Gossamer Axe (38 page)

Christa had been able to breach the Realm, and she had leveled some sections of the palace, but though she strove mightily, supported by the full output of the band, she was still unable to touch the bard himself. Devi had succeeded, for the cut in Orfide’s forehead still bled, but there was no time and no opportunity to ask her what she had done. Quite probably she would not be able to explain.

Throwing out the beginning of spells and turning them suddenly into something else, Christa sought to catch Orfide off guard, but he followed her effortlessly, matching her chromatics with abrupt modal shifts, expanding his tactics to include the full voice of his harp: all the modes, rather than the few customarily used for defense and combat. It was a testament to his immense skill that he could turn even the phrygian and lydian scales, both normally associated with life and healing, into weapons.

He shifted from one mode to another, working plagal and authentic forms equally. Christa recognized the oscillation of his bottom notes: a fourth up, a third down, a fourth up, a third down. Something about his playing made her uneasy, though.

Judith stood in the grip of Sidh guards, but Christa had no time even to exchange glances with her. “Kevin: up the treble at five kilohertz,” she said into the microphone, and the sound from the PA changed instantly, transforming the music into a lance of white fire that darted out at the bard from the many speaker cabinets.

Orfide remained bent to his task, progressing methodically through the modes: plagal form, authentic form; plagal form, authentic form. Countering, Christa matched his playing and found herself forced to attack and defend using the same scales.

*Chairiste*

“Huh?”

*spiral*

Ceis’s warning came almost too late. Orfide was using the spiral of modes with the intent of killing her with her own music when he finally teased her into the locrian mode’s string of diminished intervals. Already, Christa realized, her hands were growing cold, her thoughts turning of themselves to winter and the inevitable passage into death.

She shifted keys immediately, but she was already too far into the spiral, and her thoughts dragged her back toward oblivion. Against her will, she was considering the attractiveness of the proposition, for—after two centuries of living, after fourteen hundred years of history— death beckoned seductively.

She looked ahead to the locrian mode that waited for her. To the Sidh, it represented eternal negation; but Christa was mortal, and she saw beyond it. There were always beginnings, she thought, even in the spiral of the modes. Monica had died, but she would be reborn someday; and the locrian was itself merely a prelude to rebirth in the ionian, to living in the dorian, to giving life in the phrygian, to experiencing the mystery of the lydian…

And she saw then that she could break through the cycle—by living it. At Midwinter, she had rebirthed Kevin. Now, at Midsummer, she would do the same for herself. She had been a harper; she was going to be a rocker. It was inevitable. Her life lay not behind her, but before her.

She brought her cold lips to the microphone. “Everyone: we’re going to do the blues, metal style. Van Halen: ‘Ice Cream Man.’ Where Eddie jumps in with the solo. On my signal.”

Orfide’s locrian mode started up. Christa’s vision was blurring. She felt her heart falter as the bard’s spell tightened around her.

Brigit…

But Orfide’s final note would be the fifth of the blues progression, the root of the chord that turned everything around and brought it back to the beginning; and ‘Ice Cream Man’ was a raucous tribute to adolescent sexuality: irreverent, leering, full of nothing but life and the promise of a good time.

And just as Christa felt the glimmering of light that promised Summerland and rest, she dragged her spirit up by its throat and forced her lungs to squeeze out a scream: “
Now
!”

The cold and the grave vanished with the first power chord, and Christa tossed off licks and tremolo-bar dives, fragmenting Orfide’s spell as she swept through keys with an arrogant disregard for harmonic convention. With her hands now on the core of the bard’s magic, Christa threw it back at him and saw desperation etched in his posture as he frantically worked to dismantle what he had assembled with such care.

The rest of the Sidh shared his fright. They fled into the gardens and took cover within the shattered palace. Judith’s guards, too, were affected. They had crowded back, releasing her. The Gaeidil stood alone a few yards from Orfide. A fallen sword was at her feet.

Slowly, deliberately, Judith bent and retrieved the weapon, then advanced. Lamcrann made as if to stop her, but she backhanded him and knocked him to the ground.

The bard suddenly seemed to become aware of Judith’s presence, and Christa felt his magic veer suddenly to the side. The same spell that had killed Glasluit launched itself at Judith.

It was blown away like so much smoke. At Christa’s shouted command, Kevin threw the master volume controls to full, and she jammed Ceis’s headstock against the stack of PA speakers, letting the feedback build and join with the magic. Orfide, breaking at last under the terrible electronic assault, let go of his harp and put his hands to his head, his mouth opened in an unheard scream as Judith’s sword clove his skull.

The bard jerked with the impact, and then the feedback split him open, rending flesh and bone. His harp fell, clattered and bounced on the tile, and was followed closely by his body.

Christa pulled her guitar away from the speakers and spun down her volume knobs. The stage grew silent save for the hiss of active speakers and the sobs and wails of the Sidh.

Kevin looked over the edge of the stage, shook his head, sighed. “Poor devils.”

Christa looked at him, startled, almost angry. “What are you saying, Kevin?”

