Fireshaper's Doom (24 page)

And now, it looked like it had all been in vain; and, she realized as well, she felt guilty—because, if not for her, David would have kept the ring and presumably have been protected against whatever had made away with him.
That
was what filled her with the sense of desperate urgency she was trying hard to keep distanced, but which threatened to overwhelm her.

“Well, that didn’t take near as long as I’d figgered,” Uncle Dale exclaimed, shaking Liz abruptly from her dreamy reverie. She looked up just in time to see the forest open abruptly before them.

And indeed, at the bottom of a grassy slope directly ahead lay the Sullivan Cove road. Beyond it was Uncle Dale’s house, nestled dark in its comfortable hollow among the pastured hillsides. And a couple of miles beyond
that
lay Franks Gap: the true beginning of their journey.

Chapter XX: Tracking

(A Straight Track)

There were odors everywhere: the tickly mustiness of overdry moss; the staleness of close, still air; the metallic bitterness of empty beetle shells; and strongest, most pervasive of all, the sickly, corrupt sweetness of oozing briar sap and the cold sterility of the Track.

Fionna, who was a fox again, wrinkled her nose as she sorted the thousand scents that drifted round her, but did not diminish the forthright pace of her trotting.

The Track flowed beneath her, now thick as heavy satin, now thin as golden gauze, but her sensitive footpads knew it only as a tingling, an unheard sound of Power to which her slender bones sang back in a counterpoint of their own. Power called to Power, magic to magic. Every quick-bounced step brought a surge of strength. Soon she would be back to normal, even without the trickle of Power that reached to her from Erenn.

The Track continued on, an infinite tunnel tight-twined with briars that shut out all light but the yellow glow of its own surface, which was enough for vulpine eyes.

A breeze twitched Fionna’s whiskers, a lost wanderer from Outside whispering in her large, attentive ears of fresher air and wider skies, and land that held its own self-born Power. A faint tinge of brine rode that wind, and the part of the fox that was yet Fionna knew which sea in which World had sent its breath upon the Track.

But another odor laced in and out of that hint of ocean: a hot smell that told of life and movement, a sourness that spoke of fear, a sweet saltiness that grew to overwhelm the scent of that unseen sea. That new odor Fionna recognized, for it was what she sought: Ailill.

She trotted faster and faster, at last broke into a run.

It is merely blood,
her fox-mind told her without much interest.

His blood?

Faery blood.

Another Track blazed in from the right, and the odor intensified.

Down that way now, a brief two body lengths, and then she saw it: a red splatter upon dry oak leaves that smelled hotter than they should. The tiniest acrid hint of burning in the air.

The fox nosed the blood, looked up, sought wider, saw the prints: cloven hooves wide apart as if some great stag had run mad upon the Straight Tracks.

A deeper sniff told the story.

So they have wounded you, my brother.

The fox dabbed a tongue absently upon the bloody smear.

I have been a fox too long,
Fionna thought
. Would that I might wear my own shape again, but if I would make the haste I need, I must need put on yet another.

And with that Fionna set one part of her mind to the summoning of Power, and another to spiraling it through her body, stretching this bone, compressing that, enlarging this muscle, twisting that nerve. Longer legs and shorter gray-red hair and a splayed branching of backswept antlers.

And Fionna became a deer.

With a joyful leap forward, she set off on her brother’s trail.

Chapter XXI: Hard Talking

(The Burning Lands)

I have just committed myself to murder,
David reminded himself gloomily as he stared at the half-empty goblet in his right hand. The thick red wine reminded him unpleasantly of blood, and that did nothing to improve his mood, which was darkening by the instant.

He took a final reckless swallow and slammed the goblet down beside his heavy golden plate. A smear of grease and a fan of suspicious orange fungus were all that remained of what had truly been the finest feast he had ever eaten—if only he’d had the stomach for it. Or the nerve. The food was safe—so an amused Morwyn had told him, but he wasn’t sure he believed her.

That lady was rustling about somewhere behind one of her screens—the same one from which she had somehow produced the sumptuous meal on ridiculously little notice, probably by a method that would not stand close scrutiny by any rational mind. Not that he had time for such considerations just now.

Or a particularly rational mind.

Not with his head awhirl with what Morwyn had told him about the Horn of Annwyn. (And there were things she
hadn’t
revealed, of that he was equally certain, though her description of the Horn itself had been excruciatingly precise, and she’d made him repeat it a score a of times to make certain he had it exact.)

And not with her equally obscure and evasive directions on how the theft was to be accomplished, though the film of grease on her plate displayed an intricate series of maps and diagrams of portions of Tir-Nan-Og, Lugh’s palace, even the treasure chamber itself. She had promised more information upon her return. Like how he was supposed to get in once he got there, and then where the Horn was, once he got in.

David skewered the final shrimp from one of the small cloisonne bowls that surrounded his plate, and munched the sweet morsel absently. (At least, the finger-long curls of white and pink
looked
like shrimp, except that they had two tails—and that was another thing he didn’t want to think about too much.)

When he got down to it, in fact, there was very little he
did
want to think about.

It had all been very remote, his conversation with Morwyn—partly, he suspected, because of the wine—and he’d agreed to her terms without giving them the full and careful analysis they deserved.

But now he was thinking about it, thinking hard. The business about Ailill bothered him most—not that he’d been given a choice. It was either deal with Morwyn or see his family endangered.

Perhaps he could find a way to fulfill the letter of his obligation and still not be an accessory to murder. If Morwyn wanted Ailill dead, that was her concern, but the responsibility should be hers as well.

