Brothers: Legacy of the Twice-Dead God (107 page)

“You Named me,” MacNamara snarled down at me.
To say the elf hated me would be a slight against the word. Hate
just didn’t express the emotion well enough. It covered his aura so
thoroughly that no other emotion could hope to show through for at
least a century. The blade of the Day Sword sat against my
shoulder, ready to dig into the Stone’s armor.

“Got any more tricks, boy?” he snarled as he
drew the Sword back to swing.

I was out of options. Out of power.
Everything was really fuzzy. No help in sight. So. I did what every
seventeen-year-old boy does when he gets in trouble over his head.
Maybe it’s a Southern thing, I don’t know. I didn’t think it would
work, but it didn’t matter, I did it anyway. It was an emotional
thing.

“Dad! Help!” I shouted as loud as I could and
I watched the Day—my tool, my weapon—rise up high into the bright
blue sky and come down at me fast. There wasn’t any slow motion
effect, like in the movies. I knew I was dead as sure as the Day is
long. I saw it coming. And I saw it stop.

A foot away from my neck, it stopped in
mid-air. My eyes shot to the elf’s wrist. Wrapped around it was a
man’s hand. He wore a simple gold wedding band, a man’s left hand,
then. MacNamara was jerked around to face the owner of that hand
and I saw him, too.

“That’s my boy you’re fucking with, Mac!”
Robert McClure shouted at the elf. His voice was deep and strong,
just like I remember it. Then he hit MacNamara in the face with a
hard right hand, sending the elf flying through the air again. He
should be used to the feeling by now. He landed face down, sprawled
in the grass with the Day Sword a few feet away, out of reach and
sticking in the ground at an odd angle. “Nobody fucks with my
boy!”

“Dad?” I whispered in disbelief. I’d been
missing my Dad for close to a year and here he was. Finally. I
could cry. If only I had the energy. I just stared at him. He was
buck naked but healthy and strong. As strong as I’d ever seen him.
Satisfied for the moment that MacNamara was not threat, he turned
to me, worried.

“Lord Seth,” called Shrank, appearing out of
the grass in front of me. I’d graduated from Master to Lord, I
noticed. “We must leave. They are coming.”

I barely registered what he said before I
felt the tremors. East and West. The Queens were coming. Damn.
There wasn’t anything I could do against them except maybe die.

“Seth?” Dad called peering at the armor. “Is
that you?”

“Yes, sir,” I breathed out and asked the
Stone to pull the armor away. I didn’t have the energy to insist.
He rushed in to grab me by the shoulders, to hold me up before I
fell over. The armor had been keeping me standing till now. I hurt
all over. MacNamara caused some serious damage to me and I hadn’t
felt it through the adrenaline rush. Still, it wasn’t as bad as
Felix hurt. My mind was really fuzzy though.

“My God, son, what have you been doing?” he
gasped, holding me on my feet. That hurt, too, but I didn’t care.
My dad was picking me up off the ground after a hellacious fight.
Isn’t that what fathers did?

“Can you get us out of here, Mr. McClure?”
Shrank trilled loudly, shooting up between us to get Dad’s
attention. He knew the importance of the problems coming.

I felt my Dad’s power rise around us fully
for the first time and I recognized the sensation as having been
around me all my life. It was comfortable and soothing. It felt
like home. It felt like Dad. And it was time to go home. A portal
formed to our left, perfectly circular and clear of any energy
perturbations.

“That’s not mine,” Dad said suspiciously,
moving me away from it, blocking me.

“It’s mine,” I said calmly and quietly.
“Let’s go home.”

Nothing else about this had been like a
movie, so I wasn’t expecting this but I should have I suppose. Just
like in horror movies, the bad guy jumps up…

“Die!” MacNamara shouted hoarsely through
broken teeth and bloody lips. I got my slow motion this time.
Whirling around into my Father, I saw the broken Liege rushing
forward awkwardly brandishing a shattered sword at us, intent on me
and closing fast. I was already raising my left hand between us and
calling for the last of my weapons and pulling a trigger that
wasn’t there yet. The elf didn’t finish one step before the first
Bolt hit him in the center of his forehead. The second Bolt hit his
heart. Third and fourth hit the center of each lung. I kept firing
until every green Bolt in the Quiver was gone.

