Sunshaker's War (43 page)

The upshot was that he was staring stupidly when Y'Alvar came up to him, gripped him under the shoulder, and with the aid of another guard simply rose with him into the sky.

He almost lost it at that, and would have cried out except that a sudden paralysis gripped his throat. More Faery magic, probably, but that didn't stop the gag reflex—with the result that the first thing he did when he arrived aboard the beautiful silver airship was to toss his cookies all over the gleaming deck—and one of the guards.

He got a forearm in his face for that, and a quick, if unpleasant, interface between the deck, his butt, and his elbows. But he also got a small twinge of satisfaction. He was just starting to gather himself up again when he saw Liz likewise levitated on board. She seemed to be behaving with better grace than he had, but her eyes, visible in the reflected glow of the twenty-odd torches that ringed the long narrow railing, were ablaze with indignation and fury.

More voices buzzed in his head, hands hauled him up and brought him over to where Liz was standing. The chains went around their legs again, and another set joined them to the mast—closer than they'd been to the oak tree. Obviously the commander of this vessel did not want them roaming around.

A final set of barked orders, a thrum through the hull, and they were moving.

He saw the dragon prow come around, saw the constellations of Georgia summer slowly swing past it, and then they were pointing south and gathering speed. Speed, yes, but there was no sensation of movement. He only knew that the bits of landscape he could make out beyond the railing were sweeping by with unnatural haste. Yet the sails, though swollen, were not straining, and the torches did not seem to be aware of any wind.

*

The transition to Faery came suddenly. As soon as they were no longer over land, and thus no longer over mortal territories that overlapped Tir-Nan-Og, there was an abrupt, awful, twisting sensation; the world sort of turned in on itself; and suddenly they were sailing above the choppy seas of Faerie.

Alec had never seen them before, and though he was scared, and pissed, and had the taste of stomach acid in his mouth, he nevertheless could not help but appreciate them. It was as if blue velvet had been overlaid with emerald green glass, and the whole sprinkled with dancing diamonds. The air was perfect: warm but soothing, with maybe the merest hint of some distant storm to give it passion; and there was a smell of both salt and cinnamon. A flock of seagulls was still quarrelling and protesting and insulting them from when the ship had emerged from nothing in their midst.

And the sky: more velvet, but a different shade of blue, and without the glass—but with jewels that were the stars, all far brighter and with far more clarity of color than he had ever seen on the skies of earth. There was an aurora to the north, too; and now he looked more closely, both earth and sky were alive with the pale, golden glitter of Straight Tracks.

With absolutely no warning, the deck tilted and he found himself flung shoulder-long into Liz. The impact jerked a grunt from her, and he felt the paralysis on this throat relax. “Liz,” he managed in a sort of half croak, half whisper.

“Yeah,” she told him. Then: “Hey, I can talk again!”

“Good thing, too, 'cause—”

The deck tilted again, even more steeply, and the air filled with shouts. Some of the crew had already fallen overboard, but a fair number more were shifting shape and taking wing into the dark skies of the east. He and Liz seemed to have been forgotten.

“Dana!” someone swore.
“Ambush!”

“It's Lugh!”

“Curse his luck forever!” That from another.

“Lugh?” Alec shouted, glancing at Liz. They were almost on their side, keeling over on an ocean of air a hundred yards or more above the water. But this time when the ship jerked and twitched they could see what caused it.

There was another vessel there—no, an endless file of them, all rowing in the empty air, while an even greater fleet darkened the seas below it. Alec wondered that he had not seen them before, but then he had no more time for thought because a light blazed out from that first ship and arrowed straight toward them. It caught the sail above them and set it aflame. A second bolt wrapped the dragon-prow with fire.

The third blast of flame struck the hull even with the mast—which meant it was even with them. Alec felt it lick at him, heard Liz's scream, even as he surpassed it with his own, which was born both of surprise and his new dread of fire. He felt his eyebrows crisped away and caught the stench of burning hair. This was it then: Mama McLean's only boy, would-be rocket scientist, hacker extraordinaire, was gonna buy it by being cooked alive in a flying boat over the seas of an unreal ocean. Poetic injustice for certain!

A fourth bolt flowered where the other had, and with that, the boat tipped over.

Alec closed his eyes and prayed. They were gonna die, were gonna die, were gonna die. From impact, from drowning, from flame, from monsters that lived in the sea.

“Shiiiiiittttt!”
he heard himself yell as he started to slide. They would have smashed into the railing, had they not been chained to the mast, but just as they were yanked up short, he heard a crack, saw one final bolt lance out from the fleet, and center the mast.

It shattered, blasting them with shrapnel. They were upside down now, hanging by the chains that wrapped their feet. Liz seemed to be unconscious, but then she'd been closer to the impact. He hoped that was all she was. He caught her awkwardly as she flopped into him again. If they went down, at least they'd do it together.

And then something snapped and they were falling.

Alec flailed out—felt—
heard
—air rushing past his ears, saw glittering blue darkness rushing up at him, and had only time to duck his head and grab one final breath before impact.

Warm water enclosed him, and he found himself bulleting far down before friction slowed him and survival instincts took over. Something dragged against his arm, though: Liz—a dead weight there—maybe dead in the most literal sense. He hoped not, but then the need for air became uppermost, and he was swimming for all he was worth, fighting the pull of the water against his clothes, the stronger tug of the chains, the fire in his lungs as he made them wait a little longer.

