Windmaster's Bane (16 page)

They heaved themselves onto dry land and scrambled up the bank. Once in the perceived safety of the trees, they turned as one, half afraid of what they might see.

Below them in the shallows stood, indeed, a great black horse, staring malevolently up the bank toward them, but making no move to leave the water that lapped about its hocks. Moisture glistened on its flanks, and the devil light in its eyes had faded—at least to David’s sight—to a dull, lifeless gray.

“Son-of-a-
bitch
,” Alec whispered.

The horse stared at them a moment longer, then turned and swam off into the lake. The three friends watched it from the safety of the trees until it became a mere speck. Oddly, it did not walk out onto the bank on the other side of the lake, but rather continued into the open water to the right, disappearing finally around an outthrust peninsula.

“That sure was scary!” Liz said breathlessly.

“That’s very true,” David agreed, picking up his towel. Liz cautiously eased back to the shore to fetch hers.

“Any idea whose horse that was, Liz?” David asked when she had returned.

Liz shook her head. “Nobody around here has a black horse, and, anyway, I’ve never heard of a horse swimming around like that. I wonder
if…
God, I hope
not…
you don’t reckon it might have had rabies or something, do you? I sure don’t want to think about a rabid
horse
running around.”

“Swimming around, you mean,” Alec corrected. “You know, it was almost like it was in its natural habitat, though—and was chasing us off.”

“Good thing you saw the fish when you did, Alec, or we might not have noticed till it was right on top of us,” David put in.

Liz shuddered and hugged her towel more closely about her. “That’s
true…
and you know something else? Between the horse and that strange gust of wind right before, all of a sudden I don’t feel in the least like going back in the water.”

“I know what you mean,” said David. “It’s about time for us to head out anyway. Got to get me and Master McLean home before supper, and I’d hate to have to take up
hurrying…” He
grinned at Alec.

As he and Alec returned to the clump of laurel bushes where they had left their clothes and began to change, David wondered if his eyes had deceived him, or if he had actually seen what he thought he had seen at the end of the horse’s legs: not hooves—but fins. He glanced down at the ring. It was its usual cold and shiny self. Beautiful, but in no other way remarkable—except, he was now absolutely convinced, it was magic.

Interlude: In Tir-Nan-Og

(high summer)

The boy had spent the night in the company of a selkie woman. They had lain together twice: once on shore, when the boy had put upon himself the seal shape that was the woman’s own; and once again in his boat, when she had shed her skin and joined with him in his man’s form.

It was morning now, and he was still in the boat. The low sun glimmered through pale tendrils of pink-tinged mist that rose from an expanse of water scarcely darker. To the north was the vague blue crenulation of the forested shore. On every other side was water, motionless as ice and more silent.

A breeze stirred, twitching the fog away from the angry eyes of the gilded dragon prow, causing the limp green sail to billow apprehensively. The thick red fur of the manticore hide with which the boy had wrapped himself stirred. A strand of fair hair blew into his face and tickled him awake.

Something moved at his bare feet: A scaly silver head on an arm-long neck writhed from under the cover and hissed hoarsely, its elaborate ear flares flicking delicately. The rest followed: close-furled wings and clawed hind legs, tail whip-thin like a serpent. The boy jerked a foot back under the cover as the wyvern made a dive for it. He grunted, slipped a hand over the low side to port, and eased it into the water.

It took only a trickle of Power to call the fish: three of them. Each a hand long, they waited by the boat, tails undulating trustingly.

The first two he flung into his pet’s waiting jaws. The third he cooked in his fist and ate himself, peeling the white flesh from the bones with perfect teeth, washing it down with the remnants of a flagon of the previous evening’s wine.

He was considering the remaining flagon when he became aware of the summoning.

“Too good to last, wasn’t it, Dylan?” he grumbled as he heaved himself up among the furs and tugged a gray silk tunic over his head. He stood up unsteadily and squinted into the shimmering red haze of the sun.

