Staked (Iron Druid Chronicles) (20 page)

Orlaith observes.

Perun is not difficult to find in Tír na nÓg. A couple of inquiries at the Fae Court and I’m told right where to go. He’s with Flidais, of course, and I catch both of them partially hammered down by the river.

“Granuaile!” he says, all jubilant and hairy. He raises a bottle to the sky. “You know what time is it? Is time for vodka!”

“No, thank you,” I say, and notice that the two of them are somewhat disheveled yet wearing blissful, post-coital grins. I thank fortune for not arriving much earlier or I might have caught them busy with each other. “I’ve come to talk to you about Weles,” I explain, and his expression falters.

“Weles? What about Weles? Is dead. All my peoples dead now. Is only me and Flidais and vodka now. Have vodka. Here.” He thrusts the bottle at me and I wave it away.

“No, no, he’s not dead. That’s what he wants you to think. He’s working with Loki. He’s the one who let Loki into the Slavic plane.”

“What? Say this again. No: Explain.” He drops the bottle, and his good cheer evaporates. The shadows underneath his brow darken, but little sparks dance in his eyes. The air begins to crackle and hum, and I realize that I am not wearing my fulgurite talisman that protects against lightning.

“All right, but easy with the electricity, okay? I’m not protected, and neither is my hound.”

“Oh. Is easy fix. Here.” He dips into a pouch at his belt and produces two new fulgurites, blessed by him to protect against lightning. “This way if I lose temper you no get hurt.”

“Thanks.” I wedge one of the fulgurites in Orlaith’s collar and tell her not to scratch at it, since it’s protection, then hold mine in my hand. Any skin contact will do. Safe from accidental strikes, I tell him what I pieced together with the Polish coven and that the white horse of Świętowit is hidden underground on the island of Rügen, visited on occasion by Weles. “I didn’t want to go down there, since I know nothing about him.”

“Is good you did not go,” he says. “He would have traps there for certain. And snakes.” A few stray fingers of lightning arc around his mane of hair, which is charged and standing out somewhat. His fists are clenched tightly, and I can tell he is barely maintaining his control.

“Snakes?”

“He like snakes very much. When I am eagle, I eat snakes very much. You know Weles is sometimes snake?”

“Uh—no. Are you saying you want to … eat him?”

“No. Am saying we are not friendly.”

“Ah! That’s a relief.” Flidais chuckles at this, and Perun is distracted by it. The charged air dissipates and I’m grateful to Flidais for dispelling the tension, even if that was not her intention.

“Would you like me to show you where this white horse is being kept?”

“Yes. Let us go.” He pats Flidais on the thigh and she shakes her head.

“I cannot go with you,” she says. “I’m in charge while Brighid is away.”

She does not appear to be in charge of anything except sprawling on the riverbank, and Perun guesses what I am thinking.

“Brighid and Atticus are in Svartálfheim,” he says. “Flidais must be emergency person now.”

I want to ask why Atticus would go to the land of the dark elves, but I refrain; I’ll catch up with him later.

“Then it’s you and me, Perun,” I say.

Orlaith adds.

Always, sweet hound,
I tell her privately, giving her a scratch behind the ears. We move off a few paces so that Perun can say his farewells and get his weapon, but Flidais does briefly accompany us to earth, simply to shuttle Perun there—I can’t bring Perun with me without another headspace, and I don’t know him well enough anyway.

When we take the ferry to Rügen this time, nobody wants to pet Orlaith, despite her being just as adorable as before. I take a wild guess that the scowling thunder god holding an axe next to us has reduced our approachability. Perun wanted to fly at first, but I protested that Orlaith would not enjoy it.

“So,” I say, “tell me what should I expect from Weles besides snakes. What does he look like?”

Perun sniffs, considers, then lifts a single buttock off the bench and farts without a shred of embarrassment. It is his first comment on Weles, perhaps, but then he elaborates: “When he is snake, he is big black snake. When he is man, he is still thin like snake. Tall. Long straight black hairs and beard, with droopy mustaches. Narrow face with cheekbones standing out. Sometimes he wear hat—no, is not right word. What is thing like crown but not crown, you wear in band around head, no top?”

“Maybe a circlet?”

“Yes, circlet! This is word I need. He has circlet with ram horns on it, and sometimes he wear this. Make peoples think horns grow on his head, but is lie. Is there to make peoples think he has many powers.”

“Well, does he have many powers?”

“Yes.”

