Jack, the giant-killer (22 page)

Jacky caught the cloth and stuffed the fiddle into it. Then before she slung it over her shoulder, she removed her blue jacket and stood in front of him on the road.

“What’s this thing we’re going to see?” she asked, worried that she was making a big mistake.

“It’s a seeing one, not a talking one,” Kerevan replied. “Come follow me.”

He scooped up his wally-stanes and replaced them in his pockets, snatched up his bow, then took off into the woods at a brisk pace that Jacky, if she hadn’t had her hob-stitched sneakers on, would have been hard-pressed to follow. They darted in and out between the trees, the ground growing steadily steeper as they went.

“Quiet now,” Kerevan whispered, coming to a sudden halt.

Jacky bumped into him. “What is it?”

“We’re close now—to bogans and gullywudes and all the other stone-hearted bastards that make up the Unseelie Court.”

He crept ahead then, moving so quietly that, if Jacky hadn’t known he was there, she would never have noticed him. And she, city kid though she was, found herself keeping up with him, as quiet, as slyly, as secret, with no great effort on her part. Robbery magics, she told herself. Cap and shoes and jacket on my arm. But a voice inside her murmured, once perhaps, but no longer just that.

This time when Kerevan stopped, Jacky was ready for it. She crept up beside him, and peered through the brush to see what he was looking at. One fleeting glance was all she took before she quickly looked away. She wanted to throw up.

There was a clearing ahead, an opening in the trees where a cliff face was bared to the sky. There were bogans there, and a giant snoring against a tree, and other creatures besides, but it wasn’t they who disturbed her. It was what was on the cliff face itself. Once she might have been beautiful—perhaps she still was under the dirt and dried blood. But now, hung like an offering—like Balder from his tree, like Christ from his cross, like all those bright things sacrificed to the darkness—a swan-armed woman was bound to wooden stakes driven into the stone. She hung a halfdozen feet from the ground, her clothes in ragged tatters, but the nettle tunic, oh, it was new and tightly bound around her torso. The swan wings were a soiled white, as was the hair that hung in dirty strands to either side of her emaciated face. The flesh of her legs was broken with cuts and sores. Her face was bruised and cut as well. And she was—this was the worst—she was still alive. Hanging there, on the stone wall of a cliff that was stained with white bird droppings, many of which had splattered on her, surrounded by the jeering Unseelie Court that had had its pleasure mocking and hurting her for so long that they were tired of the sport.

She was still alive.

Acid roiled in Jacky’s stomach. Tremours shook her. In another moment she might have screamed from the sheer horror of that sight, but Kerevan touched her shoulder, soothed her with the faintest hum of a tune that he lipped directly against her ear, then soundlessly led her back, away, higher, into the wilderness. She leaned against him for a long while before she could walk on her own again, and then they still moved on, travelling through progressively wilder country until they came to a gorge that cut like a blade through the mountainous slopes.

It was heavily treed with birch and cedar and pine, and Kerevan led her into it. The fiddler sat her down on some grass by a stone that she could lean against. He came back with water cupped in his hands, made her drink, went for more, returned. Three times he made her drink. At any time he could have retrieved his bagged fiddle and been gone, but there were bargains to uphold, and now a shared horror that bound them, not to each other, but to something that was almost the same.

“My bargain,” Kerevan said suddenly, “is with the Gruagagh of Kinrowan. Did you know he meant to be a poet before he took on the cloak of spells he wears now? No other would wear it and it had to be one of Kinrowan blood, so he took it. He kept Kinrowan alive, shared the ceremonies with Lorana. Between the two of them they kept a light shining in the dark.

“But the time for light is gone, Jacky Rowan. That was Lorana we saw there, and that will be Bhruic too. That will be the Laird of Kinrowan, that will be every being with Lairdsblood, and probably that will be Jacky Rowan too. There is no stopping it.”

Jacky couldn’t drive the terrible vision from her.

“But if we freed her…”

“That would only prolong what will be. The time of darkness has come to our world—to Faerie. They moved here from the crowded moors and highlands of their old homeland when the mortals came to this open land. But the Host followed too and here, here the Unseelie Court grows stronger than ever before. Would you know why? Because your kind will always believe in evil before it believes in good. There are so many of you in this land, so many feeding the darkness… the time for the Seelie Court can almost be measured in days now.”

