Darkthunder's Way (37 page)

For his part, Uki reached into a pouch at his side and took out a small brown stone pierced with a tiny hole through which ran a string. Grasping one end of the string between his thumb and forefinger, he let the rock drop first to Alec’s lips, then to the center of his chest, and finally to his manhood. “The centers of life,” Uki murmured. Centering the stone above Alec’s solar plexus, he gave it a gentle shake and slowly began to twirl it, then let his hand go still. The stone continued circling for a time, but gradually the figure it inscribed became an ellipse, which in turn became a simple arc along the length of Alec’s body.

Eventually it stopped, but David could see that it did not lie vertically beneath Uki’s hand, but tended slightly toward Alec’s right side as if drawn there by some invisible magnet.

“It is as I thought,” Uki told them. “His soul lies in the west; it is there I must face to call it.”

“Just tell me what to do,” David said.

“Continue bathing,” Uki replied, standing and striding around so that he faced away from David, with his feet to either side of Alec’s head. “Do the arms next, then work upward along the torso. The face must follow; when you reach the mouth, call me.”

“Got it.”

Uki did not reply, but secreted the stone, raised his arms, and began to chant:

Sge! Ha-nagwa hatunganiga Nunya Watigei, ga-husti tsuts-kadi nigesunna. Ha-nagwa dungihyali. Agiyahusa aginalii, ha-ga tsun-nu iyunta datsiwak-tuhi. Tla-ke aya akwatseliga. Hyuntikwala Usunhi digwadaita.

This time David understood the words—perhaps, he decided later, because he did not truly listen.

Hear! Ha! Now you have drawn near to hearken, O Brown Rock; you never lie about anything. Ha! Now I am about to seek for it. I have lost a friend and now tell me about where I shall find him. For is he not mine? My name is Uki.”

As David worked his way higher, Uki started over. The third time he joined in, not consciously, simply letting his tongue follow the flow of rhythm and accent. By the fourth round he had reached Alec’s forehead. By the fifth his mouth.

“I’m there,” he said clearly, whereupon Uki repeated the verse more loudly and clapped his hands three times, sending thunder echoing through the cave.

“Now!” he cried. “Now!”

For with the first clap Alec’s mouth had sagged open. David wasted no time and sloshed a little of the water from the canteen across his lips. They moved involuntarily. Alec’s eyelids fluttered. More water, and Alec’s tongue twitched. An instant later he swallowed, choked softly, then gulped more, and finally—to David’s vast relief—reached up, took the canteen, and drank greedily.

“No!”
Uki warned, when Alec would have drained it. “You must save some for your eyes!” David pried the canteen gently from Alec’s fingers and poured a little on each of his friend’s rheumy lids.

He blinked, shut them again, blinked twice more, and squinted. “Jeeze, it’s bright in here,” he mumbled.

“You’re back!” David sobbed, lifting Alec’s torso off the furs to hug him. “Oh, Jesus, man, you’re back! You’re back! I—” He paused then, suddenly terrified. “Oh crap, I haven’t hurt you or anything, have I? Can you…can you see, and all?” He thrust himself away and regarded his friend at arm’s length.

“Davy?” Alec said slowly. “Things’re a little…fuzzy right now, but I…think they’re getting clearer.” He twisted free, tried to stand, but sank back down. “Oops, maybe not quite yet.”

“Not hardly,” David chided. “But Jesus God, I’m glad you’re okay.” He peered up at Uki. “He is, isn’t he?”

“He will be fine. As the waters of Atagahi spread through him he will grow stronger. By tomorrow he will be well enough to travel.”

“That’s good,” David said, nudging Calvin, “’cause we need to be gettin’ home. We’ve still got a message to deliver.”

“I will show you a short way,” Uki said, “one that will keep you clear of Tsistu.”

“You mean he’s already back again?” Calvin asked. “Reincarnated, and all…?”

Uki shrugged. “It would not be at all unlikely. But enough of him,
you
must eat—both of you. You have fasted long enough.”