“Can’t blame him for his horny haberdashery, then.”

“What is haber-dashing? I am not knowing this word.” The rest of our ferry ride is pleasantly occupied with the rich history of haberdashers and their profession, and Perun adds “visit a London haberdasher” to his personal bucket list. But our faces set into grim lines once we hit land and lope across Rügen to the spot where Weles has hidden the white horse of Świętowit. I check with Mecklenburg to make sure Weles didn’t show up while we were gone and he says no, the only god nearby is Perun. The turf parts for us, the staircase beckons, and Perun goes first, holding his axe out in front of him as he descends, perhaps thinking the axe will trigger any traps first and give him time to avoid them. But that makes little sense to me: If Weles is an earth god, he probably has deadfalls rigged or some kind of cave-in planned. You don’t dodge cave-ins or obliterate them with lightning blasts.

“Perun? Hold on. Don’t move.”

“Okay. I am not moving.”

The walls of the staircase are earth and chalk, solid for the moment but unstable, easily collapsed. I put my palm against the wall to see if it’s “living” earth or cut rock by calling out to the elemental.

//Query: Mecklenburg? Can you sense me here?//

//Yes//

//Please cancel all earth magic on this island except my own bindings//

//Yes / Fierce Druid bindings only//

//Harmony / No earth-god magic here// I realize almost too late that the chambers themselves were probably created by magic and hastily add, //But keep shape of chambers//

//Harmony//

I give a small, pleased sigh and Perun looks up at me, a question in his expression. “I just canceled any earth magic on the island except mine,” I explain.

“You can do this?”

“Yes. Atticus did it once to Bacchus. Certain gods work their miracles through the earth all the time and the earth allows it, but the wishes of Druids always take precedence, since we’re actually bound to the earth and gods are more bound by faith.”

“So his magical traps will not be working now?”

“Correct. But if he has strictly mechanical ones, those will still be operational.”

“I am understanding. We go.”

The light wanes to almost total darkness for a stretch, but a source of light grows below as we descend, along with a strange hum. When we reach the bottom of the stairs, we hear a click in the walls and some dust falls from above, but nothing else happens.

“I think we just triggered a trap,” I say.

“And yet we still walk,” Perun replies. “Is good.”

“Yes.”

The chamber at the bottom widens and is lined with shelves filled with glass cages. We can see them because there are Ecobulbs hung from the ceiling, powered by a generator somewhere that must be the source of the humming we hear. And inside those cages are many, many rats.

“What the hell is going on? Those aren’t rigged to break on us, I hope?” I say.

“No, is not trap. Is food for
next
trap.”

“What?”

“Listen. You hear it ahead?” Perun points to an arched passageway at the other end of the chamber, with a single dim light illuminating it. “Under hum you hear hissing.”

“Oh. Yes, you mentioned there would be snakes.”

“Rats are food for snakes.”

“How thoughtful of Weles.”

Orlaith observes.

When did you eat a snake?

We pad down the corridor toward the sounds of hissing, which is not typically a good survival strategy. After a short distance the corridor ends abruptly at a wide pit about thirty feet square and perhaps twenty feet deep. The bottom of the pit has helpfully been illuminated so we can see that the floor is completely covered in writhing snakes. It’s much too broad to jump. There appears to be an extendable bridge mechanism on the far side, and on our side is a helpful length of chain dangling from the wall with an illustration beneath it showing a bridge over the pit.

Perun is about to pull on the chain when I stop him. “Whoa, wait. Why would Weles put a pit here and then help us to cross it?”

Perun drops his hand. “You are right. He would not do this. Is trap. We pull chain, we go into pit with many snake.”

“Exactly. And I bet it’s a mechanical trapdoor too. It won’t require magic to work.”

Perun considers the space, looks at Orlaith, then says, “Maybe I make wind and we fly across?” Orlaith is of course the trouble; Perun and I could shape-shift to winged forms and fly across with ease.

“I have a better idea,” I tell him. “Let’s make a real bridge we can depend on.” I contact Mecklenburg again and ask him to span the pit for us with an earthen bridge three feet wide. After a brief wait, it begins to form on either side of the pit, until it meets in the middle. Elementals are awesome.

