Knight's Blood (3 page)
Authors: Julianne Lee
Tags: #Kidnapping, #Science Fiction, #Fantasy fiction, #Married people, #Scotland, #General, #Fantasy, #Children - Crimes against, #Fighter pilots, #Fiction, #Time travel
Alex stared at it. Pointed. He blinked, then held the photo closer to the light, but the ear still curved forward at the top and came to a distinct point. Like Mr. Spock. Like . . .
Cold sweat broke out, and an unwanted image came to his mind.
Nemed
. That blasted elf. Alex’s chest tightened, and he backed against the counter. His world twisted into shapes he’d never known it could. It had been Nemed, the elfin king, who had taken himself and Lindsay to the fourteenth century. Nemed and Lindsay: he’d dreamed it once—a nightmare—but hadn’t imagined it could have been true. Obviously he’d been both right and wrong. Nemed and Lindsay. It sickened him. His throat began to close, and breathing was an effort.
Nemed and Lindsay.
Now he knew where she’d gone and why she hadn’t so much as left a note.
Nemed
. That blasted elf. Alex’s chest tightened, and he backed against the counter. His world twisted into shapes he’d never known it could. It had been Nemed, the elfin king, who had taken himself and Lindsay to the fourteenth century. Nemed and Lindsay: he’d dreamed it once—a nightmare—but hadn’t imagined it could have been true. Obviously he’d been both right and wrong. Nemed and Lindsay. It sickened him. His throat began to close, and breathing was an effort.
Nemed and Lindsay.
Now he knew where she’d gone and why she hadn’t so much as left a note.
He tossed the photo onto the counter and headed for the bedroom. A wooden crate sat at the bottom of the closet, and he shoved aside the clothing and shoes on top of it to haul it out. The clothes stored inside, the hauberk, sark, trews, and tunic he’d been wearing on his return from the past, were missing. He knew where Lindsay had gone, and why.
“Oh, man.” She really had gone to Nemed. Alex sagged where he knelt. “Oh, Lindsay.” Despair closed his throat and it was hard to breathe. He didn’t want to believe it was true, but hard-won faith crumbled. His mind struggled for an explanation for this, but every avenue of thought led him back to the photograph, the ears, and the same conclusion: that Lindsay and Nemed were lovers, and they’d both taken the baby back to Scotland’s past.
As the truth hardened in him, the heat of anger kindled and his skin began to flame with rage. There was no way he would let this just happen. He couldn’t let that slimeball do this to him. Nor Lindsay. She was his wife, and he’d trusted her. They would both answer for this, but first he had to find them.
His medieval clothing was gone, so he rose to look through his civilian clothes for something approximating what he would need. A pair of brown sweatpants and a long-tailed linen shirt looked good. Then a leather belt, with an oversized buckle that was nevertheless too small to be fashionable where he was headed, would have to do. She’d taken his gauntlets as well, and he cursed. He liked the spiked knuckles on those gloves. He’d have to find a new pair once he got there. His green plaid was still there on the sofa, lying in a crumpled heap where it had functioned as a throw during the short time he’d had with Lindsay here. He grabbed his bag, dumped out the change of clothing he’d brought with him from the ship, and stuffed in the plaid and the quasi-medieval items.
Hungry and tired as he was after his flight in from the Persian Gulf, he couldn’t think of stopping to eat or sleep. He took his bag, locked up the apartment, and headed for Heathrow to catch the first available flight to northern Scotland. Eilean Aonarach, the island he’d once ruled as laird. Danu was there. The faerie was immortal; she would surely be there still. She would know how to find Nemed. And therefore also Lindsay, and probably his son.
His wife’s baby, in any case.
CHAPTER 2
The ferryboat bobbed on the Sea of the Hebrides, calmly on a calm though steel gray summer’s day. By modern standards the vessel was tiny, though it wasn’t much smaller than the sailing ship that had brought Alex the first time he’d seen this place. The island it served was also small, but small by any standard, not just modern ones. Only a few miles long and one or two across. There were no bridges to this remote chunk of granite among many such dots scattered northwest of the Scottish mainland. Alex watched the cliffs approach, and examined the silhouette of it. Of course, it had changed over the past seven centuries. There were fewer trees and many more structures, and even the profile of mountains seemed different. Softer. He was certain he didn’t care for that, as if his island were melting away.
At first the castle wasn’t apparent. As he searched for the outline of crenellated battlements, he found none and was disappointed. His castle was gone. Or ruined, rather. Closer now, he found a wall cresting one of the hills near where the quay should be. But, again, there was nothing left of the quay but a gray-black rubble crumbling into the surf.
