Warstalker's Track (34 page)

“It is under the sovereignty of Alberon of Alban,” the gryphon replied. “Since it was mostly made of matter from that Land.”

“Yet it is far and far from Alban.”

“Far and far,” the gryphon agreed.

Aife took a deep breath. “Our business is our own, until you give us cause to trust you. Suffice to say that upon our success hangs the fate of two Worlds much larger, older, and more populous than Tir-Gat.”

“Faerie and the Lands of Men, perhaps?” the gryphon hinted, taking another step closer, then plopping down like a cat, but with his head upraised attentively.

“Perhaps.”

“Fish and fowl,” the gryphon murmured. “Unlike Tir-Gat, which is neither, being made up of bits of one thing and another.”

“Moveable bits,” Aife dared.

“Fish and fowl,” the gryphon mused, as though he hadn’t heard. “Or lion and eagle, and one more thing besides.”

Aife raised a brow. “Would this other thing explain your speech and intellect?”

“Fish and fowl. Lion and eagle. Gryphon and man.”

“You are a—” Aife began.

“Half-breed,” the gryphon finished heavily. “My mother was a gryphon from birth. My father was Colin of Tir-Gat. He was lonely here, for he dared not reveal the existence of this place to others of his kind. Yet he
was
lonely. He had needs. He could shift shape. The rest you see before you.”

“Did he know of you?” Aife shot back suspiciously. “I found no mention of you in his grimoire.”

The gryphon shook his head. “My dam knew I was different and hid me, but I broke free. I was careful to attract no attention to myself. But Father loved gryphons and always had many around; whereas Lugh, so he said, merely kept enfields. Still, Mother hated Father for having given her a child she could not easily raise. And I hated him for making me neither man nor gryphon.”

“With the best of both,” Aife countered. “Strength, beauty, and intellect.”

“With no one to spend it on. Oh, Yd and I spoke now and then, but he was as frustrated as I.”

“How so?” Myra broke in, curiosity having gotten the better of her.

The gryphon regarded her levelly. “Look at this place and recall what you knew of Yd. He was a warrior, aye, but also a scholar. Then think: would a scholar leave this library untouched? All this knowledge unpilfered?”

“No,” Aikin blurted. “He wouldn’t.”

“What does that tell you, then?”

Myra scowled. “That he either feared the knowledge here or couldn’t access it.”

The gryphon nodded. “Colin laid a ban on this place that no one of Faery blood could touch aught here without his consent. He did not consider that mortals would ever come here, and since such spells are very specific, that ban did not include them. And of course once a mortal touches something like Colin’s grimoire, the spell on it disperses.”

“There’re other spells, though,” Aikin grumbled, nursing a hand that was still sore from being shocked.

Silence.

“So what brings you here?” the gryphon asked eventually. “I saw Yd leave, and must assume he did so of his own free will; that as far as he is concerned you have freedom of this place.”

“You watched us before you revealed yourself, didn’t you?” LaWanda challenged before Aife could frame a reply. “I did.”

“Then you know already.”

“I know you seek knowledge in Colin’s grimoire. But even I have heard of Aife of Tir-Arvann. I know that she is a lady not unlearned.”

“You know more than that, then,” Aife snapped, hand returning to her sword. “Enough of this, beast! We converse while the fate of Worlds runs out. Either you will leave us to our work or contest with us. There are more of us than you, and we wield steel, and more than one form of it. You might kill some of us, but we would kill you in turn. Would you be the first of your kind to know the Death of Iron?”

“I would not be,” the gryphon countered easily. “And in reply, I tell you this: my name is Deffon.”

Aikin nodded mutely. The critter had given his name; therefore he was giving them power over him.

“Friend, then,” Aife conceded.

“Let us rather say ‘not foe.’”

“Sufficient for now. Now go or stay. We have work to do.”

The gryphon coughed, cleared his throat, or whatever such beasts did. “There is more to this tale that I do not know than otherwise, if you would enlighten me—”

Myra looked at Aife, who looked at Alec, who looked in turn at Aikin, who looked at LaWanda. Nobody looked at Piper, who was quietly cleaning his pipes in an enormous, thronelike chair of greenish wood inset with mother-of-pearl and tigereye.

“You know the most,” LaWanda said, glaring at Myra. “You do it.”