“I could eat a horse,” Alec volunteered.

“Alas,” Uki replied sadly, “none of those beasts live here. What you need is the flesh of a strong animal to give you its strength in turn. Bear would be perfect. I will send my sisters to hunt one.”

David’s heart flip-flopped. “Uh, please
not
bear!”

Uki’s eyes narrowed, but David thought he saw a spark of mischief there. “What do you suggest instead?”

“Buffalo,” Calvin said with conviction. “I saw a herd not an hour’s walk from here.”

“And fish,” said one of the sisters from the entrance. “To aid in speed and quickness. Perhaps
you
could procure some, brother?”

Uki rose wordlessly and left.

David looked puzzled, but Alec was laughing. “More magic,” he giggled. “Always more magic. The whole blessed world’s made of magic.”

“Fool-of-a-Scotsman, get real,” David giggled back, risking a friendly jab to his buddy’s shoulder.

“I’d
rather
get dressed,” Alec replied archly. “Has anybody got a comb?”

“Now I
know
you’re cured.” David laughed, as Alec staggered to his feet and let his friends steer him to the ledge behind the falls.

*

By the time Alec had made himself presentable, the snake women were back with a huge haunch of meat; and by the time it was prepared the three boys were famished. The fish Uki had caught, they ate raw, but the herbs sprinkled over them tasted wonderful, and their flesh was firm and sweet.

Finally David flopped onto his side and looked at Calvin. “Well, I guess it’s time you told us
your
story.”

“Yeah,” Alec chimed in. “What were
you
up to while I was watching horror movies on my eyelids?”

“Boy,
that’s
a long one,” Calvin sighed. “I don’t think I wanta go into it now.” He leaned back and folded his arms contentedly across his chest.

“The
hell
you don’t!” David cried indignantly. He leapt forward and prisoned the Indian’s body beneath his own.

Calvin’s mouth popped open in surprise. “What’re you
doin’
, Sullivan?”

“It’s called coercion,” David hissed, grinning fiendishly as he secured his hold on Calvin’s wrists. “Now would you like to reconsider your decision?”

A bored yawn followed. “I don’t really think so, at least not now.” His lids drifted down, and David felt Calvin’s body relax.

“Fargo!”

One twinkling eye slitted open. “Oh, well gee, guys; if you’re
that
interested…”

“We are,” David said, releasing him.

“Okay then, but only a short version, ’cause I really
am
beat.” He sat up and crossed his legs, rested his hands in his lap, and began.

He made short work of the trip to the golden sand. The journey itself had been uneventful, except for one harrowing moment when Calvin had misjudged a bow shot and nearly been gored by a charging buffalo before Fionchadd saved him; and the fact that they had been attacked by a monstrous leech at another place, when they had been forced to ford a river.

“That would be Tlanusi,” Uki said. “I should have warned you, though usually he is sleeping this time of year. Perhaps the death of the uktena has disturbed him, for
they are kindred, and the beast would know of his passing.”

Calvin shrugged. “Whatever you say.”

“What
I
want to say”—David chuckled pointedly—“is for
you
to say how the quest ended.”

Calvin smiled cryptically. “Maybe it’d be easier if I
showed
you.”

“Showed us? How…?”

The smile widened as Calvin reached into his pocket and pulled out a thin crystal disk exactly like the one Lugh had used earlier to show them Finvarra’s navy.

“Hey, where’d you get
that
?” David exclaimed.

“Finny gave it to me,” Calvin replied smugly, setting the disk on edge in the sand between them. “But old Silverhand invented ’em. There’re these jewels in this torque, see, that are kinda like movie cameras, ’cept they’re magic; and whatever Finny saw they imprinted on these disks that he had stashed in that fancy gold belt.”

“Oh, Christ,” David groaned, rolling his eyes. “High-tech comes to Faerie and the little fiend never even told me!”

