Darkthunder's Way (19 page)

“I guess it was.”

“Sorry.”

“
But
why
?”

“Because I…I don’t know, really. Call it instinct again. I just sensed there was something mysterious about you and that they were part of the mystery.”

“There’s that instinct again.”

“Yeah, the same thing that told me to tell you my true name. At least we’re even now: a secret for a secret.”

“So you know about the trouble, too?”

“Not the background.”

“Okay, well to start with…”

And as quickly as he could, David told him.

*

“Well, then, so maybe you can get on with your story, now,” Dale said quietly when David and Calvin had returned and the Indian had settled himself into a place in the corner. The old man raised a prompting eyebrow at Oisin.

Oisin nodded. “We have a problem: We must somehow get Morwyn to the Land of the Powersmiths, or at least to Annwyn. Unfortunately, the only direct route there is blockaded, so that does not seem a likely possibility.”

“But what good will that do?” David asked. “I mean, won’t Finvarra just get pissed off and attack anyway?” Lugh smiled grimly. “He might. But if we aid Annwyn and the Powersmiths by returning one of their own, they will be honor bound to aid us in return. Finvarra cannot stand against the combined might of the three of us—certainly not with the Powersmiths in the fray.”

“But wait a minute,” David said, frowning. “Isn’t Annwyn more or less on top of Wales? And doesn’t Faerie kinda overlap all over? If Tir-Nan-Og’s here, and Annwyn’s there, and this Powersmith place is next to—”

Nuada shook his head. “I see your thinking, David, but the Worlds do not fit together that way. You think we could simply bring Morwyn into this world, spirit her to Wales, then pass the World Walls again and so come to Arawn’s kingdom. That is a reasonable thing to assume, but it could not be, because Annwyn overlaps this World at another time, as does Erenn. There are other reasons as well, having to do with how far one may stray from one’s own World, but the simplest way to put it is that Annwyn has not reached this time yet. I know it is a complex notion, and one that is best understood by drawing pictures, but for that there is no time. Suffice to say it perplexes even the Sidhe.”

“In other words,” said Dale, “’t’ain’t possible.”

David blinked in confusion. “So that means…?”

“—that some
other
way must be found to get Morwyn to the Land of the Powersmiths,” Oisin finished. “And that is where you come in, you and Calvin McIntosh.”

“Oh, no!” Calvin cried, shaking his head vigorously. “Not me, uh.”

“You seek your heritage, do you not? Then perhaps you should listen further, for you may learn much about it.” Calvin scowled but kept his silence.

“I had been thinking on this problem, of course,” Oisin continued, “and I was unable to see an answer—until I chanced to speak with young Fionchadd about his practice bout with David. Fionchadd mentioned a subsequent encounter with a strange boy, and said that he had sensed some sort of Power there. He let me read his memory, and suddenly I knew.”

“Yes?”

“Galunlati.”
Oisin looked at Calvin. “Does that mean anything to you?”

Calvin’s face brightened for the first time since his capture. “I’ve heard my grandfather speak of it. I think it’s…it’s kinda like the heaven of my people.”

“As some Irish think Tir-Nan-Og is theirs,” Oisin said, “which it is not. But you are right—and it truly does exist: It touches the Lands of Men on the other side from Faerie—”

“Uh-oh,” Calvin interrupted. “You’ve lost me again.”

Oisin looked at Nuada. “You had better explain this one, Silverhand.”

Nuada did: how there were Worlds and Worlds: Worlds that touched but barely, that lay within each other or beside each other, all linked by the complex webwork of the Tracks. Galunlati was one of these. It joined the Lands of Men, but not Faerie. Tracks led there, presumably, as they did to all the Worlds, but the Sidhe did not know which ones. They did not even know how they would appear.

“But what does this here Galunlati place have to do with Miss Morwyn’s situation?” Dale wanted to know.