There, to the east, maybe an arrow’s shot away: a glimmering strip upon the water that was quickly resolving itself into a streak of burning golden light as one of the Tracks came awake beneath the tread of one of his kindred.

Fionchadd!
The name echoed in his mind alone: Ailill’s call—his father.

He frowned but conjured a breeze to set the boat gliding across the lake toward that summons.

The golden haze of the Track lay on the water, stretching arrow-straight north and south until it was lost in the mist, the rift between the Worlds above it casting flickering images upon the air itself that made him recall his breakfast unpleasantly.

The Track brightened gloriously at one point, rivaling the sun, and then Ailill stepped from that glow and onto the boat amid-ship. The boat tipped slightly, and Ailill grasped the single mast to steady himself before sitting down.

Fionchadd automatically offered him the wineskin.

Ailill’s gaze remained fixed upon the boy as he took a long draught. “You do not look happy, my son,” he observed.

“I do not like waiting.”

Ailill shrugged and returned the skin. “It was midnight when I left; now it is sunrise. That is not long, and you seem to have spent it well enough—or is that not the scent of selkies I smell upon you?”

The boy looked away. “So did you learn what you set out to learn? What is there in the Lands of Men to interest you?”

“You know of the boy, do you not? The human boy?”

“The one who bested you in the Question Game?”

“The one who insulted me.”

Fionchadd took a sip of wine. “I know of him.”

“Do you know that he is protected? I tried to summon him, to settle accounts my own way, but when I worked the summoning I met a Power greater than my own, one that almost consumed me. I have been in the Lands of Men seeking to learn the nature of that protection.”

“I spent the night on a lake so you could look for a mortal boy?” Fionchadd frowned into his cup.

Ailill’s brows lowered dangerously. “It is you who are answerable to me, not I to you.”

“You could have told me what you were about.”

“And you could then have told anyone who asked you where I was.”

“I could have lied.”

“You do not do that very well—nor do you hide your thoughts. They are there on your face for anyone to read.”

“Perhaps so; but, then, I have less to hide than you do. Now, are you going to tell me what you learned?”

Ailill sighed and regarded his son uneasily.
Just like his mother. Just like the Annwyn-born bitch I got him on. He even looks like her. Fair as sunlight. But, then, he was born at dawn.

“I learned some things, my son,” Ailill said finally, “and I lay a geas upon you to reveal them to no one.” He traced a vaguely circular symbol in the air.

Fionchadd traced a matching symbol in turn. “And what are those things?”

Ailill made a cushion out of the manticore fur and leaned back against it. “Very well: I went by the Water Road, which is less frequently traveled. In that I was fortunate, for I came upon the boy swimming with his friends. So I put upon myself the shape of a kelpie, thinking its strength and speed might be useful; also, I thought to test the boy’s knowledge of such things. And I watched for a while, and then I threatened—to see if that which protects him offered protection of the body as well as of the mind.”

“And does it?”

“It does. I could only approach so closely, and then it was like a wall of flame about him. But I saw what it is that effects this protection.”

“And what is that?”

“A ring.”

“A ring.” Fionchadd raised an eyebrow. “Interesting. How do you propose to procure it?—which I assume you intend to do.”

Ailill smiled grimly. “That is the problem, isn’t it? I can approach only so closely, and I cannot summon him.”

“Have you tried summoning one of his kinsmen? If you cannot touch him, perhaps one of them could. Or you could use one as a hostage.”

Ailill’s face brightened. “Now you show yourself as my son. But there may be a problem. I have tried summoning all those whose faces I saw graven in those parts of his mind reserved for the beloved. But every time I tried, there was Fire, weaker than that which protects, but still beyond my Power to quench. No, I fear the ring protects them as well.”

Fionchadd regarded his father levelly. “So what is it you want from me?”

