Sunshaker's War (46 page)

Eventually Alec cleared his throat. “Uh, I hate to tell you folks this, but I think a storm's brewing.”

David disentangled himself and looked up. Sure enough, the sky was solid black now, and the wind was whipping through the trees nearby with a new fury. He gazed at those trees a moment, decided they were little different from the native Georgia live oaks, except that they were taller, thicker, and more extravagantly knobbed and whorled. Far to the right he could see a gleam of light on the shore and make out what might be white buildings.

“Lugh's southern fastness,” Fionchadd observed, “where all the Tracks eastward converge. We cannot get there now, for it is further than it looks—at least, not and weather this storm.”

Even as he spoke, there was a single crash of lightning, and the World went white. One instant the air felt quick and hesitant and smelled faintly of ozone; the next rain was pouring down.

As one they ran for the shelter of the trees, crouched there, huddled together and watching the storm.

It was not natural, they knew. And never had they seen such fury loose in the skies. The storm that had lashed around Uncle Dale's farm was as nothing to this, for here the whole World was involved. Clouds fought and shattered, waves rose and smashed the shore. Trees moaned and snapped and disintegrated, and lightning was everywhere, increasingly vying with a stab of yellow light far out to sea.

“The Spear,” Fionchadd gasped. “Lugh uses the Spear of the Sun—and at night. Mighty indeed he must be!”

“Why's that?”

“Because it draws on the Power of the sun, or on the Power of the sun stored in something—in this case, Lugh himself, I would suppose. The Lord of Tir-Nan-Og must truly be hard pressed.”

“I thought the plan was for him to attack Erenn.”

“Not necessarily,” Fionchadd informed them. “That could well have been a feint: send their attention that way, attack the smaller fleet instead, and so clear the southern sea of Finvarra's forces, then assail the north both from land and sea. And…”

But thunder overruled further conversation.

For roughly the next hour they lay on the sopping ground while the storm got worse and worse. Waves rose higher, taller than three men, and were slapping the shore closer and closer. Many of the trees beneath which they had sheltered had snapped, and once they had to relocate quickly to avoid being crushed when a limb splintered off above them.

“It's like a friggin'
hurricane
!”
David shouted, and heard his voice taken away by the howling wind.

“No, it's worse,” Alec yelled back. “Much worse. Look!”

He pointed seaward, and for a moment David saw only silver-lit darkness. But then he noticed it too, and felt the hair rise up on his body, in spite of being waterlogged. For he was no longer seeing one reality.

One moment it was the lightning-limned seas of Faerie; the next it was a morning sea in Galunlati, but with the sun glaring so hot the very waves were steaming. The one after that, it was coastal marshes of Georgia, bright beneath a glimmering moon, but with a fey wind stirring the cattails and reeds.

And then it was all a jumble, as the Walls between the Worlds, for brief instants, dissolved. One moment they were in sunlight, one moment back beneath the tree, a third they were lying up to their necks in stinking mud and marshgrass, and hearing the buzz of a seaplane. David wondered, suddenly, how the folk of the other Worlds were experiencing this. But then his attention was drawn to something nearby. Two ships had appeared, as if spun from the very substance of the storm. They were locked together, one a silver vessel floating in the air, the other a water-ship, both linked by grappling hooks and chains. David could not tell whether one was trying to draw the other up, or pull the other down. But then the yellow light flashed that way, and the lower ship erupted into flames.

“This has to stop,” David announced suddenly. “This has gone on long enough!”

“Stop?”
Liz cried. “And how do you stop something like this?”

“Like you said,” he smiled, kissing her forehead, “one person at a time, and one side.”

“You really
mean
that?”

“Absolutely. We're here; we have to do what we came for.”

“You still think you can end this by giving Finno to his people?'

“No,” David whispered. “But it's all I've got.”

“Yes,” Fionchadd spoke up. “He is right. It might succeed. If my folk were to regain me, Finvarra would have nothing with which to bargain.”

“And how're we gonna do this?” Alec asked archly.

“Simple,” David replied. “If we can just get out there. Have you still got the ulunsuti?”

Alec patted the pocket of his camos where he'd stashed it. “Sure thing, why?”

“I was thinkin' 'bout doing one final piece of magic—if we can get a fire goin'.”

“Oh no,” Liz protested, eyes wide. “You're not gonna try to build a gate again!”

“Sorry,” David replied slowly, “but yeah, I am. I'm gonna try to get us to the Powersmiths—or Finno anyway. Since they won't come to us, we'll have to go to them.”

“And how're you gonna build a fire in this mess, and do the rest of the ritual?”

“If Finno'll handle the fire, I'll handle the rest. Even I can't make fire in this.”

“I can do the fire,” Fionchadd volunteered.

“Good,” David replied, then struck himself in the head with the heel of his hand. “Damn! I forgot one thing—we don't have the blood of a large animal.”

“Oh yes we do,” Alec whispered.

Chapter XXVII: Blood Talks

(Faerie—high summer—night)

“What're you
talkin'
about?” David practically shouted at Alec. “There
aren't
any large animals here!”

“Except us,” Alec replied calmly. “If Finno can heal me, I think I can spare enough blood.”

“Alec, no!” Liz cried in turn. Her eyes reflected the pervasive lightning, but added their own intensity. “You're crazy! I mean, you're half dead already. You can't risk it!”

“Yes I can,” Alec repeated, still in the same calm tones, but with an undercurrent of resolution that indicated further argument would do no good.

“No!”
David and Liz protested as one.

“Maybe,” Fionchadd chimed in. “No, actually, it
might
succeed. If Alec can provide enough blood, I believe I can heal the wound. I still have sufficient Power for that.”

