Brothers: Legacy of the Twice-Dead God (61 page)

“You do know I didn’t ask you to remove their
marks, right?” he said, almost jovially as he bounced down the
steps.

“Yeah, but Harris already owes us several
times over,” I answered. “It won’t hurt to have him owe you for
this one.”

Cahill burst out laughing as he hit the
landing at the next level.

The dungeons of the castle looked nothing
like what I expected. No medieval torture instruments, no suits of
armor lined the walls, no smell of mildew or urine from prisoners.
It looked any other part of the castle, just more stonework and
less paint. We were underground now. The only wooden doors with
tiny windows and bars were those to the practice rooms.

I found Peter and Ethan in a practice room.
They were tossing small flash-bangs around the room and watching
where the excess energy drained. When I stepped into the room, I
felt the oppressive atmosphere immediately. Looking for the source
of the feeling, I was drawn to the walls of the small stone cavern.
There were hundreds of spirals carved into the walls and ceiling,
interspersed with arcane symbols. Each spiral swooped around
another until ending onto bars of iron, copper, and other metals I
didn’t recognize immediately. The floor was similarly covered in
swoops and spirals inlayed in the rock with thick metals. From what
I could tell, the whole room was a huge sink designed to draw
errant magic to the metal and ground it to the earth.

I left my brothers to their workout after
mentioning Harris’ presence upstairs, and stepped into the hall
again where Gordon waited for me. He led me through the back of the
dungeon, up a narrow staircase, and into the house again. I still
didn’t recognize any of the halls until we turned into the one for
the infirmary. Braelyn, one of Mom’s healers, greeted us as we
entered and directed us back to my mother’s room. They left me at
the door.

She looked so small, lying on the bed.
According to Braelyn, she’s been fading through sleep cycles
without awakening since our meeting on the steps. I couldn’t tell
how they were keeping her fed. I sat beside her bed, stroking her
hand and head, and talking about anything I could think of. Twenty
minutes passed before I couldn’t stand the helplessness anymore.
For all that I managed to do for Kieran and Peter, there was
nothing I could do for my own mother.

A figure passed behind me silently from the
room across the hall as I left. The woman spoke softly to my mother
about us, about what fine and great men we were. It added to my
depression, so I didn’t go back to listen more. When I entered the
infirmary office, Gordon and Braelyn were talking quietly in a
language I didn’t know. I approached slowly, not wanting to intrude
and lost in my own thoughts. I stopped when I realized I began to
understand them.

“I’m afraid for her recovery if we cannot
break this hidden magic,” Braelyn said seriously. “And I’m afraid
to try anything more without harming her.”

“Maybe when her husband is found, he will
know something,” Gordon said softly. “But do not tell her son that
yet. He has enough to worry about right now.” That’s when Braelyn
noticed me standing behind Gordon. I suppose the look on my face
told him more than he wanted to know. His eyes widened in
concern.

“Don’t tell her son?” I asked loudly. “What
the hell, Gordon? Keeping secrets from me about my own mother?”
Gordon whirled around, surprised and guilty.

“Seth,” Gordon started, “it’s not what you
think, Seth.”

“What could I possibly mistake here, Gordon?”
I asked angrily. “Speaking in a language I’m not supposed to
understand? Whispering so I wouldn’t hear? What could possibly be
wrong with that?” I paused in frustration and watched Gordon
attempt to formulate something soothing to say. “Just… go to hell,
Gordon.” Then I stormed out the door, intent on getting away from
them. Gordon followed me quickly.

“Seth, please,” Gordon called, racing after
me. “It’s not what you think. We’re just trying to protect you and
your mother.”

“Leave me alone, Gordon,” I shouted and
turned down the hall that led to the dungeon. “I don’t want to talk
to you.” Then I called the Stone to erect a shield wall behind me.
He crashed into the invisible barrier with a satisfying crunch.
After that, I turned again and ignored the faint cries for my
attention. When I found Kieran again, I was livid. “Your son is an
asshole!” I shouted at Cahill. “I want to pound him into the
ground.”

“Seth, what’s wrong?” Cahill asked in concern
and confusion. “Slow down and talk to me.”

