Darkthunder's Way (46 page)

“There is one thing I would first ask,” Morwyn said.

Lugh turned toward her. “And what is that?”

“It is a favor I would ask of young McLean…”

Alec frowned at her. “I’m listening.”

The Fireshaper took a deep breath. “The jewel has the gift of prophecy, does it not? I would ask that you allow me to use it so.”

Alec eyed her uncertainly but crossed to the doorway and held out the ulunsuti.

She did not touch it, but gazed at it for a long time, her green eyes narrowed to slits. Then she blinked and returned to herself.

“And what did you see, Lady?” Lugh asked her curiously.

Morwyn’s face lit in a smile of peace. “I…I saw myself and Fionchadd alive and happy together. He was older, but not so very much. That will give me comfort.”

“Very well,” Lugh said. “Now let us depart. We have a grim business ahead of us.” He turned at the edge of the porch and spoke through the gaping doorway. “Truly Mortals—friends I would still say, whether you would or no—I grieve for all that has happened. Perhaps one day we will meet again, though it will certainly be of your asking. I go now to prepare for war. Think of me. Remember when the skies grow dark and rain falls heavy and you dream of death and murder that they are perhaps reflections of darker things in Faerie. I say that not as a threat, but as a warning. I may declare the borders closed, but when has war kept borders?”

“Good-bye,” David called from the sofa. “Give my regards to Nuada and Oisin.” He paused, swallowed, eyes suddenly misting. “And…and if you can, tell Finno I’m sorry.”

“I will do all those things,” Lugh said sadly. “When you are ready to empower your wish, burn the scroll.”

And he was gone.

Epilogue: Ashes

(Sullivan Cove, Georgia
—
Friday, August 24
—
night)

David stared at the pile of crisp ashes in the fireplace. If he squinted very hard he could still make out the lettering there: the delicate black uncials, the wonder of interlace, all now gone to nothing. A drop of Lugh’s blood had vanished with it, too; they had known when that happened, for the vellum had flared briefly as bright as the sun. Uncle Dale had cried out then—and had leapt to his feet, newly healed, though he had not put that in his wish.

Now was only ashes and fading fire, but the oil lamp’s glow was steady as the world slowly slid back to normal. Somewhere in the kitchen Dale and Liz were putting together supper. Calvin had gone to David’s house to brief his folks on the situation. Alec sat on the sofa beside him, munching fudge and also staring.

“It’s over, bro,” Alec whispered, laying a hand on David’s knee squeezing.

David nodded glumly. “Yeah, but how
much
is over? Did we go too far? Should I have let Uncle Dale make that wish?”

“Could you have stopped him? It was his to use, after all.”

“Yeah,” David sighed and fell silent.

His wish.

But it wasn’t over, not for him anyway. There was still Power in the world: the Power of Galunlati. It was in that jewel Alec had, and in the scale
he
had, and in another one Calvin had brought back with him, and in the chants and magic Calvin had already sworn he would learn at Uki’s side.

And there were other things that weren’t over, either. A friend was hostage somewhere, perhaps under threat of a death that even for his immortal kind might well be final. Oh, he knew Morwyn had seen Fionchadd free and happy in the ulunsuti, but did that necessarily mean it would happen? It was
a
future, but was it the only one? And even if Fionchadd was somehow released, did that mean they would still be friends? Once more their relationship hung on forgiveness.

Then there was the last, and most troubling thing: he had killed. Oh, they had been Sidhe; and he knew he had done that before, when Lugh’s guards had attacked him in Tir-Nan-Og. Rationally he knew there was nothing to worry about—the Sidhe were immortal, would be reborn. Those deaths were not forever. But would those he had slain hold a grudge? He didn’t know. The worst thing, though, was the way he had done it: with the mouth and fangs of a monster. He shuddered at that, at how easily the uktena had taken control. Did that mean it was still in there somewhere? Was there a beast forever locked inside him waiting to get free? He shuddered again and leaned back, eyes closed.

And felt something warm brush the top of his head. He looked up and saw Liz smiling.

“You’re worrying about the passing of magic, aren’t you?”

He shrugged.

“You’re all the magic
I’ll
ever need,” she whispered.

He look her hand. “You’re all I’ll ever need too—or ever want.”

Headlights slashed into the yard, then; and he heard the distinctive bellow of Big Billy’s old Ford truck.

Voices danced into the clear, silent night: his pa’s grumbles and his ma’s protests and Calvin’s calm weaving between them. And Little Billy bursting through the door, shouting, “Is it true, Davy? Are the Shiny Folks really gone?”

“It’s true, kid,” David said. “But there’s still a heap of magic in the world.”