“It won't take much,” Alec went on quickly. “I think there was maybe a quart in the thermos, but we didn't use nearly all of it to empower the ulunsuti—maybe just a pint or so. Shoot, I drop that much every time I give blood at school. No problem.”

“I don't like this,” David persisted. “You'd have to cut yourself really deeply to get enough. What if you hit a vein?”

“I'd be through quicker,” Alec shot back almost giddily. “But seriously, we've never dealt with it, but…what happens if you just let the thing have all the blood it wants? I mean, it seems to sense what's demanded of it and absorb accordingly. So suppose I simply cut myself on the hand—not badly, you know; just enough to insure a steady flow, then slap that on. Wouldn't that do it?”

David shook his head, and Liz looked equally doubtful. “It's
not
your fight, bro.”

“Yes it is,” Alec maintained. And with that, he withdrew the scrap of ragged metal he'd been secreting in his pocket and very neatly slit the heel of his palm. Liz gasped, and David felt his balls make a twitch, but Alec simply sat there in the lee of the tree, face white with pain, hair and clothing plastered to his body. He looked awful—tired, sick, maybe a little crazy. But the gleam in his eyes was absolutely sane. He held the hand out into the wind and rain. Already blood was pooling there. “I can turn it over,” he threatened. “I can waste this—or I can use it. What's it gonna be? Do I risk a little and maybe we end this thing, or do we risk nothing, and regret it forever?”

“Damn!” David gritted in frustration. “You're sick man, you could at least have let
me
do it!”

“But I'm Lord of the Ulunsuti,” Alec replied with a return of the disarming calm. “It's my responsibility.”

“Alec—” David began, all confusion. Then, “Oh hell, go ahead, I reckon.”

Alec smiled grimly, and David watched with a mixture of fascination, horror, relief, and guilt as his best friend flung away his makeshift knife, then carefully maneuvered the ulunsuti from his pocket and deposited it in his bleeding palm. He held it there for a moment, then shifted position so that he could rest his arm on his knee. His already pale face had grown whiter yet, but the crystal had started to glow.

Lightning struck once, close by, and he almost lost his grip, but David's hand on his wrist steadied him, then slowly withdrew. For an instant there was only the flash of lightning and the sting of rain; the rumble of thunder and the howl of mage-born wind.

“How're you doin', bro?” David whispered when he could stand the wait no longer.

Alec shrugged minutely. “It doesn't hurt, though I can sorta feel the cut. It's just a kind of drawing. Really, it's not much different from giving blood, 'cept you don't have to worry about a needle wiggling around in your arm.”

“Gross,” said Liz, who had always had trouble with needles.

David felt utterly helpless, but finally acted on his frustrated need to do
something
by wrapping one arm around Alec's shoulders and hugging him close. Liz was already curled in the crook of his other arm.

“Let me know when you need fire,” Fionchadd urged, squatting opposite, back to the wind.

Alec shrugged again and continued to gaze at the crystal. It was definitely glowing now, assuming an emberlike ruddiness. It was hard to tell more in the uncertain light, but maybe a minute later Alec took a deep breath and said, “I think it's done…I don't feel anything else. In fact, I think it's already closed the wound itself.”

David stared at Alec's hand, trying to see the gash beneath the ulunsuti. As best he could tell the trickle that had dripped slowly from between his friend's fingers was gone. So was the small pool he was certain he had seen in the cupped palm before.

“Okay, Finno,” Alec breathed a little shakily. “Do your stuff.”

The Faery nodded and brought his hands together close before him. He shut his eyes, uttered a Word and brought fire from his living flesh: tiny sparks and flames that leapt and danced in the driving wind.

“Hurry,” Fionchadd exhorted them. “This is difficult to maintain in this weather.”

Alec wasted no time. He took the ulunsuti with both hands and set it into the fire in the Faery's palm.

“Now, quick, think of our goal—you've been there, Finno, you get to drive.”

“But…
two
things to focus on! I cannot…”

“You can!” David insisted.

The Faery closed his eyes—and evidently succeeded, because one moment there was only the crystal kindling brightly in his hand, and the next an arch of crimson fire seared the storms of the Faery night.

David and Liz scooted backward in alarm. Alec stayed squatted where he was, letting the light bathe his face, staring at his hand where only a thin line now remained; while Fionchadd slowly lowered the ulunsuti—flame and all—to the ground and sidled around to crouch beside them.

Through the gate—where before there had been wind-whipped forest—was now only night and storm; war; and ships blazing in the heavens and on the sea. Except that exactly in the middle a vast airship gleamed orange-yellow, as if it were wrought of copper or gold. Immediately behind its dragon-beaked prow a woman stood, wrapped in a billowing cloak of the same shimmering gold as the thrashing sail behind her. She was staring straight at them, and as they watched, her face expanded to fill the entire arch, like a long-shot panning to a close-up in a film. Her eyes were aflame with fury.

“Ilionin!”
Fionchadd shouted, his voice rising clear above the thunder.

“Ilionin!” came Alec's half-screamed echo—and suddenly the gate collapsed upon them, and they were in a storm of a different kind.

*

Perhaps because they had teleported within the same World, David was aware of far less pain of transition this time. It wrapped him, ripped him apart, but before he could cry out, it had ended.

The first thing he noticed was the cessation of cold rain and noise, replaced with dry warmth and a distant sussuration that might be the muffled storm. The second was that everywhere he looked—at deck, or rail, or sail, or at the warriors that surrounded him—he saw gold or yellow or orange. It reminded him of when he had awakened in Morwyn's Room Made of Fire, except here the color scheme had shifted down the spectrum.