Windmaster's Bane (29 page)

There are no eagles in Georgia that big.

The eagle dipped its wings. Once. Twice. Slowly, almost deliberately. And each time those wings moved, blue lightning arced and crackled among the inky feathers at their tips, setting the creature now in such high relief that David was certain he could see every vane of every plume cut out against the heavens, now plunging it into darkness so profound that it was like a jagged rip in the sky itself.

And the size kept shifting: forty feet first, then scarcely larger than a real eagle, then spread across the sky so far and thin that the stars could be seen through its substance, then forty feet again.

A bolt of lightning struck at it from somewhere, briefly outlining it in glory.

Its size seemed to stabilize at that, but the eagle continued to float in the air, ominously aloof, still too impossibly huge to fly.

There are no eagles in the
world
like that!
David thought as he blinked eyes he felt certain must themselves be blazing. A few yards below it the raven fluttered in small, confused circles, trapped, looking for escape—out, or
up…

Or down. The smaller bird folded its wings and dove toward the sheer cliff face beyond David’s feet, where it disappeared into the gloom below him. The eagle wheeled lazily and followed, abruptly dropping in pursuit like a stone. David could feel the displaced air whipping his face as the eagle fell past his vantage point. He peered cautiously over the edge.

Both eagle and raven were lost to sight in the shadow of the mountain. But a brief, high cry cut the night, and the eagle rose alone, climbing like smoke into the midnight blue sky. And then it turned its red eyes toward David.

A blast of heat seared his face, and suddenly he was running—across rocks, over fallen tree trunks, toward the sheltering forest. He barely made it, for as he dived into that protective darkness, still clutching his runestaff, he heard the whoosh of wings, felt hot breath on his neck, smelled again the odor of sulphur—only this time it was mixed with blood—and felt pain cut across his shoulders like a whip.
A
harsh cry exploded in his ears, like the snapping of a branch from a tree, a nonhuman cry that yet registered first surprise and then rage. Instinctively David reached down to feel inside his shirt collar, but the pain had already passed, as quickly as it had come. He felt a rent in the fabric, but there was none of the expected sticky ooze of blood on his fingers when he looked at them, only a thin smear of some black powder like soot.

It’s the ring, wherever it is. It’s still working. It saved me,
he thought as he passed deeper into the woods, still fearing to hear at any moment the sound of wings or to feel talons or beak come at him out of the air to pierce his flesh and rend his life from him, in spite of that protection he hoped was still upon him—or take him away to Faerie, where he now realized he did not want to go. But there was no sound in the night except his own breathing; nothing unusual showed against the sky in those few glimpses he got of it.

Sometime later he came out onto the bank above the logging road that led down to his house. He was much further up than he had expected.

The eagle was waiting for him there, perched in the sturdy branches of the same ancient oak whose shelter David had just abandoned. As he stepped into the open, the bird glided soundlessly toward him, talons outstretched, seeming to grow longer, sharper, more terrifyingly pointed as they filled his vision.

Instinctively he raised his runestaff above his head, held it horizontally between his two hands—and to his surprise the eagle retreated, rising to hover impossibly slowly just out of reach above his head, wings masking the sky, claws like dire knives. He fully expected it to fall upon him, to smash him to a bloody, mangled pulp. Certainly it had mass enough to overpower him with ease—yet it did not. It simply hung in the sky, upheld by some supernatural wind.

David gritted his teeth and prayed as he continued to hold the staff aloft.
Things have Power because you give them Power.
Oisin’s words chimed in his mind, seeming to spread, to resonate throughout his body.
Iron and ash are some protection. Iron and ash. Iron and ash. Power. Power. Power.
He felt the staff grow warm.

Suddenly, beyond the eagle, David saw a vaster whiteness flash down from the night sky, to fall straight upon the back of the black eagle. He felt the eagle’s shadow spread to engulf the world and stumbled backward onto the ground, covering his eyes, his staff fixed in his hands.

