The Firehills (14 page)

“Sam, me lad,” said the smith, “we better be
takin’ us leave o’ these folk. Down the high street, if yer please.”

Sam made to move, and the guards started forward to stop
him. With incredible speed, the smith’s hammer lashed out, and two of the
guards dropped to the ground, moaning.

“Go on, lad!” exclaimed Wayland. “Don’t stand
sowin’ gape seed. Shift it!” Sam closed his mouth and began to
push through the crowd, heading for the long main street. No one seemed
inclined to stop him. However, looking back he saw that Wayland was surrounded
by a growing number of the king’s guards. Fearing for his friend, he paused.
The smith’s hammer was whirling around his head, almost too fast for Sam to
follow. The hum it made as it cut through the air was punctuated by the crack
of bone. More guards poured into the square, but as he fought, Wayland seemed
to grow. He was a good head taller than the largest of his opponents now, and a
light seemed to be flowing out of his skin. As Sam watched, the
smith became taller still and broader. Throwing back his head, he bellowed with
laughter as the huge hammer hummed and sang. Sam decided it was safe to leave
the smith to his work and slipped through the back of the crowd into the street
beyond. Despite his exhaustion, he managed to jog down the slope toward the
town gate. Soon he heard footsteps behind him and turned. To his relief, it was
the smith, grinning fiercely, covered with scratches and cuts but otherwise
unscathed.

“Right then, young Sam,” panted the smith, “we needs
get you back on yer quest to ’elp yer friend.” Outside the gate, he
gestured to the right and led Sam around the curve of the hill, following the
crest of one of the great defensive ditches that encircled the town. A quarter
of the way around the town’s perimeter, Wayland pointed to a slight rise, a
smaller version of the hilltop on which the town stood. Here a beacon fire was
burning, throwing sparks up into the deepening twilight.

“That’s where we’re ’eaded,” explained the
smith. Sam looked puzzled but was content to follow. They crossed the ditch on
a narrow wooden bridge and headed up the gentle slope onto the very crest of
the Downs. Gazing out over the landscape below, the strangeness of his
situation hit Sam like a hammer blow. Where he would have expected the orange
map work of streetlights was . . . nothing. A rolling blanket of blue gray
woodland stretched out under the soft evening air to the dying stain of the sun
on the far horizon. What was he doing here, so far from home? He heard a grunt
from Wayland and turned.

Something moved across the darkened turf of the hilltop
toward them, a blur of deeper darkness that resolved itself into the figure of
the Malifex. The smith pulled his hammer from its sling once more.

“Boy,” began the Malifex, standing before them, hands
on hips, “I don’t know who—or what—you are, but you have powerful
friends. Well met, Volund.” He nodded to the smith, who stared calmly back.

“Your friend here,” the Malifex continued to Sam,
“is the son of Wate, the sea giant. Almost a god. But not quite, eh?”

Wayland shrugged.

“But you, boy, you are a puzzle. My brother’s stench
is all over you, but he is not one for meddling in human affairs. Strange. . .
. There is clearly a tale to be told here. Sadly, though, I fear I will have to
kill you and leave it untold.”

He drew back one hand, fingers clawed.

“Sam!” shouted the smith. “Into the fire!”

“What?” Sam looked horrified.

“The Gate of Fire! Quick!”

The Malifex unleashed a bolt of energy, violet lightning
crackling through the air. Quick as thought, the smith’s hammer flew into its
path, deflecting it harmlessly to the side.

“You’re a Walker Between Worlds, lad,” called
Wayland. “Just think of where you want ter go and trust.”

Sam turned from the smith to the beacon fire, a blazing
pyre of logs on the hill’s summit, spitting sparks into the sky. His mouth
went dry. The Malifex had turned his attention to Wayland now. The two of them were locked in
battle, the smith huge once more and full of glee, glowing with his own power.
The Malifex hurled bolt after bolt of malice, but Wayland parried with his
hammer, occasionally lashing out to strike the Malifex with a force that shook
the hill.

Sam looked back at his friend, and as he did, Wayland
turned briefly.