He shrugged. “Look at them. They’re terrified. You’ve got your lover, Chris, but they’ve just lost everything. I’ve got to say it: I pity them. They probably feel about the same as I did when my folks got through with me.” He fell silent, as though his words had made him thoughtful.

Not a single Sidh moved. Casting the sword aside, Judith picked her way across the debris-littered ground, her hands and arms bruised and scratched, her white harper’s mantle stained with blood. At the edge of the Realm, just at the foot of the stairs that led up to the stage, she stopped.

“Beloved,” she said hoarsely, “will you help me cross this threshold? I…” Her eyes turned tragic. “I have no harp.”

Christa looked down at her. So close now. The battle was over. Just one more spell. “I will, Siudb, with all my heart.”

Devi came in with synthesizer swells, and Christa began the song that, long ago, she had composed for this one hoped-for purpose. Her voice was nothing like Monica’s, but her emotion made up for the lack, and though she had put the words into Gaeidelg so her lover would understand them, she knew that, even in English, their meaning would have carried effortlessly.

“
I do not know how to praise you, O my love
,

For I am no master poet who can claim the twelve branches.

Your hair in my hands was sweet as new milk,

Your lips against mine like the rich mead of kings.

“Baile and Aillinn could not meet in life—

Only the apple and the yew spoke of them

In speech that brought them together beyond death.

But I am Chairiste Ní Cummen and I can better that.

“Unlooked for, maybe forgotten, I have come

To win you, who, once won, graced my arms

With your presence.

Unthought of, perhaps despaired, I return

From lands which, though mortal, are alive

And waiting for you.”

At the foot of the stairs, Judith raised her arms as though to embrace the magic that washed over her in a purifying flood, cleansing her of the effects of the Realm, wiping away the years that would have taken her life; and to Christa it seemed that, though dawn was still some hours away, the Midsummer sun might well have been shining already, bringing with it the joy and gladness of the longest day.

The last chords faded. Judith, free, slowly mounted the steps. Trembling, Christa handed Ceis to Melinda and went toward her lover amid the whine of electronics and the rattle of chains.

For a moment, Judith stared. “Oh, Chairiste,” she whispered. “How you have changed.”

“Have I?” Ceis had taken extra years from Christa’s age, but much had happened in the last two centuries, even in the last year: wandering, and sacrifice, and disappointment… and death. “Have I?” Her eyes were streaming.

Judith reached out a hand, but then, with tears and a shake of her head, she fell into Christa’s arms, filling the long, lonely ache with the solid, undeniable presence of her beloved.

The palace of the Sidh was in ruins: towers knocked off jaggedly as though with a club, walls blasted with holes, entire wings leveled. The courtyard was filled with glass and shattered stone, benches were tumbled and broken, and imperishable tile had been cracked and scorched. Glasluit’s body still smoked like phosphorus where it had fallen. Orfide’s corpse was inert and shattered, unrecognizable.

Her arms still full of Judith even after many minutes, Christa opened her eyes to the destruction. Kevin had put it well when he had compared the Sidh’s desolation with his own. The immortals stood in scattered clumps, staring with empty eyes, hands seeking hands in something that was, for the first time, no mere dalliance, no superficial gesture, but rather an honest expression of fear and hopelessness.

Lamcrann stepped forward. Christa faced him with Judith at her side. Unwilling to let go even for an instant, she kept her arm about her lover’s waist.

“Well, Gaeidil, you have won,” said the king. “And if there was a debt between us, you have collected it.”

Even in defeat, he was proud. Christa felt a grudging admiration for him. “You could have released her,” she said. “You could have made it simple for yourselves.”

“Ah,” said Lamcrann, “but you mistake us for mortals. We are as we are. We cannot change.”

“Glasluit changed,” said Judith.

“Orfide changed, too, Lamcrann,” said Christa. “At the very last, he was not fighting as a Sidh. He saw his death coming as clearly as any mortal thing.”

The king regarded Orfide, Glasluit, the shattered palace. “And so, it appears, do we all.”

Poor devils
. Christa realized that she was echoing Kevin.

She had, in killing Orfide, laid waste an entire world. Without the bard’s magic, the Realm would gradually disintegrate, and the Sidh would face terror after terror as dissolution advanced upon them.

Kevin ascended the steps to the stage. Devi nodded to him. “Good job, Kev.”

He smiled thinly in reply. Christa stretched out a hand to him, and he joined her and Judith at the front of the stage, wrapping a long arm about them both.

“I’m glad you made it,” he said to Judith. “Welcome to Colorado.” She blinked at his English, thanked him in Gaeidelg. Kevin indicated Lamcrann. “What’s he saying?”

“He says that I’ve killed them all.”

“Yeah… I thought so.” He mused for a minute. “What are you going to do?”

Lamcrann held himself regally. “Will you give us leave to depart, Chairiste Ní Cummen?”

“Wait,” she said to the king. “Please…” Compassion had arisen, and, with it, courtesy. “Please wait for a moment.” Lamcrann’s eyebrows lifted at her tone of voice.

“You going to just dump them now?” said Kevin.

She spread her free hand. “I don’t know what else I can do.”

“I can think of something.”