But the expected suffocating weight did not fall upon him. Instead there was one brief, strangled cry, and then—nothing.

When he opened his eyes again, the eagle was gone. Where it had gone, Cygnus the Swan glittered brightly in the sky overhead. A yard to his right a white feather five feet long glimmered, fading into the air even as he looked at it.

David ran then, wildly, madly, unaware when the rains returned. Relief, or fear, or both, he didn’t know; he simply buried his rational mind and let instinct rule. He was in the forest, he realized at one point, for branches poked him painfully and tore brutally at his clothes and skin. The rain had lessened, but only by comparison to its former fury. He tried to stop, to think, to compose himself. But it was hard, so hard. And it was so dark he could scarcely see where he was going.

His toe struck a fallen branch, sending him sprawling forward. He retained his hold on the staff, but his other arm flailed outward, its fingers grabbing vainly at the twigs that clutched at him. One slipped through his grasp, another broke off in his fist. He fell heavily to the ground, winded, the staff beneath him. For a moment he lay motionless and gasping, trying vainly to regain control of himself.

Something warm touched his cheek and he looked up, squinting into the gloom. There was nothing there. But he knew he had felt something. Something very like a summer breeze.

As if in answer to that realization, he noticed a sparkle of light in the forest ahead of him. As he watched, it grew brighter, moment by moment, second by second. All at once he realized he was looking into a circle of light, almost like daylight, perhaps twenty feet across. He sat up, brushed his fingers across his clothes. They were dry, the mud flaked away as he brushed at it.

He fumbled his glasses out of his pocket, and put them on, realized they were filthy and tried to clean them on his shirt.

“Seeing is not really necessary when you’ve important things to hear,” came a familiar voice scant feet ahead of him. “In fact, it is not really necessary at all.”

David looked up quickly, then stared stupidly at the tri-pointed leaves of the branch he still clutched in his fist. Maple.

Oisin!

“It will not last long,” said Oisin. “For it takes much Power for me to send my spirit roving in a form you can see, and more to provide an appropriate setting for any sort of discussion. But I did not come to discuss metaphysics. You have summoned me, I surmise, in a time of distress.”

“Actually, it was an accident,” David admitted, suddenly embarrassed. “But I’m glad you came.” He stood up and took a hesitant step forward.

“You are not wearing the ring, David,” Oisin said mildly, “nor do I sense it anywhere about you.”

David exhaled, startled. His lips quivered, and he looked down at his feet.

“I’m sorry, Oisin, I’m sorry!” David burst out. “I strayed onto a Straight Track, and a Faery boy started chasing me, and then all at once I ran off the Track, or fell off, or something, and when I came to the ring was gone. And now the Sidhe are after my friends and family.”

Suddenly he was crying, his tears falling on the warm, dry leaves. He did not fight it.

Oisin said nothing for perhaps a minute, then briefly laid both hands on David’s head. “This tale is known to me already, David; and though it distresses me yet there is hope, for though you do not have the ring, I do not believe the Sidhe have it either. It does not answer my call, yet I can sense its protection still upon you, and such would not be the case if anyone else had claimed it for his own, unless he were very powerful indeed—more powerful than Ailill. That one does not have it, I am certain; you would not be standing here now if he did. For though you have Power, you cannot stand against him. No, the ring
must
remain in your world, perhaps not far from where you lost it. Seek the ring, David, first of all, for at least it will prevent further misfortune.”

David shook his head despondently. “Further misfortune? How much more misfortune can there be? I’ve already lost my brother and Uncle Dale.” He looked up at Oisin. “Is there
anything
I can do to help them? I went up to the mountain tonight to give myself up—to Nuada. But
I…
something happened.”

