Warstalker's Track (22 page)

Fionchadd and Nuada were easing the King down on it now, both apparently in much better shape than heretofore, though both sets of eyes were tired beyond belief. Himself, he was on his second—or third—or fourth—wind, but the time couldn’t be far off when he’d do a serious crash-and-burn.

He hoped nothing was competing for attention then. Like survival.

Galunlati wasn’t Faerie, after all; wasn’t even halfway civilized. It was more like pre-Columbian North America, with a dash of Pleistocene flora and fauna thrown in.

He was still staring numbly at the unconscious Faery king and trying not to think about why Kirkwood was building a fire in the fireplace in the high heat of June, when Liz slipped up behind him and handed him a cup of iced coffee. “Kick, but no heat,” she purred.

He took it, kissed her absently. “This’d be easier if we had the ulunsuti.”

“Ulunsuti?” Devlin echoed, joining them. “Jewel from the head of the uktena, right? Cherokee shamans use ’em. Supposed to have oracular powers.”

“Does, too.”

“Somehow I missed that you guys have one.”

“
Had
one,” David corrected. “Uki gave Alec one the first time we went to Galunlati. Caused him a lot of grief, too, though it’s also helped a couple of times, like when we’ve needed to check up on other places. Anyway, it’s gone now. See, you can do certain things to ’em and use ’em to create gates between the Worlds. That’s what caused part of the problem with Faerie, actually.”

Devlin nodded thoughtfully. “I knew they’d had trouble with what they called the gating stone, but didn’t know they meant an ulunsuti.”

David shrugged

“So you could’ve used it to make a gate now?”

“’Fraid so.”

At which point Calvin wandered back inside from where he’d been reinforcing his wards and instructing Brock on the maintenance of same. He ruffled the boy’s long hair affectionately. “Gotta get you a war name, kiddo.”

Brock beamed.

David raised a brow at Calvin and shouldered his bag of gear.

Calvin gave him a weary nod and retrieved his own bag. “Head ’em up; move ’em out,” he called.

Silently, they gathered round: those who would remain behind—Devlin, Brock, and Nuada—and those who would venture into Galunlati—David, Liz, and Sandy, who were all New World Celts; Calvin McIntosh and Kirkwood O’Connor, who were Cherokee-Irish mix; Fionchadd MacAilill, who was part Faerie and part Powersmith; and Lugh Samildinach, High King of the Sidhe in Tir-Nan-Og.
Seven,
David realized. Which
could
be a lucky number.

Calvin checked his watch, then led his crew to the area they’d cleared in front of Devlin’s fireplace—they’d moved the sofa back halfway across the room to make space for themselves, and at that, it was still rather crowded.

“Closer,” Calvin insisted, urging them closer again, so that David felt the fireplace heat wash up into his face, reminding him unpleasantly of the Pillar of Fire back…wherever. “Take care, everybody,” he called, a sentiment echoed by the others, though it was a more sober leave-taking than the earlier one, possibly because neither Devlin nor Nuada were demonstrative types and Brock had decided to be cool again.

Calvin squeezed through to kneel before the fire. David was certain its heat flared hotter than ever. “Ten, nine, eight…” Sandy counted. And then Calvin reached into a white leather pouch at his waist, drew out seven examples of what looked like vitreous fish scales, milky-clear at the tips, blood red at the roots. A pause for a breath and a half-heard invocation in Cherokee, and Calvin tossed all seven scales into the fire.

Smoke.

“Hyuntikwala Usunhi!”
Calvin yelled.

The fire blazed up immediately; the smoke thickened:
up
first, then out—enfolding them all in heat beyond heat, pain beyond pain, as though every cell in their bodies was being charred to ash one by one, and each had its own separate and exquisitely sensitive nerve. Someone gasped. Someone else cried out. A rush of wind; flame and pain found David’s eyes, and the World simply disappeared.

As white light was in truth all colors merged into one all-consuming whole, what followed was the same thing rendered in pain. A pain so pure it almost was
not
pain. And then it
was
again, and was diminishing, as though his cells reasserted themselves one by one.

Wind on his face, the smell of growing things, and David opened his eyes.

“Well,” Kirkwood breathed beside him. “So this is Galunlati.”

