Warstalker's Track (33 page)

All these arguments the Chiefs heard, but the one that drew their attention most forcefully was the loss of ancestral land. Kirkwood couldn’t help but be amused by the irony of that: a purebred white boy explaining to the gods of a people his kinsmen had dispossessed how he
would
retain his ancestral soil or die. Eventually, however, Cal pointed out that while it was true David’s kin were guilty of de facto genocide, his clan had likewise been dispossessed from Ireland two hundred years before, and from their central European homeland a millennium before that.

That
sunk in. And as best Kirkwood could tell, the Chiefs were not overtly hostile, if not obviously sympathetic, to the notion of providing aid, especially when Cal pointed out that said assistance would reduce the likelihood of congress with the Lying World. Once the mortal rank and file learned of Faerie, David emphasized, it was no leap at all to wondering if other Worlds existed, of which the nearest, as far as anyone could tell, was Galunlati.

All in all, Kirkwood concluded, it was a damned well-stated delineation of the problem.

“…and that’s all I can think of,” David finished wearily. And sat down.

Silence ensued, but eventually the Black Man spoke. “I know that Land,” he rumbled. “And I know war. War has peopled my Land countless times and continues to do so, though not as once it did. Still, I think the wisest course would be to see for ourselves how affairs fall in these other Lands. Therefore, before we take further counsel I would urge that we spy out what happens there.”

Uki nodded sagely; they all did: the other two Chiefs, and Cal and Dave as well.

Kirkwood badly wanted to ask how this particular scrying was to be accomplished; whether they’d retreat to Uki’s pool, use an ulunsuti, which he was certain someone here had, or what. But before he could ask, the Red Man rose. “Wait here. I have means to achieve this seeing quickly.” Without further comment, he strode up the steps to the sanctuary of the east, returning a moment later with a large wooden box carved all over with stylized bears. This he sat in his quarter of their circle, then opened. It contained masks: made of wood and carved with the faces of bears, the eye holes filled with transparent mica. “I made these the
last
time mortals troubled us, so that many might gaze into that World at once.” There was one less than required, but Sandy volunteered to do without on the theory that she knew least about the intricacies of the situation. Kirkwood hesitated, then slipped one over his face, noting how surprisingly clear the mica lenses were.

The Red Man donned his as well, then reached into the chest once more and retrieved a pair of sticks, with which he smote the pole that bore the bear skull. “This pole,” he explained, “has roots in more Lands than this, including a tenuous one in the Lands of Men, and a single tendril that touches that Land you call Faerie. What the pole touches, the skull, when awake, can see. This is not without danger, however, for the skull sometimes desires to be fed, and what it demands, it must get, else it will slay us all.
All
,”
he repeated for emphasis. “It is a gamble, you see, and a risk. Will you all dare it?”

“Aye,” Cal said at once. “Sure,” David responded as quickly. Liz seconded him, followed by Kirkwood, Fionchadd, and finally the various Chiefs, who had the most to lose.

“Very well,” the Red Man affirmed. “I will wake the bear and we shall see what we shall see.” And with that he began to chant in a tongue that was
not
the one Uki had spoken earlier, and while he chanted, he kept time by striking the pole with his staff. Kirkwood followed his progress for a time, aware that not only was the chanting damned hypnotic but that it was either getting late or the mask’s mica lenses were darkening.

Darker and darker they grew, and then utterly black, then light again, but revealing a completely different vista than he’d seen before.

It was the rebels, and one or two seemed familiar: notably the red-haired man he’d assumed was Turinne and the two lads who’d guarded the old man—Oisin, or whoever. What was the story there? Something about a mortal man favored by the Sidhe and granted eternal youth in exchange for remaining in Faerie, lest all the age he’d escaped fall on him at once. Legend said that had happened; Dave and Cal vowed it had not, for they’d met Oisin, and it was clear from what they now witnessed that that most ancient of mortals still lived.

But not much longer, if what Fionchadd had hinted was true.

“Oh, shit,” he heard David gasp, and looked closer.

The rebels had exchanged the palace for a wood: a thick, dark, eerie-looking place that would’ve given him serious heebie-jeebies back in his own World. The Sidhe seemed unconcerned, however, as did Oisin (who couldn’t see anyway), but what had evidently elicited David’s reaction was what lay at that party’s feet.