“What language are you speaking?” asked
Kieran in confusion. “I can’t understand you.” That stopped me dead
in my tracks. As far as I knew, I was speaking English.

“It’s Gaelic,” Cahill answered. “I didn’t
know he knew the language.”

“I… don’t,” I said, confused.

Cahill laughed abruptly. “You’re sure doing a
fine job at it. Now what happened? And in English, please.”

I paused, concentrating on my native
language. “Gordon and Braelyn were whispering to each other in that
language. Gordon told him that he shouldn’t tell me things about my
mother.”

“I’m sorry, Seth,” Cahill said
understandingly. “I’ll talk to them, make them understand. Where is
he?”

“Taking the long way round,” I answered,
still angry.

“Well, let’s avoid any further confrontations
right now,” Kieran said. “Let some anger fade before you see him
again.” Kieran looked to Cahill questioningly. Cahill directed us
through another path so we’d be unlikely to encounter Gordon along
the way. We came out of the house on the mountain side. Thankfully,
he let me stew in my anger, giving me silence rather than offering
any over used cliché to placate me. Once out of the shadow of
the house, Kieran stopped and positioned us by the sun, getting his
bearings. Then he turned east and strode purposefully into the
woods.

“Where are we going, exactly?” I asked
finally.

“To Underhill,” he answered, distractedly.
“To the Crossroads.”

Confused by his answer, I followed silently
for a few minutes. “Where is this place? I didn’t see any
crossroads on the map of the grounds.”

Kieran chuckled. “It’s in Faery,” he said
quietly and stopped, looking about the small clearing we just
entered. “Technically, you can’t get there from here.” Okay, I
decided my brother is an idiot. He walked to the far side of the
small clearing and turned to face me. “There are a number of ways
to get there. I’m going to show you the classic way first. Watch
carefully.” He strode purposefully toward me, gathering power with
each step. Then, after ten steps, he loosed his magic sharply to
his left. A yard out from him, the air began to shimmer like heat
from asphalt. I saw the magic work, but I couldn’t tell what was
happening with it. I stepped closer and peered at the swirling air.
Kieran watched me examine the air, proud of his trick
apparently.

“What is this?” I asked, still trying to
decipher what I was seeing.

“An entrance to Faery,” he answered. “A very
simple and slow entrance to Underhill.” He waved at the swirling
heat pattern, extracting his control from the structure. It
dissipated faster than it appeared. “You walk to the setting
sun—west—and turn left. There are faster ways there. The fastest is
a portal through space, but that requires knowing the endpoint very
clearly. The Crossroads tend to wander with the Queens’ attention,
so we’re going to use a form of that.” Kieran gathered power again
and thrust his spell into reality. I saw the invocation clearly
and, this time, understood exactly what happened. He ripped into
the fabric of reality and sliced it open. The magic pushed through
this hole in the world and grabbed onto the neighboring dimension.
I watched the two dimensions fold together at the edge of his
spell, forming a five foot circle in space. This, I could
do.

“Come on,” Kieran said, taking my arm. “This
will close quickly.” Then he jumped at the hole, hauling me with
him. My perceptions went wonky when I hit the hole. Suddenly we
were in the clouds, looking down on a new landscape. I felt
weightless, flying almost, not yet fully realized into this
dimension. Kieran pointed down at the landscape, showing me the
thin line that existed between the two lands below us. He tugged my
arm and moved us quickly along that line at amazing speed. He
pointed again ahead of us at a point along that line that another
land started, forming a crossroad.

“There used to be a cairn here at some time,”
Kieran said. Suddenly we were standing on the ground, a transition
so fast I barely recognized we weren’t flying anymore. We were on a
small mound, roughly thirty feet around, in the grass of a huge
field. The place felt weird, like we were standing on the edge of
three different atmospheres. Behind us felt normal, but on my
right, it felt like the middle of summer, and on my left, it felt
like in middle of winter. It was an odd feeling, totally lacking a
real temperature difference. Kieran turned to me and said, “That
weirdness you’re feeling is a factor of the Crossroads. You have
Earth behind you, the Seelie Court on your right and the Unseelie
Court on your left.”

