Landslayer's Law (26 page)

Liz shrugged. “Makes as much sense as anything we can come up with on the fly. Uncle Dale, what do you think?”

Dale took a leisurely swig of coffee-an’-’shine, and studied each one in turn. “I think there’s a lot of thinkin’ been goin’ on here, and most of you folk’re a heap lot smarter’n me, but…basically it makes sense—as a frame. But you can’t do any of this by yourselves, by which I mean you can’t send any one of you off to do this stuff alone. And since this is my land you’re talkie’ bout here, even more than it is Davy’s—’cause I’ve lived here longer, boy—I’ll help Scott however I can. I’ll be a haven, if nothing else, ’cause I don’t think we need to involve Bill and JoAnne ’less we have to.”

“And please God, don’t let Little Billy get wind of it,” David appended. “Please, Uncle Dale, I truly do beg that of you.”

“Do what I can,” Dale grunted. “But as I was sayin’, you folks are gonna have to work together.”

Gary coughed nervously, looking, David thought, very, very unhappy. “I—uh, God, but I hate to say this,” he began, “but…I don’t think I can; not much anyway. I’ve got a wife, see, and a kid, and a job. And the wife and the kid don’t know about all this stuff, and I don’t want ’em to. I’m not closing any doors, or anything, but whatever I do will have to be inside…inside the context of my real life. I’ll help, but only when
I
can.”

David flopped an arm across his shoulders and gave him a brotherly hug. “Actually, G-Man, I understand. And,” he continued to the group at large, “anybody says different’s gonna have to deal with me.”

Sandy had not spoken for a good long while, but now she cleared her throat in turn. “Folks, what do you think of
this
?”

And for the next ten minutes she told them.

“Not bad,” Fionchadd acknowledged when she had finished.

And, David agreed, it truly did seem to be a well-thought out plan.

Basically, they would form two main groups, with assorted subsidiaries. One would be based in Enotah County and try to delay construction of the resort. Scott would be in this group, of course, and Uncle Dale, though not actively. Calvin would join them as well, because he had a lot of woodcraft and other less common but potentially more useful skills. To David’s surprise, LaWanda also asked to be included, but gave no explanation. Since Gary lived nearby, he’d do what he could, but they’d try very hard not to involve him. Darrell had musical commitments he couldn’t break, and—as he admitted himself, no other talents save being silly—so he was out of the loop but on call if anyone thought of a way he could be utilized. Of the other “woodsy” folk, neither Sandy nor Aikin (who had summer school and one final quarter respectively) dared sacrifice academics, but both agreed to run interference at their institutions—Western Carolina and the University of Georgia—and, perhaps more importantly, on the Internet. They would also provide hands-on aid on weekends whenever viable, and possibly at night as well. David had also suggested they try their damnedest to locate the enigmatic John Devlin.

That took care of one group, and even Liz agreed that it contained a useful mix of skills.

The other group were what Sandy called the Envoys. This band would dare the Seas Between and try to contact the Powersmiths, whose land, Fionchadd reminded them, was primarily accessible through Annwyn, which might not give them a warm reception. Fionchadd would be point man, and David had no choice but to accompany him, because he was uniquely qualified to explain the human side of the crisis while still maintaining some small grasp of the complex subtle workings of Faery politics. Liz and Alec would also be part of this expedition, basically because Sandy said they were used to working together and it would be bad karma for them to be separated. It would blow hell out of graduation, but all three agreed to worry about that later.

Which left Myra, Brock, and Piper.

“I’ll do anything you need me to,” Myra offered. “But I’ll tell you what I’d do if I had my druthers.”

“What?” Sandy asked curiously.

“I’m an artist, what do you think?”

“Painting vacation in Faerie, huh?” Liz teased, with the first real laugh anyone had dared all night.

“Wish I still had my camera,” Myra replied wistfully.

“What about me?” Brock demanded. “I mean, I know I’m just a kid—kind of—but I actually do know some…magical stuff.”

“I’m afraid he does,” Calvin confessed. “And since I know him too well to expect him to stay put, and we don’t have time to lock him up—actually, I think we oughta send him off to Annwyn. Most of what mojo he knows is Cherokee tradition, and it might be smart to have somebody on hand that’s used to thinkin’ about power some other way than the rest of you guys do.”