“Yes, I know, and I find that strange myself. But to answer your question about your brother and uncle: I fear I have no good news for you. Both of their lives are bound about with Power, Power beyond my skill to break, for only those who create such bonds may lift them. And, in any event, Lugh has forbidden my further intervention; only the fact of my previous promise to you allows me to come here this time, and at that it is only part of me you see before you. Thus, I may say little that will do you any good, except to remind you that there is always a solution to such problems if only it can be found; it is one of the Laws of Power. But knowledge of that solution must come from within yourself, David; not so much from any Power which you possess, though you have some, but from those other things that make you the person you are: your own ingenuity and determination. I can see the threads of fate patterning your destiny even as we speak.” And he raised his arms into the air as if weaving some web of wind and sunlight. “Yet more than one pattern can be woven. Use your head, but follow your heart. The Sidhe are not as unlike men as they would have you think.”

“You say I have Power?”

“It is as I have said, and as I suspect you are learning: Things have Power because you give them Power. How do you think you stayed Ailill long enough for Nuada to come to your aid?”

“I don’t
know…
I was praying for Power, thinking about it, anyway. Hoping more than I’ve ever hoped before. I think I felt something…something strange, but I thought it was just the staff. It’s made of iron and ash.”

“And well made it is. Both ash and iron were factors, but most of what sustained you against the eagle was your own Power working through those things: The power of determination, of fear, and of belief. It may be a difficult thing for you to understand, David, but perhaps I should tell you.”

“Tell me what?” David asked eagerly.

Oisin cleared his throat somewhat irritably. “I told you I did not come to discuss metaphysics, yet I see that yours is the sort of mind that will not rest until these questions are answered, so listen well: There are Worlds and Worlds, David Sullivan. This is but one. There are others that touch this one, even as Faerie does, and others that touch Faerie as well, but not this. Power is a part of all these Worlds, though mortal men seem to have forgotten that. Earth and Water, Air and Fire, of these the Worlds are made. Earth is matter; Air is spirit, more or less. The two are often linked together—more so in your world than in Faerie—for both are passive principles. By themselves they are useless, they need something to bind them together and make them act. And such are the active principles: Water, which binds the world of matter together—you would call it energy, I think—and Fire which does the same for spirit. Power is simply a force of spirit, like emotion or imagination or will to continue existing, a focusing of Fire bent to a certain purpose.”

“Okay, I understand that much I think,” David said slowly. “But how can a piece of wood have Power?”

“I was coming to that. The main difference between the Worlds is in the proportion and distribution of the four elements. In your world, though Air—spirit—is confined almost exclusively to living things, inanimate objects may yet contain Fire. But that Fire may only be awakened by some other fire—such as your own, for instance. You awakened the Power of the staff and added to it. These are hard things to understand, I know, and they become harder the more you study them. There are realms of almost pure matter, for instance, and realms of almost pure spirit. Faerie differs from your World mostly in the relative amounts of Fire and Earth: There is more of Fire in Faerie, more of Earth in the Lands of Man. That is why the Sidhe command Power so easily, but also why many of them fear the World of Men, for as the Sidhe may send their Power through the Walls between the Worlds and into the Lands of Men, so the substance of the Lands of Men may break through into Faerie.”

“And iron and ash are two of those things, right?”

Oisin shook his head. “Not entirely. Ash
is…
the closest word is sacred, though damned might serve as well. Ash contains almost no spirit, but there is a great deal of Power in it, so much that it is both a temptation and a threat. Used properly, it can do wonders; improper use can lead to disaster.

“I will give you an example: When the Sidhe came to their World, there were no ash trees in Faerie. Then someone brought a single ash seed from the Lands of Men, just to see how it would thrive in the soil of that world. They planted it in Aelfheim, and there it grew into an ash tree as tall as the sky. Too late those folk realized that it was drawing the very substance from that World, and reaching into others as well. Finally there was only the tree and the Straight Tracks, and then, when the tree touched
them:
nothing. Aelfheim was no more. So now ash is forbidden: the thing of great Power which the Sidhe dare not touch.