“Looks like it,” Calvin gasped. For his part, David was knuckling his eyes, wiping away the residual smoke that was making them tear like crazy. Eventually, his vision clarified, and he took stock of his surroundings. It was Galunlati, all right; not even Tir-Nan-Og had this primal freshness. The air was what air ought to be, what it was
designed
to be. And the landscape…! He inhaled deeply and looked around—they all did, returnees and newcomers alike. Newcomer, rather; Kirkwood was the only complete neophyte save the unconscious Lugh.

God, but this place was beautiful!
They stood at the edge of a good-sized river that bisected a narrow valley framed with mountains to either side, mountains that could have been his own native Appalachians a million years ago, before erosion—and
Homo sapiens—had
worked their will upon them. More rounded than the Rockies, they were, and forested to their peaks. Sure, those peaks were taller than the ones back in Enotah County, or the taller, craggier ones up in the Smokies, like those in
The Last of the Mohicans.
But the subtle softness was the same, a softness wrought at once by the underlying shapes and the growth that covered them: hardwoods mostly, conifers here and there, with laurel and rhododendron filling the spaces between.

And the trees closer in!
Hundreds of feet high, they were, straight trunked, yet not unnaturally perfect, for limbs looped and whorled and twisted where they would in a riot of joyous growth.

The sky was clear, save straight ahead, where a paler smudge rose from a screen of pines to bleach it. A familiar stain, too.
“Hyuntikwalayi,”
Calvin murmured. “Where-It-Made-A-Noise-As-Of-Thunder.”

“I know that name,” Kirkwood whispered. “It’s the old name for Tallulah Gorge.”

“Which this both is and isn’t,” Calvin acknowledged. “Now listen.”

As one they held their breaths—and felt as much as heard the steady, almost infrasound, rumble of water that fell so far and hard the rocks around it forever resonated.

“I take it,” Liz observed, “that you guys have been here before?”

David and Calvin nodded as one. “Cave in the rocks below. That’s where Uki lives.”

“So where is he, then?” Sandy wondered. “I mean, that
was
his name Cal shouted, right? Shouldn’t it have brought us to him?”

“
Should
have,” Calvin emphasized. “It doesn’t always—quite. I—”

A groan silenced him. Lugh. Lying as he’d lain in the Lands of Men: shrouded in a bedsheet, then wrapped to the neck in an army blanket, and resting on the ground between them.

One thing had changed immediately, David noted. Instead of being utterly comatose, the King of the Faeries was writhing and thrashing, twisting within his bonds, though whether to free himself from restraint or from pain he couldn’t tell. He was grunting and groaning, too, and had actually managed to work one hand free, though his eyelids were tightly closed.

He looked better, though: healthier, anyway; less abraded than before, with fewer pustules, far less angry red. A healthier glow suffusing what was always ghost-pale skin. His face was also fuller: his cheeks less hollow, the pouches under his eyes not as obvious. His hair, however, was still as wet as it had been: slicked to his skull with sweat and the water they’d used to rinse it free of iron dust. Not successfully, either, to judge by the oozing scalp. Only that—and his mouth—still looked tortured, likely a result of the dust they’d been unable to remove from his sweeping mustache, which Nuada had dared anyone to trim lest they face Lugh’s wrath indeed.

And then Lugh’s writhing redoubled.

“Is he having a
fit
?” Liz gasped, staring intently at Fionchadd.

The Faery was equally amazed, and more amazed a moment later when, amidst the worst writhing yet, Lugh’s eyes popped open. They were a startling dark blue: the blue of sapphires and deepsea water. And wild—with fear, pain, or utter madness, David had no idea.

More writhing, and the blanket began to slip free. “Hold him!” Calvin snapped, but Fionchadd grabbed his shoulders and held him back.

“Finno? What—?” Calvin began hotly.

“I am not certain,” the Faery hissed. “I caught a shred of thought unshadowed by insanity. I—I think he has a plan.”

And then, with a groan and the ripping of fabric, the writhing, thrashing King broke free. He rose—slowly, awkwardly, yet graceful for all that uncertainty—and stood swaying for a moment, white and naked and mostly intact, with his black hair hanging halfway down a back that reblistered as they watched.

Before anyone could stop him, he uttered a long wild shriek and dashed toward the juncture of the river and the screen of trees that masked the source of all that liquid thunder.

Reflex had already set David running, with Cal, Liz, and Fionchadd close behind; all in pursuit of the fleeing Faery, who was already forcing his way through the low-lying, riverside brush.

