Fionchadd drew to the cheek and released. The arrow flew true to its mark, striking dead center in the rough red globe which Dylan held delicately in his needle-toothed beak. But instead of piercing the pomegranate and bearing it away, the arrow was stopped in mid-flight, as, with exquisite timing, the creature snapped its jaws shut to trap both fruit and shaft. The wyvern staggered under impact but did not lose its footing. A loud crack and the drooping of the white fletching marked the final closure of its beak. Twin trails of red juice trickled across the silver scales to drip in a starfish-shaped puddle at the suckered tip of a mosaic kraken arm that curled by the wyvern’s taloned feet. Balancing precariously on one elegant claw, the creature delicately extracted the arrow halves with the other. It swallowed once, the fruit a visible lump in its supple neck, then spread its wings and glided somewhat awkwardly forward to receive another from its master.
“You have become a fine archer,” Ailill said, emerging from the shadows where he stood.
The boy’s head snapped up, his expression clouding when he recognized his father. Dylan scurried behind him, to peer uncertainly from beneath the dark blue fringe of the boy’s tunic.
“I don’t like being spied upon,” the boy snapped.
“Then you should use the Power.”
“Why? Yours is stronger, so there’s no point there; and in the case of anybody else, there’s no need.” Fionchadd fumbled in his quiver for another arrow. “But you spy on everyone, don’t you?”
“Very nearly—but, then, everyone spies on
me.
Silverhand has been following me like a shadow.”
“I understand you have been in the Lands of Men again,” Fionchadd said as he nocked the arrow and drew experimental aim on a distant squirrel. “Did he follow you there?”
Ailill nodded sagely. “Oh, yes, there have been more white animals than I can count. But there is little he can do to stop me.”
The boy took aim. “That you know of.”
Ailill’s nostrils flared. “Sometimes I doubt your loyalty to me.”
His son did not reply.
“Fionchadd?”
The boy lowered the bow and glared at his father. “Sometimes I doubt your loyalty to anyone at all—except yourself.”
“Those words are not good ones for you to say.”
“Nevertheless, they are mine. They are all I have.”
Ailill folded his arms and stared at his son. “You have failed me, boy. Twice I have sent you into Lands of Men, and twice you have failed me.”
“I have provided information,” Fionchadd replied quickly, “which is the main thing you sent me for. And while I was your spy I missed two hunts and almost lost my bow.”
“But you have failed at the quests I set for you.”
Fionchadd laid the bow carefully aside and turned to face his father. “I have
not
failed. I watched the mortal boy. I saw him meet with Oisin. I heard that one’s words. When the power of the ring awakened the Track I was there. I ran. I would have captured the ring, if
only…”
“Yes?”
The boy’s shoulders slumped. “If only the Power of the ring had not wrenched him from the Road.”
“The chain broke, you have told me. Yet you did not see where the ring fell?”
“I did not expect the chain to be made of iron, it burned me. The boy was in his own World by the time I recovered from that shock. And then it took an instant to shift my Sight.”
“And what about the old man?”
“I made the arrow as you instructed. My aim was true.
You
said not to kill him. You said the boy’s fear for his family would drive him to us. And, anyway, the fact that I could wound the old man but could not touch the boy confirms that the ring no longer protects anyone but the lad himself. I tried to get him to join us.”
“You were not very persuasive,” Ailill snorted.
“I am not a diplomat.” Fionchadd shot back.
“I do better than you, boy! I almost have the younger brother where I want him. There is a storm brewing in the Lands of Men, which I can augment to good advantage.”
“Lugh will not like that,” Fionchadd interrupted. “He says you spend too much time there at the expense of your other duties. You missed his feast last night.”
“I thought it more important to investigate threats to his realm than the food on his table.”
“I’m sure.”
“My brother would think so.”
“Uncle Finvarra would not care what you did as long as you were not underfoot. That is, after all, why he sent you here.”
“So you know my brother’s mind better than I do? If you would second-guess him, you tread on dangerous ground indeed.”
Fionchadd raised an inquisitive eyebrow. “As do you, if you would go up against Lugh Samildinach. I have seen that much while I have been here. Shall we see who has the greater number of friends?”
“And which are you, boy? You give your oath everywhere else; even to the very one you are sworn to seek.”
Fionchadd’s face redded with indignation. “Forced to seek, more likely. Twice the boy has bested me in combat, Father: at running and at wrestling. It was the honorable thing to do. Even Morrigu commended me.”
“They were not fair fights, though, for the ring’s protection was still upon the boy. The Mistress of Battles is a fool to say otherwise.”
“A very powerful fool, however,” Fionchadd retorted.
Ailill raised his fist as if to strike his son, then lowered it again decisively. “Very well, boy. Since you are so concerned with her rules, I invoke the Rules: You owe me one more attempt on David Sullivan.”
Fionchadd’s eyes blazed. “By what right?” he demanded.