Abruptly he broke surface, almost brained himself on a bit of shimmering timber. He grabbed for it, slipped, grabbed another and held, managed to get Liz's head out of the water. Good, she was still breathing. Water slapped into his mouth and he sputtered. “Liz?” he called softly. “Liz?”

Her eyelids fluttered, and he breathed a sigh of relief. “Liz, oh thank God!”

“Where are we?” she gasped between fits of coughing.

“The ship crashed. I think Lugh ambushed it.”

“Lugh!” she cried. “We've gotta get hold of him, gotta signal!”

Alec felt his heart flip-flop, for that really was a good idea. But then he gazed skyward—and saw to his dismay the vast airy armada already almost out of sight to the east.

“No!”
Liz groaned hopelessly, and sagged against him, her eyes awash with tears.

“But at least
we're
still alive,” Alec tried to reassure her, though he took small comfort from the fact. “That's more than a lot of these guys are.” He nodded at a corpse that was bobbing past—one of the yellow-booted guards. The Faery was floating face down. His tunic had been flamed away on one side, leaving his back and one arm exposed, and they were covered with blistered and crisped flesh. But the other hand—Alec could not believe his luck. The other hand still clutched the bag that held the ulunsuti.

“Oh, Christ, Liz—I've gotta get that!” Alec cried, already starting to paddle toward it.

The words were scarcely out of his mouth, though, before his elation faded. For even as his fingers brushed the tattered remains of the Faery's cloak, the pouch slipped free and sank beneath the waves.

“Damn!” Alec spat helplessly, his eyes also welling with tears. “Christ, it was so close! So goddamn close—and now we're stuck here!” He sank back against the float, not caring whether he held on or not.

Liz stared at him, her face suddenly hard. “Snap out of it, Alec! It's gone, there's nothing you can do about it. We've got more important things to deal with now!”

“Yeah, but it's our way outta here. I've blown it!”

“No you haven't,” Liz told him sharply. “None of this is your fault.”

“Yes it is,” he retorted. “It's
all
my fault—from the moment I didn't believe David when he told me about meeting the Sidhe. I—”

“Well then
do
something about it!” Liz interrupted. “We've always gotten through these messes somehow, we'll get through this one too! Use your famous brain to think, not feel sorry for yourself! Shoot—use the goddamn ulunsuti!”

“It's lost!”

“
Is
it?” she asked suddenly. “It's under water, but that's not the same. If…we were in the desert and you'd seen it roll down a sand dune and out of sight, would that be lost? Besides, you're its master—master it!”

“But…” Alec began, and then his face brightened. Perhaps she had a point. “You're right, Liz, maybe there
is
something I can do.”

And with that he began fumbling with the mess of chain and broken mast. There was an angle of ragged metal there—one that kept poking him in the back, but maybe… The ulunsuti responded to blood, so it was just possible…

He twisted around in the water, gulped a mouthful of the stuff, and brought the heel of his right hand against the brass projection. Once, twice, and he closed his eyes and gritted his teeth, and slashed his hand across it really hard—and felt a warm trickle of blood. This was it then—the experiment to end all experiments. He closed his eyes, tried to envision the ulunsuti somewhere at the bottom of the sea, then tried to imagine his blood wending its way there—and tried
not
to think about sharks and such like.

A deep breath, and he began his call:
Come…come…
Over and over, endlessly repeated, while he tried to think only of one thing: the ulunsuti on the bottom of the sea, slowly absorbing his blood, wakening to it with that bright light it held—
responding
!

He never knew how to describe it afterwards, but he somehow became aware that he
had
connected.
Come…come
…he continued his litany.

And the ulunsuti came. One moment Alec felt his thoughts stretched taut through the darkness of the Faery ocean; an instant later, warm wet leather brushed his hand. He grabbed for it awkwardly, almost lost it again, but then managed to cup it in his hand and slowly work the pouch into a pocket.

“I did it!” he shouted. “Liz, I did it!”

But an hour later they were still floating.

Chapter XXV: Wingin' It

(Galunlati—day two—mid-day)

David stared at Fionchadd incredulously. “You're
not
serious,” he whispered. Then, when the Faery's expression did not change, “No, I reckon you are.”

Fionchadd regarded him calmly, and David could see that his face, at least, had almost completely healed in the little while since David had first awakened. “Certainly,” the Faery affirmed. “I would never jest about anything as important as this.”

David sat down abruptly and drained the last of the bouillon, grimacing at the taste. “So what'd you have in mind?” he asked carefully, not looking at his friend. To keep his trepidation at reasonable bay, he began halfheartedly scouring the peanut-can pot with sand and a little of the water that remained in the bag.

“It is as I suggested,” Fionchadd told him. “You have changed shape before, have you not? You can therefore do so again. I know of no other way to cross the distance we must in the time that remains.”

David put down the can and looked away. “What about you? You can't shapeshift…can you?”

Fionchadd gave a gentle half-snort of surprise. “Of course I can—all the Sidhe have that art, though some are stronger than others. Like many other talents: it improves with practice.”

“And you feel up to it? I mean, a day ago you looked like somebody's thrown-out scrambled eggs—and I've got a feelin' you were more than a little fried inside too!”

The Faery took David gently by the arm and eased him around to face him. “Look at me, David Sullivan.”

David did, though he didn't want to. Green eyes flashed before him—not with anger or fear, but with concern.

“I do not understand this fear I see, David. You have done this thing before—surely you do not fear it now!”

David stared back up at him, and felt his eyes suddenly a-brim with tears, which embarrassed him considerably. “Don't I?” I'm fine if I don't think about it, but if I do…”