Darkthunder's Way (45 page)

“Never mind,” Alec broke in sharply. “Come on, let’s get him inside.”

Calvin grunted his assent, and with help from the Faery captain—whom he gave permission to enter—managed to carry the unconscious boy into the house.

Uncle Dale was no worse, though his face was far too pale—and grew paler when he saw his nephew. “Put him here,” he said, patting the sofa next to which he lay. “I’ll be all right in my rocker; just watch out for my old leg bone.”

Alec nodded and he and Calvin helped him to a seat there. He did not cry out, but Alec heard the bones grinding together, and saw his face knot in pain.

“I’ll be okay,” Dale repeated stiffly, as the captain knelt to examine his leg. “Get me a shot of ’shine and tend to the boy.”

Calvin trotted off to the kitchen, and Alec joined him there, oblivious to the shattered crockery that littered the floor. He clamped a hand on the Indian’s shoulder. “Sorry I cut you off earlier, man. Now what was it you were saying about me having been gone as far?”

Calvin found the ’shine in Dale’s pantry and poured a shot into one of the few surviving glasses, then stared at it for a moment and, to Alec’s surprise, took a healthy hit before offering him one as well. “Isn’t it obvious? The same thing’s happened to David as happened to you. And apparently Uki thinks we have what it takes to fix it.”

“Well that’s just great,” Alec spat bitterly, as they returned to the living room.

“Yeah,” Calvin said, handing the glass to Dale, who took it gratefully. The captain had set his leg during their brief absence, and already some of the pain had vanished from the old man’s face.

“So what do we do?” Alec asked, once more at David’s side.

“Well,” the Indian replied, “in your case Uki found where your soul had gone and chanted it back, then we fed you the healing water.”

“But David’s
already
healed!”

“Which means we’ve just gotta get his soul back, I guess.”

“That is what I said,” the Faery captain noted testily, as he joined them.

Alec scowled at him. “Any idea how?”

“Not with your kind.”

“I have an idea, though,” Calvin volunteered. “If we could remember the chant.”

“You’re the one who heard it, not me.”

“But you’re the one who answered.”

Liz stood suddenly and stared at them. “Could you two stop arguing and start thinking? What
kind
of chant are you talking about?”

“One in Cherokee,” Alec began. “I—”

Calvin interrupted. “You use a stone to find out which direction the soul’s in, then call it back.”

“But we don’t have a stone.”

“Oh yes, we do,” Alec said, brightening. “We’ve got a stone of great Power.” He brought out the ulunsuti and held it in his hand. It still glittered, but not with the arcane brightness it had earlier held.

“Hmm,” Calvin mused thoughtfully, “could you maybe use that to heal him?”

“I don’t know how,” Alec groaned. “I’m afraid—something would go wrong.”

“Maybe you could use it as a focus,” Liz suggested. “Or I could. I’ve done things like that before. Remember when Nuada used me to find David when Morwyn captured him?”

“A fine notion,” the captain acknowledged, “for love is a great aid in such things.”

“But we still don’t have the words to the chant.”

“No,” Calvin said slowly. “But…I sort of remember ’em; I mean I heard ’em a bunch of times, and I think I’ve heard my grandfather use ’em. If I could only get started…”

Alec’s face brightened. “Wait a minute! When I figured out what was going on with all this, I was just kinda gazing into the stone and wondering, and I got an answer. Maybe if we looked into it now, and wondered, we’d get one to this too.”

“And with four of us healthy, we could each cover a direction. That is, if this guy here’ll help.” Calvin eyed the Faery captain.

“Forgoll, I am called,” the Faery said. “And yes, I will aid you.”

“I’ll help too,” said Dale, trying to stand.

“No, you’d best stay were you are,” Alec told him. “Soon as we get David squared away we’ll call a doctor for
you.”

“I’d like to help, though.”

Liz crossed to him. “I know you would, but—well, you’re hurt too, and—”

“And we don’t know what kind of effort this will take,” Alec finished.