“Just this,” Oisin replied. “Two hundred years ago and more, as men measure time, I met a druid of Calvin’s folk—an
adawehi,
they called him. He showed me the way to Galunlati, and I traveled there for a while. I met the men of that place—if men they may be called—and from one of them I heard of a land far to the east, beyond a golden strand and a sea of light.
Nundagunyi,
they named it: the Sun Land—a place of shifting smokes and strange landscape, where fires burn at the borders, and the people practice strange and terrible arts. This intrigued me, and I questioned him further and eventually was able to determine that this must be the Land of the Powersmiths, for no other folk work with flame in such a way. Finally he showed me a thing he had: a curious disk graven with the image of an eagle. The style was unmistakably Powersmith, and the material”—he paused for effect—“was Fire frozen in Time, which only the Powersmiths can master. Thus it seems that the Land of the Powersmiths must somewhere touch Galunlati.”

Lugh nodded thoughtfully. “Have you anything to add to this, Lady Morwyn? Does this sound possible? I know little of your mother’s folk, though rumor has always held it that only from Annwyn may their land be entered.”

Morwyn nodded. “My mother’s country touches Faerie only in Annwyn, but Tracks lead there from other lands as well, though they seldom use them because none of the places they reach are of any worth to them. I have heard of a sea far to the west, though, whose surface is afire with Tracks, and whose farther shore is sanded with gold and peopled by the red-skinned folk. The Powersmiths traded with than once, but they became too free with Iron and the trading stopped.”

“Very good,” the Morrigu said, reaching up to stroke the crow on her shoulder. “We will equip a host and escort Lady Morwyn there.”

“That you will not,” Oisin told her. “For those of pure Faerie blood may not travel in Galunlati. It is a World too far from their own, and the World Walls wreak a terrible change on those who would assay it. Only its own people, those of one of the Worlds that adjoin it, or those who carry the blood on one of those adjoining Worlds, may venture there. Fionchadd could go, or Morwyn herself, but Nuada could not, nor Lugh—nor the host you spoke of.”

“
Nor
Finvarra,” Lugh added triumphantly.

“Aye, I do not think so,” Oisin said. “And that assumes he would even search that way.”

“So your suggestion is…?”

“I propose that David and Calvin, and perhaps other of his mortal friends go to Galunlati and seek out this unwatched passage to the Land of the Powersmiths.”

“You mean go
without
Morwyn?” David cried incredulously.

“Aye, to start with. I want her safe until I know otherwise. Is that acceptable to you, Lady?”

Morwyn nodded.

“But how do we get there?” David asked, “—assuming I’m willing.”

“By the ancient ritual,” Oisin replied. “In that I will instruct you: fasting, scourging, prayer, and vigil.”

David grimaced. “That sounds painful.”

“But we would owe you a mighty debt,” Lugh noted. “The King of the Sidhe does not take on such obligations lightly.”

“When would we go—if we did?” Liz wondered.

“As soon as possible, though it will take a day or two to prepare.”

She leaned against David’s shoulder and sighed. “I can’t make it then. I’ve got to go back to school.”

David looked beseechingly at Nuada. “Couldn’t you guys, like, fool with time or something, so she could go and still get back okay?”

Nuada shook his head and glanced at Oisin. “I do not think so…”

Oisin shook his head in turn. “No, David. The altering of time is mostly a function of the Tracks, and since they are not the same in Galunlati, and our Power does not work reliably there, we could not guarantee your lady’s return.”

“This is the plan,” Lugh said. “Fionchadd, being able to travel in Galunlati by virtue of his mixed blood, and having kin-interest in this, will go as scout. He will attempt to cross this unknown sea and so reach the Land of the Powersmiths. He will use the ship
Waverider,
if David will permit it.”

David nodded in resignation. “Sure.”

“And Calvin and David will go with him as far as they may,” Oisin added. “Calvin because his lineage may likewise be of some service there; and David because he is the link between: the one who knows most of men and Sidhe and the old folk.”