David’s perplexed frown was still wrinkling his forehead when Morwyn returned with yet another ewer, this one in the shape of a slim-necked bird—a stork or heron, maybe.

More wine? Hell, I’ll be high as a kite in no time, and then what’ll happen?
The lady did not seem to be in any particular hurry to set him on his way, and David very much feared that her idea of dessert might include him. Not that that would be
bad,
necessarily; his body probably wouldn’t complain. But his conscience certainly would. He’d been so close to Liz, and so recently. It had been marvelous to be that close to someone else without guilt or fear. Very, very special. Anything else would seem very much like betrayal.

David found himself blushing as Morwyn bent close and tilted the contents of the ewer into tiny, delicate goblets of smooth white jade, goblets thin as eggshells and more transparent. The liquid was thick and creamy green, yet it sparkled in his nostrils like champagne; its bouquet held a distant suggestion of mint.

He took a tentative sip—it was delicious, of course—and all the while Morwyn’s eyes watched his every movement with that languid expression of distant amusement that he found so damned disconcerting. All at once he recalled that she could read thoughts, and then, to his horror, exactly what his thoughts had been scant seconds before. His ears commenced to burning.

“So…
you were going to tell me how I’m supposed to do this,” he ventured at last. “Assuming I can find the palace, how do I get into the vault—how do I even
find
it?”

“Why so hasty, boy?” Morwyn replied with elaborate indifference. “Finish your drink, then we will talk.”

“No,” David said firmly, setting the fragile goblet down hard. “We’ll talk now!”

Morwyn’s face stiffened as she eased down opposite him. “Very well,” she whispered icily. “We
will
talk, and you had better listen, because your life may depend upon what I tell you. Is that clear?” She smiled primly and folded her arms.

David nodded slowly.

“Good. Now, as to where the Horn is, it is in plain sight, in the center of his treasure chamber, or so I have it on good authority; Lugh makes no secret of it.”

“But?” David interjected. “I can just tell there’s going to be a
but
right about now.”

Morwyn smiled disarmingly. “Very perceptive, boy.
But
what is
not
known is the exact location of this treasure chamber, except that it is somewhere beneath Lugh’s palace.”

“And?”

“And that it is accessible only by an iron stair leading to it from Lugh’s private rooms. The stair, at least, is common knowledge, though few have actually seen it. But what is not nearly so well known is that there is another way—a secret way, known only to those who built the chamber, a way that leads outside: an iron road with walls of glass.”

David raised suspicious eyebrows. “I thought the Sidhe couldn’t touch iron.”

Morwyn’s nostrils flared with impatience. “And so they cannot. But the
Sidhe
did not build the vault, the Powersmiths did—my grandfather, to be precise, which is how I know of its workings. He told me all about it, as much as he knew, anyway, for Lugh was careful not to allow any one person to see the master plan. Thus, those who built the road did not construct the chamber or the stair. This, however,
is
certain: the walls of glass are in reality Walls Between Worlds; the World of the iron road is not the World of the stone to either side.

Realization began to brighten David’s face. “Oh, I see. Lugh never thought a mere
human
might try to rob him. But what about the Sidhe or the Powersmiths? Couldn’t one of
you
folks make yourselves human and steal it?”

Morwyn shook her head. “It is one of the Rules of Power: neither the Sidhe nor the Powersmiths may put on the substance of your World while in Faerie, any more than you could put on the substance of Faerie in your own.”

“But still, if the Powersmiths built the road, and they can touch iron, then one of them should be able to break in whenever they pleased, assuming they knew about the road. Or is there something you’re
not
telling me? You’re not trying to trick me, are you?”

“Oh, never that, never that.” The lady’s eyes sparkled in amusement. “But not once have I said that Powersmiths can touch iron—and indeed they cannot. They have other ways of dealing with that metal, however, methods that do not require touch. Unfortunately, I do not know them.”

“But what about Lugh? If the only way to the treasure is over iron, how can he get at his own stuff?”

“It is as I have said: the iron road and the iron stair are not truly in Tir-Nan-Og. There is a method known only to Lugh whereby the iron may be banished to its own realm for a space of time. He contrived the rune of banishing in consultation with two druids of the Powersmiths, neither of whom knew the other’s part, then took it from their minds with their approval, so that he alone now recalls it.”

David took a long breath. “But I’ll be going into this blind. So how am I even going to find the iron road? Your maps aren’t exactly what you’d call clear. And what about the treasure room? You’ve told me about some of the safeguards, but aren’t there bound to be others?”

Morwyn shrugged. “I will tell you how to find the road in all good time. As to the matter of safeguards— You underestimate our fear of iron. A small amount we may abide; you have seen what a blade’s worth can accomplish. An iron road two arm spans wide is enough to consume us completely.”

“I don’t know. I think I can deal with the road, but I
really
doubt that this treasure chamber is as unguarded as you say.”

Morwyn flicked a haughty glance at him. “Then you will simply have to trust me. Now finish your drink, for we must be on our way.” David quaffed the liquor uneasily, stood up, and began stalking restlessly around the room as he waited for the woman to rise. Eventually he became aware of her frank, appraising stare following his every movement. He spun around, folded his arms as belligerently as he could, given the awkward sleeves, and glared at her. “What is it
this
time? I thought you were in a hurry!”

The lady’s eyes twinkled. “Those clothes are hardly appropriate.”

David rolled his eyes. “Well, I kinda thought as much, since I can barely move in this silly tight jacket. But if you think I’m taking everything
off
again, you’re crazy.”

“Do you intend to wear such fine array into Tir-Nan-Og, then? You would be a beacon to the blind!”

“Of whom I doubt there
are
any, except perhaps Oisin,” David retorted sullenly.