The ferry headed for a modern dock off to the west, and Alex moved to the rear of the boat to keep sight of the place where his castle had once stood. Remnants of walls clung to rock like old food to a pot. He thought he caught a glimpse of the dark hollow where the master’s chambers had been. His bedroom. His and Lindsay’s. A weird nostalgia washed over him, as if it really had been seven centuries since he’d last seen the place, though it had only been a few months by his own reckoning. When he was the laird here, his castle had been a lively, thriving garrison teeming with men at arms, servants, dogs, chickens, and children, fully functional as a center of commerce and rule for the island. Now it was a pile of rocks, of no interest to anyone but the curious, and the chamber in which he’d slept with his wife looked like an empty eye socket in the face of his former home.
Now Alex was among the curious and wanted to tour these ruins with the Germans, Brits, and other Americans arriving on the ferry, but he had other business at hand and there was no time to dawdle. He lifted his bag to sling it over his shoulder and hurried from the ferry the instant it landed, then made his way past the cramped, white-painted dock offices, past a line of fishing boats bumping their gunnels against the seaweed-smelling dock, and on into the village that hadn’t existed in his day, back when Robert the Bruce had been King of Scots.
Alex was hungry—he hadn’t eaten since breakfast at the hotel in Glasgow—but he didn’t stop for lunch. He looked to the sky for his bearings and found south, for it was midday and the sun was at its zenith, checked out the surrounding mountains to be sure of where he’d landed, then took a heading straight for the interior of the island. A narrow street lined with whitewashed houses led him from the village and onto a road that wound between sheep pastures. There his stride settled into a ground-eating length.
Ahead stood a wood newly reforested with Scandinavian fir trees. They struck him as odd, for he was accustomed to the gnarled Scottish pine and oak of days past. The stand was tall and dense, and looked like a Christmas tree farm on steroids, oddly missing the twisted, mossy thickets. A man could get lost in this forest, where all the trees looked the same as every other. He sighed and kept walking, hoping the faerie ring was still where it had been. If the ring remained, so would Danu, he was certain. But if she was gone, his trip was wasted and he would have to take his search elsewhere. He had no clue where that might be, for faeries were a mystery to him and always would be. Elves, gnomes, brownies, leprechauns . . . he had to acknowledge they existed, but he didn’t like them very well and knew little about them.
The walk was longer than most people would travel by foot in this time, but he knew where he was going and had run this route many times for the exercise. The road more or less followed an extremely old trail, and he knew exactly where to leave it and head into the woods. It had been densely planted and he wended his way between the trees. Frequently he looked skyward to the light, to be certain he was headed in the right direction, and in that way kept to his course. When finally the firs gave way to the familiar Scotch pine, he felt a sense of relief. Even comfort, for these trees spoke of home to him. As a fourth-generation Navy brat, he’d never had a place to call home until he’d come here. This island spoke to his soul like no other place he’d ever been. The raw rock and hardy trees, the deep, dim forest, the ocean beating its shores, all seemed part of him. Ancient oaks covered in moss. Soft grass and fungus underfoot. Smells of deadfall and earth, so thick they filled his head and made him dizzy. If it weren’t for his reason for being here, returning to this might have made him happy. He’d given it up only for Lindsay’s sake, and for the baby.
The cool dimness of the forest had closed around him by the time he came to the spot he knew must still be there as he’d left it. Danu and her people wouldn’t have let it be taken by humans. It was as sacrosanct now as it had been since time immemorial, and the very depth of this forest was testimony to that. Unlike the rest of the island, the indigenous trees were still thick here, healthy and thriving. Danu must have protected them all this time. Certainly nothing human of any consequence had ever been allowed to intrude here.
But he found no faerie ring of toadstools. Nor any sign there ever had been one.
This must be the place, however. Alex looked around. He knew it had to be. This ground was familiar. The same slope and lay of the earth, if not exactly the same trees and brush. Not as much had changed here as elsewhere. There was a slight mound in the grassy middle; he remembered it from when he’d spoken to the faerie queen. There had been a log of a fallen tree before, but that had surely long since rotted to dust and new trees had grown up in place of dead ones.
But the faerie ring was gone. He sighed and cursed, and let his bag fall to the ragged grass with a thump.
Now what?
He looked around for some sign that Danu was nearby, but found nothing. No sign Lindsay had been here either, but that didn’t mean much. If Lindsay was looking for Nemed, she might know where to find him and have gone straight there. A knot tied his gut as he wondered if the elfin bastard had even escorted her from London.