“But assuming we’re successful,” David said, “how’s Fionchadd going to get to Morwyn’s country? I mean how is he goin’ to know the right way?”

“In that I can aid,” said Morwyn. “You know the way of the ship, do you not? Words may direct it, to some degree, even thought. But more certain than any of these is metal. This you have seen before, David Sullivan: a dagger, a sword—any worked metal when thrust into the deck will send the vessel to the place of that metal’s forging.”

“Oh, yeah—right,” David said. “I see.”

“
I
don’t,” Calvin muttered.

Morwyn reached to her waist and removed a small dagger in a sheath. “This I give to my son,” she said. “It was forged in my mother’s land. When he reaches the eastern shore of Galunlati, he will plunge the dagger into the ship’s deck. The vessel will then take him to the place we seek.”

“But why can’t you just use the ship anyway?” David protested. “I mean it obviously doesn’t have to follow Tracks. It can
fly
,
for heaven’s sake! Or why not go to Galunlati and take off from whatever place we land, or whatever?”

“As to the first,” Morwyn said, “all the other ways east are being watched; thus this seems the only choice. As to the latter, to travel without the Tracks it must follow a source of great Power such as its master’s blood. And since you are now its master, and you are here, that would be a futile effort.”

“So I’ve gotta do this…”

“You do not
have
to,” Nuada said. “But it would be very good if you did. It would aid your World as well as ours, for who can say what might transpire in the Lands of Men should war break out in Faerie? The Worlds are close here, David, very close. Anything of great force, be it of nature or of man’s creation, that passes in one is reflected in the other. Thus the turmoil and torment of war would make men in this World sleep uneasily. There would be contention. Tempers would grow short.”

“And with wind and weather as weapons…”

“A little you have seen already. There would be more and worse.”

“Okay, then,” David said heavily, “I reckon I don’t have any real choice but to go. And I’ll ask Alec, if you don’t mind.” He glanced at the Indian. “Calvin’s his own man.”

“Looks like I don’t have a choice, either,” the Indian answered slowly.

David held up his hand. “I have one condition, though.”

“Yes?” Lugh asked curiously.

David took a deep breath. “Okay, well—I may be gone a while…and I’ll have to explain that time. I can’t just drop out of sight for who knows how long, and you guys evidently can’t fool with time enough to cover me; and I’m sick of lying. So…I want to tell my pa. Ma already knows, so does Little Billy. It’d make it better for all of us.”

“It is just,” Nuada acknowledged, glancing at Lugh.

Lugh’s brow furrowed for a long moment. “I will grant you this thing. But it will be hard for him to accept without proof.”

“Proof’s simple enough,” David said. “Leave that to me.”

“But what about you, Oisin?” Calvin interrupted. “Will you be our guide?”

“Alas, no,” Oisin said sadly. “I am too old. I would age there, worse even than in this World. Such I learned by bitter experience during my brief visit.”

“I’ll go, then,” Dale volunteered. “I’ve always been curious ’bout them Indian legends.”

“But you would have the same trouble as I,” said Oisin. “Your bones are not as strong as once they were.”

“Well, you’re right there,” Dale admitted. “’Sides, who’d look after Davy’s folks?”

“Oh, Christ,” David groaned. “I can hear ’em now.”

“Also,” Oisin noted, “we will need a place to prepare the ritual, and there is a building here that would be ideal.”

“So,” said Lugh, standing. “It appears to be decided.”

“I reckon so,” David sighed. “Well, then, when do we start?”

“Two days hence, I should think,” Oisin told him. “I must prepare certain formulae and refresh my memory of the ritual. Meanwhile, you should immediately begin your fast.”

“Our fast?”

Oisin nodded. “Seven days is prescribed, though we may do with less if I alter certain other elements. But you should begin now: no food at all, and to drink—Calvin’s folk drank a potion they called
black drink.
It was made of a type of holly, but it is rather similar to very strong coffee, so I think that would be a reasonable substitute.”