Myra did.

“So you need to move Tir-Nan-Og?” Deffon mused when she had finished.

“Or the Lands of Men,” Aife countered. “But Tir-Nan-Og, being smaller, would be the simpler task.”

“Maybe not,” Deffon gave back. “It may be smaller, but there is far more Power there than in the Mortal World. Such Power may be needed.”

Aife shook her head. “Much of that Power maintains the land and feeds those who dwell there. And without the
rightful
king, such a working has no chance of success. Besides, anyone seeking to prepare for such a thing there would surely attract the attention of the Sons of Ailill, who would do all they could to forestall it.”

“Even though it would aid their cause, should Tir-Nan-Og be moved?”

“Even so—now.”

More silence Aikin got a strong sense, however, that the gryphon was weighing options. Finally, the creature spoke. “The secret of the Silver Tracks is indeed to be found within that volume, though I do not know where and believe that information to have been coded. I know this,” he added, “because I watched in secret. I learned much, though Father did not suspect it. But there is one thing I must tell you now, for the longer you ponder it, the less likely you will be to act in error.”

Aife eyed him warily. “And what might that be?”

Deffon rose and marched solemnly toward them, then sat back on his haunches, looking very heraldic. “The Silver Tracks require blood to manipulate. If mortals choose to attempt this, it will require a great deal indeed.”

Aife’s eyes narrowed. “Blood…or Power?”

“The Power in the blood. No more can I say, for more than this I do not know.”

Aife studied the rest of her companions. “It occurs to me that now we have Colin’s grimoire, our business here is finished. I can study it as easily in your World as this, and Nuada may also want to examine it. Perhaps he can make suggestions.”

“Wish we knew what was going on back there,” Alec grumbled, kicking at a clump of half-burned wood.

The gryphon perked up at that. “You do?”

Alec glared at him. “Wouldn’t you?”

“Colin once owned a scrying stone with which he would sometimes study other Worlds, though he did so infrequently lest he be detected.”

Alec raised a brow. “You know where this stone is?” Deffon extending a gleaming talon toward where Piper sat. “In that chair.”

Piper looked startled. “Here?”

“Not where thieves would look first,” the gryphon chuckled, “yet easily accessible. You might want to check beneath.”

Piper blanched, but put down his pipes. For a moment, he fumbled around under the chair. When he withdrew his hand, he held something fist-sized and milky-clear that flashed glassily in the eerie light. Aikin squinted at it, then got the shock of his life when he noticed that the object was bifurcated by a septum of ruby-red.

Alec noticed it too.

“Oh, my God!” they cried in unison, “that’s an
ulunsuti
!”

“What—?” LaWanda began, but Myra drew her aside to explain, while Alec and Aikin rushed forward.

“What the fuck is one of
those
doing here?” Alec burst out.

Aikin snickered. “Thought you were well rid of that thing, McLean.”

Alec rolled his eyes, though he consciously slowed his approach. “Sometimes you change your mind.”

“You have to feed it—” Deffon began helpfully.

“I know, I know. The blood of a large animal, or it’ll go insane. Wonder how long since this one’s been fed,” Alec added, peering meaningfully at the gryphon.

Piper looked as though he held either a skunk or a flaming coal, and was all too eager to relinquish the object.

“Think we should?” Myra asked the company in general. “Won’t hurt,” LaWanda acknowledged.

“What I want to know,” Alec announced, having claimed the object, “is what one is doing
here.”

Deffon shrugged. “Obviously Father either brought it here or had it brought here by the Tracks.”

Aikin’s mouth popped open. “They can reach that far?”

“No reason not to,” Deffon answered amiably. “And I believe that he acquired it in his youth. He traveled much before coming here.”

“Never mind that,” LaWanda snorted. “What can it show us?”

“Whatever you want,” Alec retorted, a little protectively. “You have to prime it with blood—just a little will do—and then— Actually, the best thing is to just sort of worry at it.” He eyed Aikin speculatively. “Probably ought to use my blood, though.”

“Allow me,” the gryphon rasped, and before anyone could stop him, the beast lashed out with one of those claws and laid open the side of Alec’s hand in the most delicately finessed maneuver Aikin had ever seen, to have been executed so fast.