The old man nodded and leaned back reluctantly.

Calvin popped his knuckles. “Okay, folks, let’s get at it.”

“Right.”

They laid the jewel in the center of David’s chest, directly above the heart, and gathered round the sofa facing inward, all holding hands, and each taking a cardinal point, with Liz to the south, by his head. She took three deep breaths and slowly let her eyes go out of focus. “I’ll concentrate on David,” she whispered. “You folks stare at the line in the stone, and try to remember that formula. If anything starts to happen, I’ll try to bring us together.”

Alec nodded and followed her lead, letting his eyes shift to the ulunsuti. At first all he saw was simply a rough, shiny dome, more or less like a lump of melted glass. But the focus of his vision quickly narrowed to the thin line of red that pulsed there. Brighter and brighter it grew, until all he could see was a veil of red.

Davy? Davy
—
can you hear me?

No answer.

David?

He changed tactics, tried to remember the cave, himself lying unconscious, then words calling him back. No response first, but then, very faintly, he heard them.

Abruptly another presence was there, another mind; finding those words too, and drawing them closer. Liz, he knew, and once more was glad for the granny who had taught her to scry. He reached out to her, touched, and joined his thought with hers, then felt a surge of strength as Forgoll slid in with them and made their linkage firm. Last of all came Calvin, for he alone had never done such things. But with the Indian’s memory, and Alec’s as well laid bare, the words were suddenly clear:

Sge! Ha-nagwa hatunganiga Nunya ulunsuti, ga- husti tsuts-kadi nigesunna. Ha-nagwa dungihyali. Agiyahusa aginalii, ha-ga tsun-nu iyunta datsiwak- tuhi. Tla-ke aya akwatseliga. Tsulehisanunhi/Liz/Edahi/Forgoll digwadaita.

Listen! Ha! Now you have drawn near to hearken, O ulunsuti; 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 Alec/Liz/Calvin/Forgoll.

Four times they repeated that litany, and on the fifth, Uncle Dale chimed in from his place by the chair.

And then David’s eyelids flickered open.

“He was not without at all,” Forgoll said, “but within.”

“What happened?” David mumbled. “Last thing I remember’s gettin’ really pissed, and then I was an uktena, and—” He buried his face in his hands. “Oh Jesus, what I did! I—”

Liz’s arms folded around him, as she helped him sit up and offered him a taste of ’shine. “Alec saved you with that magic water of yours—that and the ulunsuti.”

“Alec!” David cried, trying to rise. “Oh no. But…but the water was in my pack and— He didn’t…did he?”

“I’m fine,” Alec said, joining David on the other side. “Eva’s dead, David. She was one of the guards.”

“Oh Jesus, man…”

“And a sad thing that was,” said a voice from the door.

Alec looked up. Standing in the remains of the doorway—but with his feet obviously planted on the porch—was the tall figure of Lugh Samildinach himself. A beautiful red-clad woman behind him was the Fireshaper Morwyn.

“May we come in?” the High King inquired.

“Don’t know as you can,” Dale said feistily. “Seems to me you’ve been actin’ might hasty lately and causin’ a heap of trouble. Sure have messed up my house somethin’ fierce. I don’t believe I want you in here.”

Lugh regarded him mildly but gave no sign of protest. “The house can be repaired with no trouble,” he said. “As for the rest, I do not know that I blame you. But when Finvarra sent word that Fionchadd was captured and demanded that I render up Morwyn, I was beside myself. I do not like my plans to go awry. My only thought was to find the traitor.”

Dale’s eyes narrowed thoughtfully. “You ’uz just takin’ care of your kingdom? Is that it?”

“Something to that effect, yes.”

“So what’re you gonna do now?” David asked.

“Truly I do not know,” Lugh replied. “I suppose it will be war. Before I had a choice of yea or nay; now I have only the choice of whom.”