“Magi-tech,” Calvin corrected. “Pure mumbo-jumbo. Frankly, I’m not real sure this thing’ll work here,” he added, “but Finny thinks it will, since it is partly magic from our World that runs it.” He muttered a word and sat back expectantly.

The disk immediately began to expand, until all they could see was a five-foot circle of light in which shapes were quickly taking form.

“It’s got the whole record of our trip in there,” Calvin told them as the shapes became rapidly clearer. “But he’s got it set on the last part.”

The first thing David could make out was a sandy shore, and he thought briefly that Calvin had somehow come into possession of the disk he had seen before—except, he realized quickly, that the sand this one showed was gold, and the waves beyond were empty of ships but alive with webs of glitter that could only be Straight Tracks.

“You must have been very near Nundagunyi,” Uki observed. “For only there do the Great Waters look so.”

David studied the image more intently and saw beyond the waves and webs of light a curtain of reddish fog that his vision could not penetrate. The image spun for a moment, then; first showing Calvin’s face, and then, after more chaos, Fionchadd’s.

“You must record my departure,” the Faery was saying. “I have given you my torque to accomplish that, and also to remember me by.”

“But what are you gonna use? I mean, don’t you need to record this too?”

Fionchadd patted his gold-linked belt. “I have a duplicate disk here, and another on which to place further happenings. There are two seeing-stones as well, and one of those I will take with me.”

The Faery’s hand filled the disk for an instant, then pulled back to show him holding one of the torque’s jeweled end-knobs. “This will record my voyage,” he said. “And now I must be upon it.”

The rest of the departure looked familiar: the toy ship was placed in the water; Fionchadd rubbed the ring; the flames sprang forth; the ship expanded. The Faery’s face loomed large again as good-byes were said and he and Calvin hugged each other. Calvin gave Fionchadd his beaded headband, and then the Faery splashed through the waves and leapt onto the deck, waving, and brandishing his bow. “I go to my grandmother’s country,” he cried. “Tell my mother I will return for her with an army!”

“Just bring
yourself
back, Lizardman,” Calvin shouted, as the disk showed Fionchadd reaching to his waist, drawing out a dagger, and striding to the angle behind the dragonhead. For a moment he hesitated, weighing the weapon in his hand as if something were not quite right, then squared his shoulders and drove it home.

A strangled gasp from Alec startled them all, and when David turned that way, he was crying.

“Hey, what is it, man?” he asked, more than half afraid his friend had suffered some sort of relapse. “He’s okay, we’re all gonna miss him.”

“Yeah,” Alec sobbed. “But…but something’s
wrong
. I don’t know what it is, but it’s my fault, I know it is!”

“
Your
fault,” David snorted. “How could that possibly be?”

Alec shook his head. “I don’t know, but I’ve done a bad thing, I
know
I have.”

David took a deep breath and let it out very slowly. “What
kind
of bad thing?”

“I told you, I don’t know! All I know is that…” His face contorted with pain. “Oh, God, I get a headache when I even try to think about it!”

David exchanged troubled scowls with Calvin and Uki.

“He is weak,” Uki said, “and dreams no doubt torment him, for he was nearly Tsusginai, in the Ghost Country in Usunhiyi—and that is a fearful place indeed!”

“I don’t know,” Calvin said, frowning. “He was talking about that bad thing before he started fading.”

“Alec, can you tell us—” David began urgently.

But Alec was asleep.

Chapter XXII: Home

(Galunlati—day seven
—morning)

Alec’s memory was no better when Uki roused them the next morning. He was immeasurably stronger though, if by no means fully recovered, and David decided not to quiz him about the nameless “bad thing” until later.

“It’s funny,” Calvin said, as he sorted the small museum of herbs and mineral specimens he had accumulated the last few days, “how we could be here doing all this stuff, and almost forget why we really came.”

“Running around in other Worlds’ll do it to you,” David replied sagely, applying himself to his own gear. “Trust me. I’ve met my myths, and now you’ve met yours. You’ll never be the same after—and I tell you what, it’s a mixed blessing. I’m
still
figurin’ things out.”