Christa sensed his meaning. “Kevin, you can’t. You’d be lost forever.”

He shook his head. “Not forever, I think. Not with that place changing as much as it is now.” He stared at the Realm, at the Sidh. “Can’t you feel it, Chris? Six months ago I needed to change, and you changed me. The Sidh need to change, too. I can do it. I know I can.”

“How?”

“Music. I couldn’t help Danny, I helped Melinda a little, and I ran sound for this gig; but it’s time to move on. I’m going to take the blues into the Realm, Chris, and I’m going to help some people who need it, just like you brought your music to rock and roll and turned things around for everyone who heard you.”

Lisa suddenly called out from her drums. “Kev, are you sure about this? That place is a wreck. Look at it.”

He was standing straight, like a Gaeidil man. His decision, Christa knew, had been made from the heart, and he would not be swayed. Stubborn Celts.

“Yeah,” he said. “I’m sure, Boo-boo.”

Judith had been listening. “Chairiste, who is this? What is happening?”

“This,” said Christa, “is Kevin Larkin. He is my teacher and my friend, and he is kindred. He…” Her voice broke. Kevin was leaving. But he was right: it was something he could do. Magic was flowing through his playing already. In the Realm, it would come to him all the more effortlessly. “He is going to help the Sidh.”

“Willingly?”

“It is so.”

Kevin embraced them both. “I’ll lose my nerve if I stick around too long, so I’m going to grab my stuff and head on out. Judith… Siudb… I’m glad I got a chance to meet you. Take care of Christa. And… Chris…”

She looked up at him.

He smiled. “I can tell that she’s worth everything we put into this. Brigit bless.” Letting go, he went down the backstage steps quickly and vanished in the direction of Christa’s Eagle.

Lamcrann was still waiting, arms folded. His head was bowed—in thought or in defeat, Christa could not say for sure—but he lifted it when she spoke.

“What do you want, O king of the Sidh?”

“Leave to depart.”

“There is one among us who would give you more. Much more. You have but to ask for what you desire.”

Lamcrann looked suspiciously at her, then shrugged. “I believe I want what any king wants for his people: happiness, prosperity, peace.”

“You have them, then.”

Kevin was coming back up the steps with his backpack, his harp, and Frankie’s guitar. He paused to thump Lisa on the back, kissed Devi and Melinda, then approached Christa.

“Last chance to back out, Kevin,” she said.

He shook his head. “I’m not backing out. This is the best thing I’ve done since I let you take me to bed Christmas morning.” He smiled. “Can’t you feel it?”

Unwillingly, she nodded. “I can.”

Lamcrann eyed Kevin. “I cannot order you, mortal. But I will not beg.”

“Chris?” said Kevin, and she translated. “I’m not asking you to beg, Lamcrann,” he said. “I’ll come of my own will. But things are going to change. Big time.”

Lamcrann seemed to understand. Kevin descended the front stairs and crossed the courtyard to his side. He bowed to the king and to the Sidh, then turned to the stage. “Rock and roll,” he called. “I’ll see you all in the Summerland, if not before.”

The scene was blurring to Christa’s eyes, and she clung to Judith. “A good friend?” asked Judith.

“And a lover,” Christa whispered. “I could not have rescued you had it not been for Kevin Larkin.”

But Kevin had seated himself with his harp. “I think I can do this myself, Chris. Closing up is easier than opening, isn’t it?” He struck two chords and set off bravely into an air.

“Farewell,” Christa called when she found her voice, but the lake and the cliff had returned, and the word echoed off the rock wall and played in the ripples of the dark water.

Devi shut off the PA. The silence left behind was profound.

*peace*

Christa smiled through her tears, took the guitar from Melinda. “Thank you, Ceis.”

“Ceis?” said Judith. “But Ceis was…”

“It is a strange world you have come into, Siudb.”

Judith looked around at the stage, the women, the equipment glowing with LEDs, the lights. High above, a jet crossed the black sky from north to south, Winking red and blue and white, moving among the stars. She tracked it for a time, then dropped her eyes. “How long has it been?”

Christa hesitated. “Fourteen hundred years.”

“O Brigit.”

Melinda set her bass down and approached slowly. “Chris… tell her it’s going to be all right. We’ll help. She’s not alone.”

Judith looked confused. “These are…”

Christa called them forward. Her band. They had stood with her through fear and death. “These are my friends,” she said with pride. “This is our family.”

As though peering beneath the makeup and the leather, Judith regarded each of the women searchingly as Christa introduced them. This was nothing like the clan she had known in Eriu; but she must have felt the acceptance, the sense of family that was a product not of blood, but of will and loyalty, for, one by one, she took their hands in a firm clasp. “I am honored.”

Lisa held her grip the last and the longest. “Hey, Chris,” she said, “haven’t you been telling us that your girlfriend could sing?”

“Chairiste? What is she saying?”

Chris felt a pang. “She is asking if you can sing.”

If grief flickered over Judith’s face, it was only for an instant. “Tell Boo-boo that, indeed, I can sing.” She turned to Christa, and there was acceptance and forgiveness in her eyes. “Tell her that I am a singer.”