Windmaster's Bane (17 page)

And, besides, hanging onto the seat while you take
every
curve between here and Liz’s house on two wheels, takes it out of a body.”

David snorted. “Wimp.”

“If you’re so set on goin’ up that mountain, why don’t you take Little Billy,” Uncle Dale suggested. “Me ’n Alec’ll play us a game or two of checkers. That be okay? You want to go hikin’ up to the Rock with Davy, Little Billy?”

Little Billy looked up, wide-eyed. Milk had painted a white mustache on his upper lip. “Nope.”

“Why not?” cried the old man.

“I don’t like goin’ in the woods.”

“Why not?”

“They’s boogers in there,” the little boy said solemnly.

“Boogers! Why what kind of talk is that?” Uncle Dale gave David a sharp look. “Who’s been teachin’ you ’bout boogers?”

“Nobody; I saw one.”

“Saw one!” said Uncle Dale. “Well, what did it look like?”

“Like a real shiny boy.”

“A shiny boy? I never heard of a booger lookin’ like a shiny boy.”

“Well, it did,” Little Billy said stubbornly. “A shiny boy wearin’ funny gray clothes.”

David felt the hair prickle on the back of his neck. Apparently his brother had seen one of the Sidhe. But if what Ailill had said was really true, that the Sidhe could make themselves visible to anyone if it were
their
choice, then why had one shown himself to Little Billy? That didn’t augur well at all. “Did it say anything?” David asked cautiously.

“Nope. Just sat up there by the barn and looked at me.”

“You won’t go near it if you see it again, will you?” David laughed nervously, trying to mask how much his brother’s remark had disturbed him.

Uncle Dale shot David another sharp glance.

“I ain’t crazy,” Little Billy replied, reaching for the plate of freshly baked cookies that were to be desert.

“But you will stay close to home, won’t you?” David asked hopefully.

“I ain’t crazy,” Little Billy repeated.

* * *

The boys retired to David’s room at a surprisingly early hour. Alec was asleep almost as soon as he hit the covers, but David stayed up to read for a while—hoping to find some key to the day’s occurrence in
Gods and Fighting Men
or
The Secret Commonwealth.
He’d read the latter cover to cover several times—it was not very long. But except for the business about Second Sight, which occupied almost half the book, there was very little in it that seemed relevant to his current situation. There were no magic rings in it, for instance, and no water horses. And it was difficult to reconcile Kirk’s provincial Subterraneans with the sophisticated, urbane Sidhe he had met. There were certainly some things in it worth knowing, but almost none of them were either pleasant or encouraging. The stuff about changelings was particularly disturbing, for instance.

Eventually David found his eyes getting heavier and heavier. A tiredness he had not previously been aware of had fallen upon him, and as it claimed him, his consciousness followed.

But two hours later David was awake again. The clock by his bed indicated a few minutes before midnight. He glanced over at Alec, still sound asleep in the other bed, breathing heavily through his mouth, one bare arm hanging off the side.

He’ll put his arm to sleep for sure that way,
David thought and lay back down, only to sit up again a moment later. Jesus, he was restless! What a predicament: to be fully awake in the middle of the night. For a moment David wondered if anyone else was up, but the only sound that came to his ears was the distant wind: no TV, no radio. He looked out the window beside his bed and idly watched a single car accelerate down the highway.

“Crap,” he muttered. “I was afraid it’d come to this.”

Quietly David got up, slipped on a pair of corduroy jeans, tiptoed barefoot to the door, and soundlessly opened it, grateful he had had the foresight to oil the hinges. He continued down the hall into the kitchen, and thence onto the back porch which faced the mountain. For a long moment he leaned against a porch post, staring out into the yard, oblivious to the chill wind that played about his bare shoulders and feet. Absently he hugged his arms about himself and continued his vigil, not knowing what he sought, but knowing, too, with absolute conviction, that there was some reason for the sense of undirected urgency that filled him.