Dad put his hand on mine, gently pushing the
Crossbow down. “He’s dead, son. You can stop now.”

I stared at MacNamara’s body for a second,
still holding the Crossbow, just in case. I recalled a similar
picture in a parking garage, not that long ago, of an elf-shaped
pincushion. I sent the Crossbow home and the Bolts disappeared, one
by one but rapidly.

“That was so cheesy horror movie,” I said
blandly. “Pete’s gonna be pissed that he missed it.”

“Lord Seth, we must hurry,” Shrank trilled,
flying close to my shoulder. I nodded and turned back to the
portal. I stopped a few feet short, remembering I forgot
something.

“Night! Day!” I called out. The Night sword
picked itself up from the rubble and flew to me hilt first,
disappearing as soon as it touched my left hand. The Day hummed,
lazily swimming through the air end over end, hitting my right with
a smack and resolutely staying. I was in no condition to argue at
the moment.

Shrank popped up in front of me. “Will you
save them, Lord Seth?” he asked.

“Huh? Save who, Shrank?” I asked. I was a
little shaky.

He sort of leaned and swung back in the air
at the same time showing me the field in front of me. It quavered
like it had heat rising from it, like a highway or the desert in
summer, and the field came alive with tiny figures. The brownies,
with a few fairies thrown into the mix. That was who Shrank shot
out of my armor to help.

“Dad,” I said, turning to my naked father.
“Don’t let them hurt the little ones. I’m right behind you.” Then I
shoved him through the portal. “Hurry, Shrank, they’re really close
and I can’t hold this open long.”

Shrank whistled shrilly and the ground
twisted in a psychotically wild way as the brownies ran for the
portal. I couldn’t watch the mass as it moved by me, afraid I’d
fall down and be trampled by millions of tiny feet, so I kept watch
over the walls of the arena. Shrank flew in jagged lines across the
field, trilling words in a Fae language I knew I could translate if
I concentrated. Concentrating on my feet was enough of a problem at
the moment. The pressure of the Queens presence increased
noticeably.

“Shrank,” I said, warning him. I started
walking backward slowly. They were closer now. Much closer. They
were hunting and being very thorough about it, taking their time.
The brownie tide had slowed considerably, but Shrank ferried a few
stragglers to the front as much as he could.

As tired as I was, I gathered as much energy
as I could and bent it to the dissimilarity spell, mixing in first
my father, then Ferrin and Gordon. Peter, I wasn’t that worried
about. He was with me. He’d have enough to worry about with me
around. That was the last spell I could manage for a while. Closing
the portal would be a release.

The Queens coalesced together at the oak tree
directly outside the arena proper. They seethed, cycling in
contrast to each other. I could not tell at whom their anger was
centered, but I knew that the arena was their goal and they paused
just outside of it.

“Shrank, we’re leaving. Now!” I yelled at the
pixie, stepping backward again and again. The elves didn’t know
fear, but I did and those two scared me. Maybe they wouldn’t
tomorrow, but right then? Oh, yeah!

“That’s all I could find, Lord Seth,” trilled
Shrank, alighting on my shoulder. I stepped into the portal,
looking back over the field again. The Queens still stood by the
oak tree, staring at the arena. That rather surprised me, but I
didn’t wait around to ask. As I closed the portal entrance, I felt
the land outside die. It was a peculiar feeling, terribly
unpleasant. I understood it completely. Excising a cancer, a nasty
malignant cancer.

“You did good, Shrank,” I said as I turned
and exited the portal, releasing the hold over space. Shrank’s
reply was drowned out by millions of chirps and trills. I looked up
at Dad through bleary eyes. He was leaning against some tall gates
with his arms crossed, gawking at me.

“What the hell have you been doing, Seth?” he
asked me. “How do you even know about this place?”

“Huh?” I responded, quite intelligently I
thought. My gaze rolled up the gate to the top, where I recognized
the sigils cast in iron there. I’d brought us to the Pacthome. And
that’s why I could open the portal and Dad couldn’t. “Oh. Crap,
wrong place.”

Then my eyes rolled back in my head.

“Seth,” my Dad’s voice rumbled into my
consciousness, deep and mellow. “You need to wake up, son.” I could
feel the heat of his chest and arm against me as he spoke. I felt
amazingly good, very hungry, and more than a little woozy.