“I want you to help me. I cannot touch the boy, and I cannot touch the thing that protects him. Nor do I dare absent myself from court too often; Lugh would become suspicious, or if not he, then Silverhand. But there is a possibility that the ring protects him only from me. It might not hinder you.”

“So you want me to help you capture the boy?”

Ailill nodded. “If possible. At least I want you to see how close you can come to the ring. It would be best if you began now. Go into the Lands of Men. Watch. Listen. Use whichever of your skills seem good to you. And report to me. You
do
know how to operate the Tracks, do you not?”

“Oh, aye,” Fionchadd agreed absently as he began summoning another fish. “My mother taught me that art very well indeed.”

Chapter VII: Oisin

“Supper!” JoAnne Sullivan called from the barbed wire fence at the top of the pasture Big Billy shared with Uncle Dale. “You men gonna stand there starin’ at that sorghum patch all evenin’? Ain’t gonna make it grow no faster!” She could see their varied silhouettes cut out against the lush green growth that filled the narrow, flat strip of land between the pasture and the Sullivan Cove road: Big Billy, tall and heavy-set, stomach gone to fat from too much beer and good food, but still well muscled; Uncle Dale, taller still, rail-thin, and aged like a locust fence post; and beside him in stair-step order: slender Alec; David, shorter but more solidly built; and then Little Billy, who looked like he would beat them all.

“One more call’s all you’re gettin’, and then I’m gonna eat this stuff myself—now get up here!”

“Yes ma’am,” hollered Big Billy, smiling faintly.

As they trudged up the grassy slope Alec and David fell slightly behind. Alec clapped a hand good-naturedly on David’s shoulder and bent close. “Sorry about this afternoon,” he said.

David shrugged. “No problem. I appreciate your concern, but I’m
just…
confused about some things, and I haven’t figured them out yet.”

“That’s the kind of thing we used to work out together, my friend.”

David nodded grimly. “I know, and I hope we can work this out too, but not
yet…
not quite yet.”

They had reached the top of the hill by then, and David held up the barbed wire for Alec to climb through before following himself, Alec glanced up at his friend from the ditch beside the driveway and nodded resignedly.

“You go on up, I’ll be there in a minute,” said David.

Alec raised an eyebrow. “Well, don’t expect me to leave anything for you; your ma’s probably given up on us already, and I for one am not one to give up on your ma’s cooking.”

“I won’t,” David called to Alec’s back as he took off his glasses and rubbed his eyes. Something was up again, he knew, as he surveyed the landscape. But where? Nothing met his gaze. Finally he shrugged and followed his friend toward the house. The itching wouldn’t quit, though, and for a long moment David stood on the side porch looking out across the intervening fields and pastures toward the silver-red glitter of the lake far to the west, and then abruptly up the gravel road to the bulk of the mountain. His eyes were burning now, and his hand unconsciously sought the ring.

And then he saw it: right at the limits of sight, so faint as to be almost invisible against the dark forest. Just where the road marched in among the trees beyond the barn, he thought he could make out the hazy figure of a man—an old man in flowing gray robes—and that the man raised one thin arm and pointed up the mountain. It seemed, too, that the old man held a walking stick in his other hand, with which he felt his way. David blinked, and the man was gone.

*

David put down his glass of milk. “I think me and Alec are gonna walk up to Lookout Rock after supper,” he announced as he speared a piece of roast beef and looked quizzically over at Big Billy, who was applying himself vigorously to his own generous portion.

“We’re gonna
what?”
cried a shocked Alec through a mouthful of mashed potatoes. Little Billy giggled, but nobody noticed.

Alec slumped in his chair and glared at David through tired eyes. “David, my friend, I am weary to the bone.” He pointed at himself with his fork. “All I want to do is play a couple of rounds of Risk and go to bed. I don’t know how I let you talk me into putting in the whole day following you around.”

“We didn’t do anything but talk and go swimming.”

“And help your daddy pull the engine out of that old pickup.”