“’Ere,” he shouted, “don’t forget this!” He
threw a cloth-bound bundle to Sam. “Fare well, lad. And give they Farisees
one from me!” With that he returned to his battle. Sam gazed once more into
the heart of the fire, where the ragged remnants of branches glowed almost
white. Then he closed his eyes and walked toward the blaze. As the heat grew,
he heard the Malifex shout, “One day, boy!

This is not over!”

The Host of the Sidhe stared at Charly for a moment and
then returned to their feasting. Charly stood panting, holding onto the door
frame for support. The memory of horror made her spin around, but the long
hallway behind her was empty, the torches flickering once more in their niches.
She closed her eyes for a moment, trying to slow her heartbeat. Her mouth was
filled with thick, acid saliva, and her lungs ached. Swallowing with a grimace,
she adjusted her hair and took a deep breath. Then, with as much innocence as
she could muster, she strolled into the feasting hall.

Arrayed in their finery, the Hosts of the Air ate and
drank to the sweet music of pipes and fiddles. At the head of the great table,
Lord Finnvarr and Lady Una sat side by side, smiling indulgently at their
subjects. They seemed oblivious to Charly, who kept close to the wall, circling
around the tables, a look of studied innocence on her face. For a moment,
however, she glanced to the top table and her eyes met with those of the Lady
Una. But only for a moment. The Faery Queen broke the contact and turned her
attention to some story being told by a courtier.

Charly tried to keep her face neutral, but the familiar
feeling of hatred had welled up when she had looked into Una’s eyes. She
continued around the perimeter of the room, staying in the shadows. Suddenly, a
hand grabbed her arm and her heart nearly stopped.

“Come!” said a rich, musical voice. “Sit here. The
evening is yet young!”

Charly found herself staring into the face of a tall young
man with flowing black hair and lavender eyes. “Um,” she mumbled, trying to
think of an excuse as she found herself propelled toward a chair. Feeling
suddenly more shy than scared, she sat down. The young man began to load her
plate with delicacies—slices of meat and strange fruit, rich cheeses, and
soft white bread. Charly tried the bread, thinking that it, at least, ought to
be safe, and found it was delicious. She began to try the other items on her
plate and discovered that they were all exquisite. She washed the food down
with a pale, golden liquid from a silver goblet. It tasted a little like honey,
but refreshing rather than sickly, like cold spring water. The sweet voices of
the faery host swirled around her as she ate, and the warmth from the huge fire
burning in the hearth along one wall soaked into her bones, relaxing her aching
muscles.

At the head of the table, a silent exchange took place
between Lord Finnvarr and the Lady Una.

So our pets have brought us a
gift—the mortal girl,
thought the Lord of Sidhe.
We will have good sport with her. Perhaps
as a finale to the feast.

No, my lord,
replied Lady
Una.
Spare her, I beg you!

Finnvarr raised one eyebrow.
You feel
pity for
this . . . mortal?

No, my lord. Unfinished business lies
between us.
Finnvarr threw back his head and roared with laughter.
Ah, my queen! Take her then, my gift to you. But be swift.
We
must make ready for war.

Before long, Charly began to feel a little dizzy. The
sounds of merrymaking seemed to grow distant, and she had trouble keeping her
eyes open. She let her head slump down onto her chest and stared at her plate.
It was littered with the remains of her meal—puddles of congealed sauce,
unidentifiable bones and scraps of meat, cheese rind, shining globules of fat.
Charly felt ill. Dreading the thought of being sick at the table, she willed
herself to rise, but the heat and the incessant music wrapped around her brain.
She felt removed, distant from her own body. With an effort, she turned her
head and looked up the length of the long table. She found the Lady Una staring
right back at her. The smirking face of the faery sent a cold surge of fury
through Charly, clearing her head. With an effort of will, she mumbled
“’Scuse me” to the man with the lavender eyes and got to her feet.
Unsteadily, she made her way around the room and through a door into the fresh
air of the corridor beyond.