“It will be Erenn,” Morwyn said. “I have already decided. Finvarra threatens my son with the Death of Iron if I do not give myself up. I therefore will do so. My people will then attack Erenn, if Arawn will let them through; otherwise, there will be war with Annwyn as well. If you join them, they may forgive you for what has happened here. If you do not, who can say?”

“Aye,” Lugh sighed heavily. “And I have further cause for war, now that I have found another of Ailill’s spies in my very household.”

“That’s all real good,” David said, “but where does that leave us?”

Lugh eyed him curiously. “Where indeed?”

“I know where I
wish
it left us,” Dale said. “I wish it left us alone!”

“
Is
that a wish?” Lugh asked quickly.

“What do you mean?”

“I mean, was that a wish? A real wish? A desire of your heart? You still have a boon from me, you know.”

Dale eyed Forgoll distrustfully. “Your man here told me that wouldn’t work.”

“I know,” Lugh said, “and as you would have used it then, he was correct. But things have…changed.”

“You mean…” David began.

“It is certainly within my power to forbid my people to come here,” Lugh said. “And I begin to think it is an honorable thing. Too often the ills of Faerie have broken through of late. This one almost embraced a whole other World as well, and we need no more enemies than we have now. Perhaps Ailill was right, perhaps we should not trouble with men. Perhaps if we ignore them, they will forget us.” He peered at David speculatively. “Would you like that, David Sullivan? Would you forget the Sidhe? That choice is yours.”

David blanched at that. It was a choice: a mighty one, and he did not know what to say. Once before Nuada had tempted him so, and he had turned him down. But that had been under duress, with other trouble pending. Now, with things at peace in his world…maybe he ought to reconsider. Hadn’t he himself said a few days ago that he wanted to be a normal kid? Well, if he accepted Lugh’s offer, he would be that very thing: just another north Georgia teenager. But still…

“What about my friends?” he asked. “What about my folks?”

“They as well, if you would have it.”

David frowned. A normal life: him and Liz and Alec and his buddies—Calvin too, if he decided to hang around. But he was being asked to make the same decision for himself
and
his friends—and he knew he could not do that. He could choose for himself, but if his friends still knew, there’d be barriers. If he chose for them and kept his own knowledge, once more there’d be walls. If he decided for them all he’d be playing God, and he had no right to do that either.

“I can’t,” he said finally. “Lord knows I’d like to forget all this, but I can’t. It’s part of me, part of what I am, part of what’s made me a stronger person. I can’t undo it.”

Dale cleared his throat and looked up at Lugh. “Seems like the best thing, then, is for you to just do what you said: go away and leave us alone.”

“If that is your wish,” Lugh said, “you have only to state it aloud and burn the scroll.”

“But why bother with that?” Liz wondered. “If you’re gonna do that anyway.”

“Because the paper contains my blood and thus controls a bit of my Power,” Lugh replied. “Were I to declare the borders closed, you might someday use it against me. I want nothing of Power where I cannot control it.”

Liz gazed at the ring David had given her. Once it had belonged to Oisin. “
Nothing
?” she, whispered.

“That you may keep,” Lugh told her. “Its virtue has vanished, and in any event we did not make it.” He paused. “All other gifts you may keep as well, for they are not many, and cut off from my land whatever Power they may have will fade.”

“But what about
Katie’s
wish?” David wondered.

“She has already used it: she asked for new wagons for her people to replace those young Froech destroyed.”

“Sounds like her,” Dale mused.

“She distrusts magic; she said it should only be used to correct what magic has damaged.”

“Yeah, that’s her all right.”

“It’s decided then?” From Calvin.

“So it would seem,” Lugh said heavily. “Dale Sullivan, have you so chosen?”

The old man nodded. “I have, sir. I…I want the borders closed twixt here and Faerie, I want you and your folk to leave us alone.”

“Two wishes but one thought,” Lugh said. “But it is within my power and a just thing, and so I will have it be.”