Snake pit successfully navigated. Another corridor waits on the other side, bends a bit, and the throbbing of generators becomes much louder. When we reach the end of the corridor there’s a floor-to-ceiling iron gate, easily managed and unlocked, and the reason for the generators becomes obvious: We are at the edge of a large cavern and there are a ridiculous number of UV lights mounted on the ceiling, shining down on a broad pasture of lush turf. It’s the finest underground grazing land I’ve ever seen—also the
only
underground grazing land I’ve ever seen. All of it built to house and hide the warhorse of Świętowit, a beautiful white stallion who has spotted us and is prancing around on the far side, shaking his head in agitation and snorting.

“Wow,” I breathe. “You don’t see something like this every day.” It’s a lot of trouble for a single horse. But that wouldn’t matter to Loki: Knowing the best day to start Ragnarok would be priceless information to him. I wonder if he asks the question daily, weekly, or if he only asks when he thinks something has changed in his favor. Even if he doesn’t appear daily, those generators have to be switched out, the snakes have to be fed, and the stone stable over to one side has to be mucked out every so often. We shouldn’t linger here. Somebody has to be visiting this place regularly, and I begin thinking defensively in case they visit soon. “Perun, let’s get over there to the stable,” I say. “That horse looks pretty upset, and we need it to calm down if we’re going to get it out of here.”

“How will stables help?”

“I don’t want to set up our operation here, where someone can come in behind us.”

“What operations?”

“A quick one. You’ll see.” We jog over to the stable, the warhorse watching us from the far side of the pasture, and I ask Orlaith to hide inside the stable.

If someone comes in to mess with us, you will be our surprise counterattack,
I say, though I truly just want her to be safe.
And I need you to guard my clothes and my staff, pretty please.

She agrees and I begin to disrobe. Perun politely turns his back and says, “I think I understand operations now. You will be speaking horse to horse.”

“You got it on the first guess. Wait here, please.” He nods and I shape-shift to a chestnut mare, which I must confess is my favorite animal form. Running is so effortless, and I love the feeling of my mane and tail whipping in the wind—not that there is any wind in this cavern. Just a nervous, twitchy stallion. I figure if I approach him as a horse, he won’t feel immediately threatened and will let me get close enough to make contact and soothe him before he charges at me.

He keeps bucking as I grow closer, however. The sudden appearance of another horse is not as calming as I had hoped. He is a smart horse who knows how to count, and there had not been two horses in this cavern until this very moment. He knows something odd is going on.

Gods below, he’s magnificent. Milk-white hide and a coal-black mane. I switch my vision to the magical spectrum, examine his turbulent aura, and find the threads of his consciousness. I reach out with my own, bind them together, and send him feelings of peace and harmony and my unabashed admiration for him. He rears back at first, pawing at the air with his hooves, but when he returns all four legs to the earth, he snorts once and grows still, open to hearing—or feeling, or seeing—more. I send him visions of the sky above Rügen and an invitation to go there with me. He nods his head, and I also feel his great desire to go. He hates it down here. No sky. No other horses. He has been so very lonely. I respond with happiness at his decision to accompany me and am about to tell him to follow, when movement tears my attention away from him.

Someone is coming through the gate that leads to our exit. He is like a stick of charcoal, dressed all in black and topped with a drape of black hair. Only his forehead, cheeks, and nose are pale; all else is darkness. He glances at me and the horse of Świętowit, dismisses us, and then he spies Perun by the stable. His hands curl into fists, his jaw juts forward, and his teeth are bared in a snarl; Perun does the same when he sees the man in black, who I suppose must be Weles. It’s glaringly obvious that they hate each other.

Perun shouts a challenge at him and I expect to hear Russian, but it’s something older, because these gods are much older than that language. But I do recognize the name Świętowit, and maybe a few others; Perun is most likely demanding to know where they are. I don’t understand anything that Weles says in return. His voice is full of spite, though—he probably told Perun off in the rudest possible terms—and that looks like the end of diplomacy. What happens next is a bit comical: Perun lifts his axe and tries to summon lightning, but that’s a nonstarter underground. Weles spreads his hands to either side, palms up, fingers clutching as if he’s holding an invisible goblet in each, and raises them up in dramatic gesture. When there’s no response to this, he blinks and looks down at the grass, bewildered that nothing has happened. No earth magic for him, no thunder for Perun. I’m thinking they’re going to have to duke it out with good ol’-fashioned fisticuffs, but they surprise me and shape-shift instead. Perun tosses down his axe and takes wing as the biggest damn eagle I’ve ever seen, while Weles flops, twitches, stretches, and becomes a horror-show serpent, a truly gargantuan snake that could swallow me whole as a horse. Perun screeches and the snake hisses, and it makes me shudder.