Slowly David became aware of a sort of sparkle in the grass, as if dew had fallen or autumn had sent a tentative vanguard of frost venturing briefly in from the north. At the same time he sensed a new brightness in the air, as if the moon had risen. He leapt lightly into the yard and raised his face skyward, seeking the source of that radiance.

It was the moon, all right, rising golden-yellow—only…something was wrong. Hadn’t the moon been new just a few days before? And now it was full! And wasn’t it in the wrong part of the sky? The familiar tingle tickled his eyes then, and he grimaced and exhaled sharply. He knew what he had to do.

When David slipped back into his room a moment later, he found Alec sitting on the side of his bed calmly tugging on his socks.

“I’m going with you, of course,” Alec whispered in response to David’s raised eyebrows. “I could tell by that look in your eyes at supper that you’d go up that mountain tonight with me or without me—and I’m just stupid enough to go with you. Maybe I’ll get to the bottom of this foolishness yet.”

David smiled but didn’t say anything, just crossed soundlessly to the closet and pulled out a long-sleeved flannel shirt. “Wait and put your shoes on outside,” he told Alec. “No way you can walk quiet as me through the house, and Pa’s a light sleeper.”

Alec nodded. A moment later both boys sat on the back steps looking out into the darkness.

“You see anything funny about the night?” David asked tentatively. He watched Alec’s face closely.

Alec glanced at the sky and then back at David, noticing the scrutiny. “Am I
supposed
to see anything funny about the night? It’s a night. Dark, mostly. Some stars. Land is darker than sky.”

David looked hard at his friend. “Any moon?”

Alec frowned and looked back at the sky. “None that I can see. It’s the wrong time of month for it, isn’t it? Why?”

“Alec, how bright does it look out here to you?”

“What do you mean, how bright?”

“I mean how bright. Bright enough to read by? Bright enough to barely feel your way around in if you’re not in shadow? How bright?”

Alec returned David’s intense stare. “Not bright enough to read by, that’s for sure.”

“Alec,” whispered David very slowly, “I know you’re not going to believe this…but I see a full moon.”

“Made out of green cheese or painted blue, no doubt?”

David sighed and flung his hands up in dismay; then he rose and jumped off the steps, striding decisively toward the driveway, his paces long and deliberate. Alec almost had to run to catch up.

“Damn, Sullivan, what’re you
doing
fumbling around out here in the dark? Aren’t you at least gonna get a flashlight?”

David turned almost savagely on his friend but did not slow down. “I don’t
need
a flashlight.
I
see a full moon, and I see by its light. If you want to come along, you’re welcome, but don’t slow me down; there’s something I gotta do tonight. I don’t know what it is yet, but something magic is cooking, Alec. I know it. Maybe, just maybe, if you come with me, you’ll see something too—and believe me.” His voice softened. “I don’t like not having you believe me, Alec. But you won’t without proof, so maybe I can give you some.”

Alec stared at David as he followed him toward the logging road. “I just don’t want you breaking your leg in the dark or something.”

“Ha!” came David’s scornful voice ahead of him, at the point where the trees began to close in. “You’re the one who needs to worry—especially if you don’t catch up.” His voice took on a lighter coloring. “There are werewolves on this mountain, I hear.”

“Werepossums, anyway,” came Alec’s voice close behind him.

*

An hour or so later they reached their destination. It was impossible to tell exactly how long the trip had taken, because David discovered he had let his watch run down: It still registered twelve o’clock. The moon seemed to have moved, too, but somehow in not quite the right manner. David shrugged it off. Time was the least of his worries.

As he and Alec came into the open space of the lookout, David suppressed a chill as he recalled the last time he had been there. He glanced furtively at the sky before trotting over to stand on the overlook itself.

There was the usual gut-wrenching sensation of being suddenly very high in the air, the more so because the wind blew fallen leaves about, blurring the distinction between sky and earth, even as the darkness itself did. The waterfall roared incessantly to the left, strangely loud as it poured into the pool, its edges fringed with decaying brown leaves.