If you could call something that was nothing
what.
For what lay there—gaped there—sprawled there
—opened
there, was simply a splash of
nothing.
“A Hole,” Fionchadd muttered. “I do not like—”

He didn’t finish, for with no more ceremony than an unheard word from the red-haired leader and an outstretched, thumbs-down hand, the guards thrust the old man to the very brink of the Hole. He balanced there an instant, spinning half around as though he might make a break for it. But it was only an effort at catching himself, and then he stepped back one step too far and fell.

Into nothing.

“Oh, God, no!” Liz shrieked. “Oh, goddamn, motherfuck,
damn
them!”

“Damned they may well be,” Fionchadd groaned, sounding half in shock, “but Oisin is surely dead. Either the Hole consumed him itself or he touched the Lands of Men and succumbed to old age there.”

“But…” David managed, sounding close to tears, “that shouldn’t matter! I saw him in our World! I’ve
met
him there.”

“Not exactly,” Fionchadd countered. “Sometimes he only sent a shadow of himself. Others, he was careful not to let his bare feet touch the earth of your World. This time, he was barefoot, or did you not notice?”

“I’ll kill ’em
all
!”
David roared—and fell silent.

They watched until it became clear that the Sons had concluded their business at the Hole and were preparing to leave. “I think that says enough,” Cal announced. “It reveals what the rebels fear, and it shows what they are willing to do in order to achieve their ends.”

“Kill their enemies,” the Black Man snorted nonchalantly. “People die.”

“Aye,” Uki replied. “It is what they are designed for. But places should not die.”

“Would you see more?” the Red Man demanded. “The Ancient of Bears is tired.”

“Enough,” Liz agreed at once. “I’m not sure I needed to see that much.”

“Enough,” someone echoed, probably David.

“Enough, then,” the Red Man finished. “You may remove your masks.”

Kirkwood did, and spent the next minute taking deep, appreciative whiffs of air that didn’t smell of wood smoke, cedar oil, and his own, none-too-fragrant breath.

The Red Man cleared his throat. “I knew that old man,” he growled. “He journeyed here once. We exchanged gifts and names and tokens, though the name he gave me was not the one you spoke. I would have my vengeance upon these who worked his doom.”

“Then you’ll
help
us?” Dave blurted out, eager as a boy. Like the rest of them, he was running on empty and letting emotion drive. Which might be good or might not.

The Blue Man shook his head. “Moving Worlds is difficult, though we know that art from having wrought such a working before. But to move a World, one must enter an adjoining World, and that we can no longer do easily, and maybe not at all.”

“And Tir-Nan-Og?” Sandy ventured.

“We could not go there. You all know the Rule: one cannot enter a World more than one World from one’s own unless blood of that World runs in one’s veins.”

“Or what?” David challenged.

A shrug. “One might go mad. One might simply be pulled apart. One thing is certain: one would never be the same.”

“Or simply never be,” the Black Man concluded ominously.

“But you’ll help?” David persisted. “I mean, I hate to put it this way, Great Chiefs, but we need a yes or no.”

“I will help,” the Red Man affirmed. “And there may be war in Walhala if any of my kinsmen here say me nay. But we cannot go to Tir-Nan-Og. We may not be able to enter the Lying World, and if we do, it will be only for a brief while.”

“I enter it quite often,” the Black Man countered. “I met more than one of these folks there.”

“You had business, too,” the Blue Man shot back.

“I expect to have more anon!”

Calvin eyed them narrowly. “So what’ve we figured out here? You guys—”

“We will come to your Land and do what we can,” the Red Man snapped. “We must consult among ourselves to determine the best plan both for ourselves and for this place we have been given to protect.
That
is our prime concern. But yes, Utlunta-Dehi, we will come.
In our own good time,
we will come.”

“To move Tir-Nan-Og?” David dared.

“To move
something,
if that is what must be,” the Red Man retorted. “But be warned. The price of such a working will be very high indeed.”

“H-how high?” Liz demanded. “I’d appreciate a straight answer, too.”