“Why is it so cold?” I asked, sitting up
slowly and looking around. We were still outside the gate and the
brownies were giving us plenty of space. Night was setting in. And
I was starving.

“This is what it’s like at night here. It
gets bitterly cold. Your brownies, or whatever they are, won’t
survive a night and I can’t get them inside,” he said, direct and
to the point. “You’ve either got to get us in there or get us out
of here completely. And once we’re out of danger, I’d like to sit
down and talk about what the hell has been going on! What have you
been doing!” He stood up, wearing a pair of green athletic shorts
made of similar silk as mine and a white wife-beater, ribbed
even.

“Where’d you get clothes from?” I asked
him.

“Your pixie friend provided,” he grumbled,
flicking a finger in Shrank’s direction. The pixie flew into my
sight, bowing slightly in the air.

“Shrank?” I asked.

“Yes, Lord?” Shrank called.

“Where did you get the clothes for my
father?” I asked him.

“From the brownies, sir,” he answered.

“Shrank, we’ve talked about this,” I said,
deepening my voice into a threatening range. He was leaving
information out.

“Yes, Sir, we have,” he said. “But that was
prior to your ascension to your present… position. It would be very
much improper for me to offer information that you have not
required of me. The penalties for such are rather extreme.” He
bowed his head and bounced slightly in the air before me.

“Shrank, how exactly has my position
changed?” I asked, suddenly very suspicious.

“You, Lord Seth, are the new High Lord of
Faery,” Shrank said smoothly, bowing in the air.

“I’m an elf?” I asked, flabbergasted and
ready to laugh hysterically at the thought of it.

“No, Lord Seth,” answered Shrank, nearly
laughing himself. “But you still hold that honor. You have received
this by Rite of Ordeal and Challenge, duly witnessed by both the
Queen of Seelie and the Queen of Unseelie. That is why they both
waited for you to leave the field before destroying all traces of
Rat Bastard. Your chosen land has accepted the power you gave to it
and will prosper for millennia. All that remains is to give your
people purpose.”

“What does that mean?” I asked anxiously.

“That you must do for them what Lord Kieran
did for me, only without the loopholes,” Shrank answered
carefully.

“What?” I shouted in surprise. “What do you
mean by that? I have to put a geas on a million brownies? I don’t
know how to do that!”

“Then you should learn and quickly,” Shrank
answered calmly. “Once night falls completely, the youngest will
begin dying and by morning few will remain.”

I glanced at the sky and realized I had about
twenty minutes before dark. I stood up quickly and regretted it
instantly as the rush of dizziness greeted me. Dad jumped to steady
me, whispering, “Slow down, there, champ.” I ignored him in favor
of the bigger problem.

“Shrank, can this be temporary?” I asked the
pixie.

“No, sir,” he said, changing his altitude to
my shoulder height. “But it can be initially very small so that you
can add to it later.”

“That’s a loophole I can live with,” I said.
“What else?”

“I… don’t know, Lord Seth,” Shrank stammered
out. “There are parts of the Geas that are not directly visible to
me. It is like knowing your blood must flow to live, but not really
knowing your blood is flowing, see?”

Letting out a frustrated breath, I said,
“Shrank, would you object if I looked at Kieran’s?”

“Oh, not at all, most certainly, Lord Seth,”
he said smiling at me, flying backward a foot.

I peered closely at him, pushing into the
energy plane, looking for the spiraling rings floating around the
pixie’s tiny soul. The Fae were only called soulless, and for many
of the elves it was quite possibly true, but it was unfair in other
cases. It was the soul that made the geas necessary. Otherwise,
you’d just use a simple compulsion spell.

Copying Kieran’s geas in a much larger
aspect, I started reading through the compulsion. Shrank was right.
Two months ago, Kieran had written a very simple geas on him, once
you got through the flowery language. Reading through all those
contracts for the past month had taught me a thing or two about
logical language, or illogical language in many cases. Kieran gave
Shrank a lot of leeway. I started stamping out sections that
wouldn’t change and reviewing what would need changing. I felt Dad
at my back, looking at my work.

“How have you gotten this good at this in
such a short time?” he asked me. “Is that desoan denari elish?”