? Why is that?”

“The Watchers partake only of fresh meat and hot blood. The blood in the lake is…dead blood, I suppose you would say.”

Alec sucked his lips thoughtfully, his eyes shifting from side to side as an idea began to form in his mind. “Aha!” he cried after a moment. “I may just have a solution. It’s a little gross, to be sure. But it might just save our skins.”

“So spill it, McLean.”

“Easy. I think these things track mostly by smell, so we dip ourselves and the horses in the lake, so that we’re covered with ‘dead’ blood, or at least enough so that we smell like it, and then we simply follow Ailill’s trail along the shore, keeping to the shallows if we can. That way we can keep an eye on the trail and on the Watchers at the same time, and hopefully they won’t come near us.”