“I don’t understand,” Jacky said. “I know what you mean about the evil feeding on belief, but if Lorana was freed…”

“They have the Horn. They rule the Wild Hunt. Nothing can withstand the Hunt. For a while a power like Bhruic wields could, or my fiddle might, but when they are set upon the trail of some being, mortal or faerie, that being is dead. They
never
fail.”

“So we have to steal the Horn.”

“Listening to Bhruic, I thought so once, Jacky Rowan. But the Horn is too great a power. It corrupts any being who wields it. It corrupts any being who even holds it for safekeeping.”

“But Bhruic…”

“Wanted the Horn to find Lorana. She was his charge; he was responsible for her.”

Jacky frowned. “And you’ve known where she was all the time and said nothing to him. How could you?

She’s been suffering for months! Jesus Christ, what kind of a thing are you?”

“I don’t know what I am, Jacky Rowan, but I never knew she was there until we stood on the road, you and I, and I strained all my senses to find you. Instead I caught a glimmer that was her. They hide her well, with glamours and bindings.”

“But now we know,” Jacky said. “Now we can help her.”

“You and I? Are we an army then?”

“What about your fiddle? And your wally-stanes?”

“They’re tricks—nothing more. Mending magics, making magics—not greatspells used for war.”

Jacky stared away into the trees, seeing the tormented face of the Laird of Kinrowan’s daughter no matter where she looked, and knew that she’d do anything to help her.

“If I had the Horn,” she asked, “could I use it to command the Hunt to free her?”

“You could. And then what would you command?

That all the Unseelie Court be slain? That any who disagree with you be slain? You may call me a coward, Jacky Rowan, but I wouldn’t touch that Horn for any bargain. Use it once and it will burn your soul forevermore.”

“Bargain…” She looked at him then. “Tell me about your bargain with Bhruic.”

“In exchange for what?”

“Tell me!”

Kerevan regarded her steadily. The fierceness in her gaze gave him true pause. Here was gruagagh material… or another wasted poet turned to war. But that was always the way with Jacks, wasn’t it? They were clever and fools all at once. But the image of Lorana’s torment had stayed with him as well, and so he made no bargains, only replied.

“I was to bring you safe to the Keep and then he was to come with me.”

“Where to?”

“To where I am when I’m not here—that’s not a question I’ll answer, nor even bargain to answer for, Jacky Rowan, so save your breath.”

She nodded. “This is my bargain then: I’ll return your fiddle, for safety from you and for some of your wally-stanes.”

“That’s all?”

“That’s all.”

“And you’ll let me lead you to the Keep?”

“I have to go to the Keep. My friends are there, if they’re still alive. And the Horn’s there.”

“Girl, you don’t know what you’re talking about. That Horn is no toy.”

“
Boy
, you’ll take the bargain my way, or your fiddle will lie in pieces from here to wherever the hell it was that you came from in the first place.”

They glared at each other, neither giving an inch, then suddenly Kerevan nodded.

“Done!” he said. “What care I what you do in that Keep or with that Horn? I want the Lairdlings to be safe—all of Lairdsblood—and whoever will come with me, by their own desire or if I must trick them, those will be saved. But not by doing what you do. Not by the Horn.”

“Running away from what you have to face doesn’t solve anything.”

“And running headlong into it does? Willy-nilly, and mad is as mad does? Oh, I wish you well, Jacky Rowan, but I doubt we’ll meet again in this world.”

“I don’t know,” Jacky said. “You seem to do pretty good moving from one to the other.”

“What do you mean by that?”

“I was told you’d died about a hundred and fifty years ago, but I get the feeling that, even if you
did
die back then, with you it’s never permanent.”

“I’m no god—”

“I know. You’re Tom Coof and Cappy Rag and

you’re full of tricks and bargains. I think you might even mean well in what you do, Kerevan, but sometimes I think you’re too damn clever for your own good—you know what I mean?”

Before he could answer, she stood up and offered him his fiddle. “Come on,” she added. “I want to get inside the Keep before it gets dark.”

“There’ll be an uproar,” Kerevan said. “They’ll be scouring the countryside, looking for you.”

“Well, then. If you want to keep your bargain with Bhruic, you’d better start thinking about how you’re going to get me in there in one piece, don’t you think?”