The day of the festival dawned cold and gray, a thin
overcast moving in off the sea, threatening rain. Megan dragged herself from
her bed with a feeling of dread. Today she would have to set up her stall in the castle grounds
and go about her business, not knowing if Charly, Amergin, and Sam were alive
or dead. And if Mrs. P. was right, something terrible would happen before the
festival was over. She set off early, leaving Mrs. P. to bustle around the
Aphrodite, cooking breakfasts and telephoning her friends, warning them of the
day’s coming threat. Her car labored up the steep streets of the Old Town,
onto the top of West Hill. There Megan was relieved to find a parking space
close to the castle entrance. Taking a fold-up table from the trunk, she walked
up the long entrance track, waved her stallholder’s pass at the woman in the
ticket office, and made her way out into the ruins of the castle. The castle,
built by William the Conqueror to commemorate his victory over the English in
1066, was destroyed by King John just one hundred and fifty years later. Time
and the elements had continued his work, until all that remained were a few
tumbledown walls and the roofless shells of buildings surrounding a bowl of
grass, perched on the lip of the cliffs.

A few people were already at work, setting up their stalls
or ferrying food and drink to the big white tents along one wall. Megan
exchanged greetings with a few of the other stallholders, regulars like
herself, and began to set up her table. Several trips later, the stall was
complete, the pottery arranged neatly on a brightly colored tablecloth. Megan
wandered over to the seaward side of the castle, where a low and ragged wall
separated the grassy arena from the steep cliff face. From there, she could
look out over the town. Far below, a long car park on the seafront had been taken over by motorbikes, hundreds of
them in gleaming rows. The massed roar of their engines drifted up to the
castle on the damp salt wind. Beyond the bikes, the flat gray expanse of the
sea merged seamlessly with the sky. Tracking across the rows of bikes,
Megan’s eyes found a knot of color and movement: the beginnings of the
festival. Down on the promenade, out beyond the car park, the procession was
forming. Megan could just make out the straggling line of Jack’s followers,
dancing figures in green and black and, at the center of the procession, the
towering shape of Jack himself—the Green Man. Megan smiled a small, tired
smile. Through the cold and damp of spring, the May King was coming, bringing
in the summer. There was always hope.

Charly paused for a moment. The fresh air, after the heat
and noise of the banqueting hall, made her head spin, and she had to press her
hands against the wall to stop herself from falling. She leaned her forehead
against the cool rock, waiting for the feeling of dizziness to pass. When she
felt more in control of herself, she wiped the cold sweat from her face and set
off along the corridor. The stronghold of the Sidhe was a maze of tunnels and
passageways, with countless rooms opening off left and right. She passed
kitchens and mess halls, dormitories and storerooms, as she wandered aimlessly
in the half-light. After some time, with no clear idea of where she was going,
she stopped.
OK, lady,
she thought,
this is no good.
I could blunder
around down here for hours. Time to flex the
old thinking muscle.
Placing
one hand on the stone of the passage wall, she tried to send her mind into the
rock, seeking some hint of Amergin. At first, her consciousness stopped dead at
her fingertips. She could feel only the gritty texture against her skin, the
sheen of moisture. The more she concentrated, the more clearly she could feel
each tiny grain of rock like a pebble against the spiraling patterns of her
fingertips. And suddenly, as if a window had opened in her mind, she felt
beyond her fingers, into the stone itself. Pushing outward, her mind expanded
into the huge mineral bulk of the hillside.

Everywhere, Charly sensed the taste of the Sidhe, the
faint prickling feeling of wrong she felt when in their presence. Furrowing her
brow, she brought more and more of the three-dimensional landscape of stone
into her mind’s eye, until it hung in space before her. Then she saw it: a
tiny pool of
otherness,
a place where the stink of
the Sidhe was replaced by something else, something familiar, comforting.
Amergin. Smiling, Charly set off in search of the wizard.

The feast was over. Lord Finnvarr sent his followers off
to make their final preparations, stirring promises of glory and power ringing
in their heads. In the confusion, Lady Una slipped from his side, making her
way around the room and out through a side door. With a look of mischief on her
delicate features, she stepped lightly along the corridor. The last of the Host
dispersed, and silence fell in the great banqueting hall. The fire in the broad
hearth was dying down now, the last few logs glowing in the gloom.