The Red Man glared at her—likely because she was female and had spoken out of turn.

“Death,” the Black Man said flatly, breaking the tension Kirkwood could already feel building. “There
may
be a death. Almost certainly there
will
be one. The working requires it.”

“Whose death?” Cal asked carefully.

“The working itself will decide. Death will be of the Power’s own need and choosing.”

“People die,” Liz muttered dully, staring into the air. Her face was calm, but her eyes were bright and her voice trembled.

“People die,” David echoed. “Lands die too. But if it comes to that, I’m ready.”

“David!” Liz choked. “I don’t need this!”

“Nor do I! But think, Liz: we’ve met folks who’ve come back from the dead. We know that soul can survive the body. I know there’s
something
afterward, or I wouldn’t have been able to square things with David-the-Elder that time. And we know that trip was real because Alec lost the ulunsuti, and because the Morrigu…died.”

“And hasn’t returned!” Liz flared.

“Yet!”
David gave back. “Jesus Christ, Liz, what do you—” He caught himself, flushed, and shook his head, gazing at Calvin for guidance.

“You must leave,” the Red Man said flatly. “Do what you can, and we will come. Never doubt we will be watching.”

“But,” David began, “what about—”

He didn’t finish, because the Red Man made a sign Kirkwood doubted anyone but him noticed, and the four Chiefs clapped their hands.

And all Kirkwood felt, knew, remembered, or
was
for a very long time was the long, slow, painfully empty pause between the lightning and the thunder.

Chapter XVI: Talking to Gryphons

(Tir-Gat—high summer)

Aikin stared at the creature that had just ambled up the stairs of Colin’ s Tower and now sat calm as any cat at the top, conveniently blocking the only exit. It was an eyeful, too, and had his background in forestry not made him blasé about megafauna, he might well have acted on the urge he felt to bolt in the face of a creature roughly the size, shape, and color of a healthy African lion but covered in flexible, plush-furred plates; sporting the front claws of an eagle; and bearing—this was most troubling—a head that closely resembled the reconstructions he’d seen of the extinct killer bird
Titanus.

“No wings,” Alec breathed, beside him.

“Males don’t have ’em,” Myra hissed from the other side. “Watch when he moves.”

Aikin hoped this guy
didn’t
move for a while, not until he finished sorting information. Like how Myra knew so much. (Oh, right; she and LaWanda had once confronted one of these things.) Like why males didn’t have wings. (No idea, though it made as much sense as a creature that was overtly mammalian
having
them. He didn’t want to ponder the skeleton, though, never mind the muscle articulation.) And, most importantly, how this one could speak when they were supposed to be but semisentient, never mind how a beast with no lips could manage words that required them.

Or
had
it spoken? The Sidhe could talk mind-to-mind, though the ones he knew usually didn’t around mortals. But it really had sounded—

The gryphon yawned hugely, revealing a blackish purple tongue more feline than avian. It blinked yellow eyes that would’ve suited either cat or raptor. And rose, to amble toward them. At which point he understood Myra’s admonition, for every time it moved, light pulsed from the affected joints: soft flickers with more the aspect of flame or bioluminescence than electric light. Chemical reaction, perhaps, or static electricity between those plush-furred plates, and likely designed to attract mates, since it would make quite a show in the dark.

Aife cleared her throat angrily, set aside Colin’s journal-cum-grimoire, and eased in front of Aikin, who stood nearest the beast. “I have heard,” she observed carefully, “that your kind do not speak.”

“I have heard,” the gryphon gave back, “that the Sidhe do not consort with mortals, and certainly not at mortals’ choosing, and that the guardian of this place was a man named Yd, not a woman whose name and lineage I do not know.”

“Nor will you, until I know yours,” Aife retorted. “Such knowledge can be dangerous.”

“Maybe he’s a shape-shifter,” Alec muttered. “That’d explain how he can talk.”

The gryphon cocked his feathered head. “I speak because of who I am.”

“And we will speak of that anon,” Aife assured him, hand resting lightly on her sword. “What I would know at present is whether you are friend or foe.”

“That depends upon your business here.”

“I was given to believe that this tower was abandoned and that anything that remained was free for the picking.”