Brock fairly glowed, but Piper, who’d sat silently in the corner all this time, simply looked sad and doleful, as all eyes turned to him.

Fionchadd strode over and knelt by him. “I promised you a song,” the Faery reminded him. “There was no time to give you one this evening, but if you will join me on this one journey, I guarantee you
five
new tunes every night.”

Piper stared him straight in the eye, but his face was tight with dread. “If you will promise.”

“I do,” Fionchadd affirmed. “But I must be truthful, Morry Murphy, if we are to get where we must in time, I will also have need of you.”

David sauntered over to join them and nudged Fionchadd in the side with a toe. “Uh, I hate to ask this, but I’m about to keel over on my feet, and I’d rather not hit the hay tryin’ to work out even one more thing I don’t have to, but…how the hell
are
we gonna get there?”

Fionchadd smiled cryptically and did something complex with his fingers. “With Morry Murphy’s aid, we will leave from here at dawn—by boat.”

“Piper…?” David began, through a sudden yawn. But Piper, like everyone else, was dreaming.

Chapter XIV: All at Sea

(Sullivan Cove, Georgia—Saturday, June 21—dawn)

The last thing David recalled seeing before sleep ambushed him entirely was the sad, wistful look in Fionchadd’s inhumanly beautiful eyes. The first things he saw when he regained bleary-visioned consciousness were Piper’s soulful brown ones staring at him across a foot of dirty floor. Utterly disoriented, he blinked in alarm and sat up abruptly, almost frantically; yawning, feeling hungry, tired, and sore all three—and likely a number of other unpleasant things endemic to staying up late, drinking too much, and sleeping on raw pine boards. Piper remained where he was: scrunched up along one wall of Dale Sullivan’s abandoned farmhouse—watching.

David wondered how long the little guy had lain there like that. God knew
he
did it often enough; it was the only safe time to really look at your friends: when you awoke beside them and they were still asleep. Things showed on sleepers’ faces that were lost in the clear light of day. He wondered what Piper had seen in his.

A soft movement was Fionchadd crouching beside him, with—wonder of wonders—a cup of coffee in his hand. “I am not sure I prepared this properly,” he confessed, “but I tried to watch last night. It seems I may be in this Land awhile, so I thought it wise to learn its ways and wonders.”

David yawned again and scooted up against the wall—the same one against which he’d slumped when sleep had claimed him. It was not quite dawn, he reckoned, by the warm glow visible beyond the grimy windows: sunrise edging the mountains with scarlet and gold. Three hours, at best, by extremely approximate guess: that was how long he’d slept. Everyone else still did—save Piper, who was now ’possuming. And Fionchadd.

“You hoodooed me!” he accused, as he accepted the brew; too muddleheaded to do more than gripe and tease at once. The former was appropriate, the latter an indulgence: proof he was back in what he laughingly called the real world. Teasing was something real people—human people—did.

“You needed sleep, and there was too much in your mind to allow it,” Fionchadd returned. His face was tight with anxiety—probably, David surmised, because he was in a hurry.

“Shit,” David grumbled, mostly to himself, and tried to rise without making too much noise. “Guess we
need
to roust the rest of these sluggards and get our butts in gear.”

Fionchadd shook his head. The room filled up with silence—almost with peace. “If we wake too many, we will talk all day. Better those of us who must travel the Tracks and the Seas seek those ways alone. You should be the one to rouse them—
only
them—for they trust you as they could never trust me. The others will awaken when we are safe away. I will leave word with them so that they do not fear.”

David nodded solemnly and nudged Piper with his toe. “C’mon, Music-man, rise and—well, I don’t expect anybody to
shine
this early, but do what you can.”

“Coffee,” Piper mumbled through a yawn, as he rolled onto his back. His expression hadn’t changed from earlier. Still shell-shocked. Still…fated—or wyrded—or maybe simply doomed. All at once David hated himself for the part he’d played—and was yet to play—in upsetting the life of this sweet, flaky, unassuming guy.

“Coffee,” Fionchadd echoed, and knelt to pass Piper a steaming cup.