Now what?
He looked around for some sign that Danu was nearby, but found nothing. No sign Lindsay had been here either, but that didn’t mean much. If Lindsay was looking for Nemed, she might know where to find him and have gone straight there. A knot tied his gut as he wondered if the elfin bastard had even escorted her from London.
Again the image of those two together came, and this time he shook it from his head. That was no way to think; Lindsay had as much reason as he did to hate Nemed. Thinking they could be together was silly. Irrational. Now that he’d calmed down, he realized it. She’d gone after the baby, nothing more. He had to believe that. She’d been crying, James had said. If she was crying, it must be because Nemed had taken the baby from her. There had to be an explanation for this mess. For the photograph. There must be something beyond the obvious, which would vindicate Lindsay. With a deep sigh, he looked around some more. For something. Anything.
A hole in the ground caught his eye. Beside an outcrop of rock sticking up from the grass, it wasn’t large and didn’t seem like much. Nothing more than a bit of grass drooped over a dark hollow in the ground, like eyelashes over an empty eye socket. But he knew some of the wee folk were called “wee” for a reason, and they lived underground. Inside knolls and such. Funny, he hadn’t ever noticed that hole before. Not ever. He went toward the opening. It was small; it could have been there for a long time and still not have existed last time he’d been here. For a moment he thought he saw a light. Just a flash, then gone.
Huh.
Peering into the hole, he went closer. Was that another flash, or did he imagine it? He knelt beside the thing to look in. Darkness.
Huh.
Peering into the hole, he went closer. Was that another flash, or did he imagine it? He knelt beside the thing to look in. Darkness.
Then a force, like both wind and suction, but ultimately neither, shoved him and pulled him. With a helpless cry, he found himself thrust into the hole. His shoulders barely fit, and for a second it seemed he would be stuck. He struggled to back out. His fists grabbed at the grass nearby, but it tore from the ground. The force moving him shoved and pulled harder, and he squeezed on through.
He tumbled in darkness, then landed on his back with a thud. For a few moments he thought only of breathing, gasping for dank, earth-smelling air. When the colored dots swimming before his eyes slowed, then stopped, he groaned and looked around. Tree roots. Of course. He’d once been inside a faerie knoll, and he knew how these folk loved their trees and sheltered among the twisted, labyrinthine root systems.
Voices twittered and giggled in the distance. Yeah, there were faeries here, all right. Alex sat up and peered around at the dimness as his eyes adjusted. There were fires here and there in the cavern, and he could see corridors off of it, lit with torches. The tree roots intruded everywhere, some thick like pillars that seemed to hold up the ceiling, and others in twisted, convoluted masses here and there like decoration. Celtic knots, a few of them even stripped of bark and lovingly polished. These bore carvings, sculpture on natural sculpture. Writing of a type he’d never seen before.
This place wasn’t much like the knoll where he’d met Nemed. That had been an empty hole in the ground, dark and deserted, and not decorated at all. This was someone’s home, lovingly furnished with cushions and pillows, and hung with tapestries of rich color. And there were people lounging about. Little people, but not of Danu’s tribe. The queen of the
Tuatha Dé Danann
looked nearly human, and these were the smaller folk he’d seen only once before. Thin, poorly dressed, but lively with humor of the rude, irreverent, out-of-control variety. The one he’d met before had been an irritant. These faeries laughed entirely too much, and they were laughing now. Surely at him. Some of them were standing, moving closer to have a better look at him. He stood, and found his head came just short of the ceiling. He ducked under a gnarled root to find space for himself.
Tuatha Dé Danann
looked nearly human, and these were the smaller folk he’d seen only once before. Thin, poorly dressed, but lively with humor of the rude, irreverent, out-of-control variety. The one he’d met before had been an irritant. These faeries laughed entirely too much, and they were laughing now. Surely at him. Some of them were standing, moving closer to have a better look at him. He stood, and found his head came just short of the ceiling. He ducked under a gnarled root to find space for himself.
“Who might you be?” said one of the faeries who had sauntered over, chin high and chest thrust out in a posture of challenge. He was larger than the rest but still only stood to Alex’s rib cage. Spindly arms and legs were clad in a ragged tunic and trews, the tunic little better than a length of cloth with a hole at the center tied at the waist with a rope. But it was a golden rope that glinted in the flickering firelight. The faerie stood hipshot, arms crossed over his narrow chest, a bright look in his eye that spelled either antagonism or mischief. Alex couldn’t tell which, and knew enough about the fey creatures of this country to understand that neither was good.
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