Kerevan considered himself a manipulator, one who cajoled, or tricked, or somehow got everyone to follow a pattern that he had laid out and only he could see. It was worse than disconcerting to have his own tricks played back on himself. He took his fiddle bag, returned his bow to it, and slung it over his shoulder. Taking out his wally-stanes, he let her choose as many as she wanted. She took nine.

Three times three, he thought. She knows too much, or something else is moving through her, but either way he was caught with his own bargains and could only follow through the pattern that was unwinding before him now.

“Come along, then,” he said, and he led her back into the forest once more.

CHAPTER NINETEEN

« ^ »

“His daughter?” Arkan said, staring at the pigheaded woman. “Oh, that’s just bloody grand, isn’t it?”

“Arkan, be still,” Eilian said softly.

Kate, looking from the poor creature to the two faerie, was suddenly struck by what a difference Lairdsblood made. Arkan, brash and not easily cowed except by the Gruagagh, had immediately obeyed Eilian’s quiet statement. She could see the distaste blooming in his eyes, but he said not another word as Eilian came to where she sat with the giant’s daughter.

“If they’re not born Big Men, and strong,” Eilian said, “oh, it’s a hard lot to be a giant’s child.”

The creature tried to hide her features in the crook of Kate’s shoulder as he leaned closer, but he cupped her chin and made her look at him.

“You weren’t born this way,” he said. “Who set the shape-spell on you?”

“The Gruagagh,” she said.

Kate gasped. “The Gruagagh?” Her worst fears were realized. Bhruic Dearg
had
set them up.

“I warned you,” Finn muttered. “But would anyone listen?”

“Not so quickly,” Eilian said. “There is more than one gruagagh, just as there’s more than one Billy Blind. It’s like saying weaver or carpenter—no more.”

He turned back to the creature. “Which gruagagh? One in your father’s Court?”

The creature nodded.

“That could still be Bhruic Dearg,” Arkan said. “For all we know he—” He broke off as Eilian shot him a hard look.

“And what’s your name?” the Laird’s son asked the creature, gentling his features as he looked at her once more.

“Monster,” she said gruffly and tried to look away, but Eilian wouldn’t let her.

“We came here to help another,” he said, “but we won’t leave you like this when we go. We’ll help you, too.”

“And how will we do that, Laird’s son?” Arkan asked, emboldened by the fact that there was no way Eilian could make good such a promise. “Even if we had spells, you know as well as I that Seelie magic’ll never take hold in this place. We can’t help her. We can’t even help ourselves.”

“Be still!” Eilian cried, his eyes flashing with anger.

“We have a Jack with us,” he said to the giant’s daughter, “loose outside the Keep and she’ll help us. Don’t listen to him.”

“A Jack,” Finn repeated mournfully. “And what can she do, Eilian? Didn’t you see the Court Gyre’s gathered here? All it needs is sluagh to make its evil complete—and they’ll be here come nightfall.”

“Our Jack’s all we have,” Eilian repeated quietly.

“Let’s at least lend the strength of our belief to her, if nothing else. What’s your name?” he tried again, returning his attention to the giant’s ensorceled daughter.

There was no escaping the Lairdling’s gaze. It penetrated the creature’s fears, burning them away.

“Moddy Gill,” she said.

“That’s a nice name,” Kate offered for lack of anything better to say. The creature gave her a grateful look.

“And a powerful one, too,” Eilian added. “There was a Moddy Gill that once withstood the Samhaine dead, all alone and that whole night—do you know the tale?” Moddy Gill shook her head. “It was a bargain she made with the Laird of Fincastle. One night alone against the Samhaine dead and if she survived, she could have what she wanted from the Laird, be it his own child.”

“What… what did she take?” Moddy Gill asked.

“His black dog,” Eilian replied with a grin. “And with it at her side, she stormed Caern Rue and won free the princeling from the Kinnair Trow. Oh, it’s a good story and one I never tired of hearing from our Billy Blind. They married, those two, and went into the west with the black dog. No one knows what befell them there, but do you know what I think?”

Moddy Gill shook her head. She was sitting upright now, just leaning a bit against Kate.

“I think that if they didn’t live happily ever after, they at least lived happily, and for a very long time. And so will you, Moddy Gill. We’ll take you with us when we leave this Keep.”