While Piper drank, David busied himself waking the others—those he assumed would respond to the effort. Liz first (he couldn’t resist stealing a kiss), then Alec, Myra, and finally, because he didn’t trust him not to be disruptive, Brock. To his surprise, the merest tap on the shoulder roused the boy. Even more surprising, the kid stretched twice—full and languidly, like a cat—then rose gracefully and padded onto the porch. An all-too-familiar sound ensued. David raised a brow at Piper and smirked. Piper smirked back—and stood. David eyed the door and lifted the other brow. Piper nodded.

David felt much better when he returned a short while later with a comfortably lighter bladder and a fidgety Brock in tow. The others were up by then—Alec, Liz, and Myra—and were all sipping at assorted cups and mugs. Myra scowled at hers. “There’s something in this besides coffee—or moonshine,” she announced accusingly, gaze fixed on Fionchadd.

“It will make you alert and help you—what is your word?
—focus.
You may need to be alert as we begin this journey, for our route may be a queer one until we win the coast. You may also need courage. You do not need to dilute that courage with fear.”

Alec’s reply was a grumpy grunt, followed by a gasp of sheer panic as he glanced around the room. “Oh, God—where’s Aife?”

“At present, she is an enfield,” Fionchadd informed him. “Soon enough that will change. Have no fear, I can speak to her mind-to-mind. She will journey with us.”

“Speakin’ of which,” David murmured through his second cup. “Actually, speakin’ of a number of things—uh, what about food? And travelin’ gear? Clothes, and all? And weapons and stuff? I mean, I’ve got all kinds of weapons and whatnot I’ve picked up on my forays to other Worlds. Trouble is, it’s all back in Athens—but oughtn’t I to take it? Or what about weapons from our World? Guns, or…iron?”

“You would be a fool to carry iron where we are going,” Fionchadd snapped. “Enough to be useful would proclaim our presence like a torch, and we must move in stealth. As to the rest: there will be food. There will be clothing. The other gear might serve us, but time would serve us more—as you know.”

“Yeah,” Brock broke in impatiently, “but exactly
how’re
we going? Shoot,
where’re
we going, for that matter; I don’t even know that much, really.”

Fionchadd took a deep breath. “The Land of the Powersmiths lies beyond Annwyn, which lies…atop the country you call Wales the same way Tir-Nan-Og lies across the southeast part of this Land. But it does not lie across Wales at the same point in time.”

Brock gaped at him incredulously.
“Huh?”

Fionchadd grimaced. “This is not the place to lesson you about such things. Suffice to say that the Realms of Faerie overlap the Lands of Men one way in space and another in time. One way is…level; the other is…at a slant. Ask no more of this, for truly I tell you, we must hasten.”

It was a wary-eyed crew who assembled on the ruins of Dale Sullivan’s front porch, and David, for one, felt wildly unprepared. If not for Alec’s compulsive neatness, he couldn’t even have combed his hair. His friend had come through, however, with the proper implement—and probably had a horde of other useful articles tucked in his fanny pack. David wished he hadn’t dumped his own backpack, and wondered which of its contents he’d miss a week, or a month, from now—

—if he was fretting over such trivialities at all. For now, he had to worry about larger problems. About these friends—all back in their mysteriously cleaned and dried Tracking garb—who were venturing with him into the unknown. And those others who might face equal, if different, perils here behind.

At which point the sun lifted full above the horizon and, as though that were a sign, Fionchadd pointed to the left, toward the lake. David wasn’t surprised to find their path leading there. Nor was he taken aback when Fionchadd steered them past Scott’s camp, to a secluded cove maybe a quarter mile around the southern curve of one glassy finger.

He could see Bloody Bald from there, but only dimly, for a froth of oak leaves on a peninsula further north laid a veil of darkness across the view. He had deliberately refrained from seeking it earlier, for fear of what he might find—like a phantom palace consumed in raging flames.

“Well,” Brock huffed, when they finally halted on a relatively clear stretch of sandy marge, where a small stream ran in from the mountains to the south, “I don’t see no boat.”

Fionchadd smiled cryptically, then ambled over to where a rotten stump braced a fallen limb, leaving a dark hollow beneath. He squatted there briefly, only to rise again with something in his hand. Brock’s face lit up when he saw it, and David too felt a thrill of wonder—and recognition.

“We’re going in a…
toy
boat?” Myra choked.

“Not if that’s what I think it is,” David giggled.

“One like it,” Fionchadd admitted. “I retrieved it from a secret place while you slept.” He held out the object for inspection.