Author’s Note

In this and the two previous adventures of David Sullivan, I have derived much of the background information on Celtic mythology and folklore from David’s favorite book, Lady Augusta Gregory’s
Gods and Fighting Men;
though Reverend Robert Kirk’s
The Secret Common-Wealth,
Katharine Briggs’s
An Encyclopedia of Fairies,
and W. Y. Evans-Wentz’s
The Fairy-Faith in Celtic Countries
have also proved invaluable, as have many other works too numerous to mention. But since with
Darkthunder’s Way
I have expanded my amoebic cosmology to embrace an additional mythos to which I have only tangentially referred before, that of the Cherokee Indians, I have inevitably found myself mining a new set of sources. The most important of these were James Mooney’s
Myths of the Cherokee
and
Sacred Formulas of the Cherokee,
both originally complied in the late 1800s; but I have also drawn a fair bit of cultural information from Charles Hudson’s much more recent
The Southeastern Indians.
In utilizing the Cherokee myths, I have attempted to do what I did with the Celtic myths before: preserve the essential character, attributes, and institutions, while at the same time filling in some of the blanks and ambiguities in—hopefully—a rational manner. This has not always been easy, and in some cases my previously established cosmology has required deviations from strictest conformity.

My depiction of Galunlati, for instant, is a sort of synthesis between the traditional one, which was the home of the gods and archetypal animals and lay beyond the Sky Vault, and This World, with which those same beings frequently had commerce until it became too corrupt (hence my term: Lying World) and they departed.

The notion of the removal of Galunlati from This World is also essentially my own, though consistent with Cherokee cosmology, which not only gave This World several levels (of which what
I
call Galunlati is the topmost skimmed off and attached to the Upper World), but also spoke of two types of time: recent, when things were as they are now; and
hilahiya,
or Ancient Time, when the animals (but never
all
the animals) could speak and the gods walked freely among men.

Finally, a different kind of deviation occurs in
Sikwa Unega,
the Cherokee name I have given David, which is not a strictly correct translation of “White ’Possum.” The word
sikwa
did, indeed, originally mean ’possum, but with the introduction of hogs, it became attached to those creatures, with the term for ’possum becoming
sikwa-utsetsti
(“grinning hog”). I found this latter too cumbersome when compounded with
unega
(“white”); so, since the change was apparently made fairly recently, I decided to revert to the original term, on the theory that Galunlati split off from This World before that usage became common.

In all other cases, however, the Cherokee words, phrases, and chants are as accurate as I could make them; most of the words being derived directly from the glossary or text of
Myths of the Cherokee,
and the chants from
Sacred Formulas of the Cherokee
—though once or twice I have had to depart slightly from the standard usage of a formula. The spell that comforts David, for instance, is rightly sung to soothe the night fears of small children, not boys on the edge of manhood, but the circumstances, I think, allow this slight variation. Once or twice, too, I have had to reconstruct a Cherokee word from guesswork; that is, lift it from another formula, insert it in one of those here, and hope I got it right. Finally, for the sake of simplicity, I have eliminated all diacritical marks. Any errors, linguistic or otherwise, are strictly of my own making.

TFD

Athens, Georgia

30 May 1989

About the Author

Tom Deitz grew up in Young Harris, Georgia, a small town not far from the fictitious Enotah County of the David Sullivan series. When he was a teen he discovered J.R.R. Tolkien, a writer who awakened his interest in fantasy and myth. He pursued his fascination by earning two degrees, a Bachelor of Arts and a Master of Arts, from the University of Georgia. His major in medieval English literature led Mr. Deitz to the Society for Creative Anachronism, which in turn generated a particular interest in heraldry, historic costuming, castle architecture, British folk music, and all things Celtic. Readers will also quickly realized that Tom was—as he said—a car nut who loved automotive details.

In
Windmaster’s Bane
, his first published novel, Tom Deitz used his interests and background as he began the story of David Sullivan and his friends, a tale continued in
Fireshaper’s Doom
and more books in the series. He won a Georgia Author of the Year award and a Lifetime Phoenix Award from Southern fans for his work. In addition to his writing, Tom was also a popular professor of English at Gainesville State College (today the Gainesville campus of the University of North Georgia), where he was awarded the Faculty Member of the Year award for 2008.

On the day after his birthday in 2009, Tom suffered a massive heart attack from which he never fully recovered, and in April of that year he passed away at the age of 57. Though he was never able to realize his dream of owning a small castle in Ireland, Tom had visited that country, which he loved, and at the time when he was stricken with the heart attack he was in the planning stages for a Study Abroad trip to Ireland that he would have led. The trip took place, and to a dirge played by an Irish musician on the uilleann pipes, some of Tom’s teaching colleagues scattered his ashes in a faery circle.