David and Alec found their customary ledge at the very tip of the lookout. Without a word they stretched out side by side, hands hooked behind their heads, gazing up at the stars. A meteor obligingly flashed out of the northwest. Alec pointed. “Did you see that? Nice one!”

“I did.” David nodded.

“You know, this old rock is pretty comfortable. I could nearly go to sleep here.”

“You’d freeze half to death and be stiff as rigor mortis in the morning.”

“Appropriately!”

“Appropriately.” David levered himself up on his elbows. “We’d best start back soon. I don’t know why I wanted to come up here; I have no idea what I’d hoped to find.”

“The Holy Grail?”

“This is serious, Alec.”

Alec closed his eyes. “Just wake me in the morning,” he sighed.

David continued to watch the sky for a while, hoping to see another meteor—or something. Somehow, though, he could not seem to muster quite enough energy to start the long trip back home. Or was it that he still felt that sense of anticipation, as in something important were about to happen? He sat up again, hunched over, wrapped his arms awkwardly about his knees, and rested his chin on them, wishing he had brought a jacket.

“Yes, it is a little cold,” came a voice behind him, a voice that sang in his ears like music, though the phrase was in no way remarkable. David would never forget the first words he heard that voice speak.

He did not start when the voice sounded; rather, he very calmly and quietly stood up and looked back toward the mass of mountain—and was not at all surprised to see a robed figure sitting placidly on one of the rocks by the waterfall. His eyes tingled, too, but he scarcely noticed as he glanced one last time at Alec. His friend appeared to be sound asleep, a smile of almost abandoned pleasure curving the full lips above his pointed chin, making tiny dimples in his cheeks. David smiled in turn and slowly approached the figure. As he crossed the thirty or so feet between them, the thought came to him that he should not have been able to hear the man’s speech above the roar of the waterfall beside him—yet the voice had sounded clearly, like a whisper in an empty church.

Almost without thinking David found himself sitting on a rock opposite the man. Beneath the gray-white hood the man seemed to look at David, and yet not at him; his gaze seemed fixed somewhere slightly above David’s head. Slowly the man extended a hand, brushed his fingertips briefly against David’s brow—and as slowly withdrew it—then raised both hands to the hood and flung it back.

David watched almost as if hypnotized, taking in every detail: the ancient and corded hands, like old tree bark; the nails perfect and almost metallic-looking, a ring on each finger. No, on all fingers but
one
—each of them silver, but all different. The rest of the body seemed indistinct, nebulous. David could not make his eyes focus on it, but he had an impression of a slender form shrouded in long gray-and-white robes of a soft fabric like velvet. If moonlight was woven into fabric it would be like that, he thought.

And the face…David hesitated to look full on it. It was the face of an old man, lined with a thousand wrinkles, yet still with its power and dignity about it, and still with the joy of youth playing about the lips and eyes. David realized that the appearance of age lay mostly on the surface, for the muscles and bones kept their firmness; it was more like a patina on silver or the fine network of cracks on an old painting. The hair was white, too, white as the stars in the sky, long, and infinitely fine, sweeping back from the furrowed forehead. And the eyes! David didn’t know how long he looked at those eyes as the man continued to smile softly in the silence. They were silver-colored: from edge to edge, dark silver.
Blind,
David knew instinctively, but beautiful, and infinitely strange.

“You will have to look a long time to read my whole story there, David Sullivan,” the stranger said at last, and a hush fell about that place, as if the world had stopped to listen.

“Who
are
you?” David managed to croak. “Why did you want me to come here?”

“Did I want you to come here?” the blind man asked calmly.”

“Someone changed the moon down at my house. This isn’t the real moon.”

“I’m a blind man. How could I know that?”

“The same way I could hear your voice over the sound of the wind and the water,” said David, rather pleased with himself.