Alec blinked, then blanched as his blood oozed out along a thin, sharp line. Fortunately, he rallied and raised the hand above the ulunsuti, which he held in his lap, so that the blood could drip upon it. “Best you not touch it with the wound itself,” he cautioned. “These things’ll suck you dry if you’re not careful.”

“So would the well Colin used to empower the Tracks,” Deffon observed absently. “Alas, it exists no longer.”

Alec glared at him, then at the rest of his companions. “Well, folks,” he muttered, “since this guy’s been activated, I reckon we oughta do something with it. So unless somebody’s got a better idea, let’s join hands and close our eyes and…hang on. Just think about what’s going on back home. And hope. I mean, if that makes sense to you, Aife,” he appended apologetically.

The Faery woman shrugged distantly as she joined their circle, but was careful, Aikin noted, to sit next to Alec. Myra claimed his other side, and Aikin took her hand, offering the other to LaWanda, who grasped Piper, to bind themselves into the traditional boy-girl circle that seemed to work so well. A deep breath, and Aikin closed his eyes.

For a moment it was impossible to think, or rather, he was thinking so hard
about
thinking that his thoughts had gone to war. Too, there was the small matter of what had happened the last time he’d used one of these things. It had shown him the way to the Track in Athens, sure, but that had opened another kettle of fish he’d still not consumed to the bottom. When you got down to it, though, that one foray into Faerie, born of jealousy as it had been, had been more trouble than it was worth. Did he want to risk that again? Or would maybe, finally—as Dave had long desired, and he was starting to agree—this whole mess of inter-World politics finally end?

But how?

How, indeed?

A deep breath, and he opened his eyes, and stared at the ulunsuti’s blood-red septum.

Stared at first; but all at once it was as though the stone stared back, then reached out some strange unfocused consciousness and grabbed him. For an instant, he was floating, but then vision clarified, and he was high in the air, as though in bird shape, and gazing down at the ocean.

It was a strange ocean, too, for its waters were oddly dark, as was the sky; as though those waves leaped and frothed in a place of perpetual twilight. Certain there was no visible sun, and now he looked at it, that ocean seemed to go thin in spots, as if it were a film of gauze stretched over a more solid reality he could almost but not quite see. In other places golden strips overlaid it, like ribbons of tenuous light.
Straight Tracks—and Pillars of Fire.

There were also places were the ocean simply
wasn’t,
which must be the Holes everyone was so concerned about: places where their World had not only burned through Faerie but through other Worlds besides.

And finally, so small he didn’t note them at first, there were ships.

He wished a closer look, and got one. And stared, from no more than thirty yards up, upon at least a hundred vessels, very like Fionchadd’s or those that had pursued them earlier, each with a black sail bearing a crimson eagle. And each crammed to the gunwales with Faery warriors.

A gasp, a blink, and
more
ships! Another fleet as large as the first, but with a different device upon its golden sails, this one more complex than the others he had seen. He squinted. Had it! A scarlet anvil surrounded by a ring of white skulls.

A third gasp—not his own this time—and whatever Power had commanded him let go, and he looked once more on red and milky-clear. Tears stung his eyes, and when he could see clearly again, Aife’s face was grim as death.

“I pray that we look on
now
,”
she whispered, “and not on the past, for I dare not hope for the future.”

“What…?” Alec asked, peering at her anxiously. Aikin hoped they’d all had the same vision. Otherwise—well, if they’d all seen different things, they might be in even deeper trouble than they were already.

“Two fleets,” Aife said tersely.
“Two
fleets,” she repeated. “One bore the arms of Finvarra of Erenn. The other the sigil of Arawn of Annwyn. Both smell an empty throne. Both, I am certain, sail this way.”

The gryphon, who’d taken no part in their impromptu séance, rose and padded over to join them. “War indeed,” he mused in a low, thoughtful voice full of regret. “I did not share your visioning, yet I could not help gazing at the stone. I saw many endings and some beginnings. More to the point, I saw important things. Things worth saving and things worth changing. Therefore, if you have need of me, sound the horn you will find in that cupboard there, and I will come.”

All eyes swiveled toward the single cupboard that yet retained its doors, but Aikin was first to leap to his feet. “No,” he warned when Alec made to follow. “Everyone else has done something worthwhile here; I’ve been like tits on a bull. This is mine. Not my horn,” he added, “my responsibility.”