“I understand why they’re called Winter and
Summer now,” I said, feeling uneasy about this place. “Sort
of.”

Kieran grinned, nodding with understanding.
Then he moved to the center of the mound and straddled the
imaginary line between the two lands. At least, I think it was
supposed to be imaginary. To me, there was a slight color variation
between them, a slight blueness to Winter and redness to Summer,
but only at the join between the two lands. Further out on either
side, everything looked like perfectly normal grassland.

Kieran raised his voice and shouted to the
winds, “I am Ehran McClure and I’ve come to meet with the Queens of
the Courts of Faery as requested by them. My brother Seth and I
wait at your convenience, Ladies.” I looked around suspiciously,
but there was no one there for him to shout at. Kieran met my
quizzical look with a chuckle. “They’ll be here shortly, trust
me.”

Within a minute, I heard something from both
sides, a faint and distant rumble. Clouds began forming in the
distance on both sides and moving toward us. The horizon started to
seethe with movement, dust rising skyward in opposite directions. I
stared at the movement on one side, trying to see what was coming
at us. The clouds overhead began darkening in the sky. I recognized
a form in the distance: horses, thousands of them from the sound of
it. After a few moments, I could see more clearly. The horses all
had a blue sheen to them. Then I turned to the other side and saw
the other stampeding herd. Red, those horses were bright red, like
they were made of fire. I swept back and forth between the two
opposing forces. Fire and ice, the horses were made of solid fire
and moving ice, both graceful and unnaturally fast. And there were
figures atop the beasts, one for each herd, dancing across their
backs from horse to horse, never stopping for too long to burden
one horse over another.

It was a very strange sight to see.

Above us, lightning danced from cloud to
cloud, following the stampedes. In the distance, funnel clouds
formed, dark against the darkening sky, dropping lower and lower,
yet never daring to touch the ground. Very soon, individual horses
were discernible. Indeed, each was made from solidified fire and
fluidly moving ice. Huge beasts of rapidly moving sinew, the two
herds sped toward us at breakneck speed. And they weren’t slowing
down either. I turned my head back and forth between them quickly,
knowing that we were about to be overrun. I began to panic in our
impending doom, but Kieran appeared relaxed and unworried. That
worried me more.

Then, just as the two herds converged on us,
between the turn of my head from one side to the other… silence. It
was deafening.

“Greetings, Ehran McClure,” the Seelie Queen
said, her voice deep and husky.

“And to you, Seth McClure,” the Unseelie
Queen said, sleekly and silkily. “Thank you for coming so
swiftly.”

“Greetings, Queens of the Fae,” Kieran said,
bowing deeply at the waist but rising quickly. “We came as soon as
we could, Ladies. When two such as you request an audience soon, we
move quickly.”

“And time has taught you some diplomacy,
young Ehran,” Seelie said, smiling, her scarlet dress providing
scant cover for her ample bosom. She wore her fiery red hair in
loose curls, framing her lovely face softly and cascading over her
shoulders. It accentuated her femininity, but we’d already seen the
darkly sexual power writhing just below the surface at the Games.
She sat, spreading her arms to rest on the divan suddenly under
her.

“Thank you,” Kieran responded politely,
giving her a small smile. “And to what do we owe this honor?”

Thunder boomed from the sky.

“We wonder where you have been, sweet Ehran,”
Seelie asked, smiling demurely.

“You disappeared so long ago,” Unseelie
added, suddenly seated on a similar divan, midnight blue to
Seelie’s gold. “We thought you lost to the universe in your
sorrow.”

“I almost was, Lady,” Kieran said to
Unseelie. “But I found someone who showed me the joy of life and
renewed that simple pleasure for me.”

“And taught you much,” Seelie said archly.
“We’ve not seen such magic as you employed at the Games.”

“Yes, my teacher taught me well,” answered
Kieran. “Hopefully, I will be capable of teaching my brother.”

“And add this magic to your clan as well?”
Unseelie asked.

Kieran smiled cautiously. “I plan on only
teaching my brother.”

“Then what of your family, dear boy?”
Unseelie asked coyly.

“Our family has its own magic,” Kieran
answered. “As I’m sure you well know. You are acquainted with our
father, after all.”