They lost sight of him briefly, the foliage was so thick, but then daylight stabbed their eyes again. David blinked and had to rein himself in to keep from plunging over the edge of the precipitous cliff barely two yards ahead of him.

David had already opened his mouth to call Lugh’s name, to summon him back from the brink, when the Faery uttered one final ecstatic shout—and flung himself into the river, not five feet from where it leapt over what was easily two hundred feet of ancient granite.

He lost sight of him, then, amidst the ensuing fountain of spray, but glimpsed him one final time before he disappeared over the cliff.

“Damn!” Kirkwood panted, jogging up to where he, Calvin, and Liz all stood gaping, with Fionchadd oddly silent at the absolute brink.

David joined the Faery, and could only stare down the long white plume of thundering water. Stare, and wonder, and try not to give himself over to despair.

Chapter X: Second Gate

(US 129—Sunday, June 29—late morning)

“So,” Aikin murmured, easing back in the Caravan’s right front captain’s chair, which had defaulted to him, “let me get this straight: you, Scott, Piper, and LaWanda have all been to this World before?”

Myra, who was driving (it was, after all, her van), nodded absently and ran a hand through her topknot of wheat-colored hair. She did that when she was antsy, Aikin noticed, as she had been ever since they’d got stuck behind a convoy of semis—packed with carnival rides, interestingly enough.

“Might as well give him the lowdown, gal,” LaWanda called from the rearmost bench, where she and Piper were ensconced, leaving Aife and Alec to share the mid-range, to their chagrin. “Don’t think Aife knows the whole tale either.”

Myra sighed wearily. “Well, the basic story is that a few years back Piper and a friend of ours named Jay Madison happened on the manuscript of an unknown medieval mystery play down at the UGA library. Naturally, there was a big to-do about producing the thing, with Jay’s asshole brother getting the right to direct it. They were gonna—”

“Get to the point,” LaWanda urged.

Myra aimed a glare at her through the rearview mirror, then paused again to pass the rearmost of the semis before proceeding. “Right—so what nobody knew was that the manuscript also contained a spell which, if the play was performed under certain circumstances, would take whoever read it to another World.”

“Gettin’ ahead of yourself, now,” LaWanda muttered.

Myra’s jaw tensed, but she went on anyway. “Whatever. So shift to Faerie, or one of its adjuncts. A minor wizard there named Colin discovered these Silver Tracks, which have the ability to carry matter from one World to another—kind of the opposite of the gold ones we use, which help us move but don’t move themselves. Anyway, Colin also discovered a way to use them to deposit material where
he
wanted, and eventually built his own little mini-kingdom using material stolen, I think, from Alban, which is the Faery realm in Scotland. It was pretty neat actually; apparently he could take every third grain of sand on one hand and entire mountains on the other. However it worked, he had a tower in the middle of it, and a maze of mirrors around it, and stocked it with all kinds of critters, notably gryphons, which are semisapient, and which he effectively enslaved.”

There was much more of course, and though Myra was oddly reticent about the details, Aikin eventually got a satisfactorily complete story. Piper helped occasionally, and Aife ventured the odd speculation, as did Alec, who’d heard most of the tale from David, to whom Myra had once related the entire saga.

“So the reason we’re going to Athens,” Aikin summarized, “is that the last time anybody looked, that place
overlapped
Athens—okay, Myra:
Bogart—and
that that while it’s sort of in Faerie, the Faerie we know and—uh—love also overlaps the same place.”

“Basically,” LaWanda acknowledged. “See, we don’t know how big the place is, and the way we’re plannin’ on gettin’ there…we basically gotta
be
there.”

“Let’s hope,” Alec grunted. “Those little countries tend to float around a lot. Best I can figure, long as they’re attached to a Track, they can move up and down it at—well, not at will, but by whatever screwy physics runs things over there.”

“In any event,” Myra concluded, “Athens seems like the best place from which to enter. And before anybody says anything about damaging the World Walls, remember that we really don’t have any choice. Besides, we weren’t the ones who started this.”

Aikin yawned.
God, he was sleepy!
Then again, he hadn’t slept since…when? Back on the ship sometime? Another yawn (best to close his eyes anyway, given how close Myra was to the back of that Aeromax) and before he knew it, he was dreaming.