“By the Rule of Three,” Ailill shot back. “Twice he has bested you. There must be a third.”
“The boy is
not
my enemy!” Fionchadd shouted.
“Then you are not my son,” Ailill replied, his voice chill as the space between the stars, and as hollow.
Chapter XI: What the Lightning Brings
(Friday; August 14)
“So what was it you wanted to talk to me about that was important enough to make you offer me a ride home?” asked David after Liz had carefully eased her mother’s pickup truck out of the Enotah County Hospital parking lot and onto rain-slick Highway 76. Curved tails of spray rose behind her as the truck splashed through the puddles that still remained from an earlier thunderstorm. Clouds hinted at more, and soon.
“Not that I don’t appreciate it,” he added, “but it is a little out of the ordinary for you.”
Liz frowned pensively. “Oh, I don’t know where to start, David—Uncle Dale, I guess. What do you think’s really wrong with him?”
“He’s had a stroke, of course,” David answered indignantly. “You don’t recover from one of those in two days.”
“I know that, dummy. But why doesn’t he want to fight back?”
David slumped down in the seat and fiddled absently with the window winder. “I wish I knew, Liz, I really wish I knew. But if I did, I’d sure do something, don’t you think? So why are you so curious all of a sudden? I mean, you’ve known him for years and years.”
“Don’t you ever
see
anything, David?” Liz replied, a certain amount of exasperation coloring her voice. “Does it all have to be spelled out to you? He’s got a sort of something about him, that’s all I can say. He fits into the world. He’s part of your father’s world, the real world, the farmer’s world; but he’s got something more—a sort
of…
a sort of magic. The same magic that you have, kind of. I think you’ll grow up to be a lot like him.”
David cocked an eyebrow. “I didn’t know you were interested in magic.”
“Don’t you have anything between your ears besides air, David? Air and imagination? I’m interested in a
lot
of things you don’t know about. Some of them are even your fault, and I bet you didn’t know that, either. But I’ve been interested in the occult for a long time. I told you about my granny.”
“I wonder if she knew my grandpa or Uncle Dale.”
“Probably—they all knew each other up here back then. But about your uncle: I just think he’s a neat guy. There aren’t gonna be people like him around much longer—people who grew up here before there were cars or anything, who remember the old arts and crafts and stories.”
“So you want to collect my uncle like a piece of folklore?”
“I want to
learn
from him, Davy. Surely you can understand that. You’re concerned with folklore and magic and all that yourself.”
David frowned absently. “Well, I don’t think Uncle Dale knows any magic. And, besides, what I’m interested in is mythology, especially Celtic mythology right now, not mountain folklore—it’s only a shadow of the real thing.”
“Maybe so, Davy, but it’s your heritage—and it may not be as removed as you think.”
He looked sharply at her. “What do you mean by that?”
“Oh, you’re always going on about fairies and all, like they were real—but always in Ireland during the Dark Ages, or something; but my granny said she saw ’em once when she was a girl.”
“Was she Irish?” David looked at her skeptically
Liz shrugged and reached forward to turn on the wipers. “May have been. I don’t think you have to be Irish to see fairies. She said she saw a couple playing in her yard when she was a little girl up in North Carolina.”
“What did she say they looked like?”
“Oh, she said they were about a foot high, had wings and all.” David snorted. “Faeries don’t look like that.”
“And how do
you
know? Have
you
seen them?” Liz asked indignantly.
“If I told you yes would you believe me?”
Liz hesitated. “I don’t know. But I believed my granny. She never lied to me about anything else.”
David turned to stare out the window of the pickup at the sodden landscape, the whole world gone dull and flat, with the merest trace here and there of tired green, aged blue, or dim purple hiding among the shadows. A few clouds hung ominously lower than the rest, like vultures waiting to devour the day. He took a deep breath. “What would you say, Liz, if I told you I thought the Faeries had caused Uncle Dale’s stroke?”
Liz considered the question for a moment, her mouth a thin line. “I’d say either that you were telling the truth or were lying, and that if you were lying, either you knew you were, or you didn’t. How’s that?”
David smiled. “You sounded full of ancient wisdom just then.”
“I got that phrase from my granny too. She
was
full of ancient wisdom. But why would the fairies want to hurt Uncle Dale?”
“To get at me,” David said flatly.
Liz risked a sideways glance at him. “Why are
you
so important?”
“I saw them—not two weeks ago. I got Second Sight accidentally, and right after that I met the Sidhe and asked them for a token that the meeting was real. They gave me that ring.”
“
Another
tale about that ring,” Liz cried in exasperation. “David, please don’t lie to me.”
David sighed wearily. “I’m not! I’m like the boy who cried wolf, I guess: I’ve told so many wild stories nobody will believe the truth. But I swear to you, I really did get the ring from the Faeries. The fortuneteller knew it, and she knew I have Second Sight.”
Liz raised an inquiring eyebrow. “What
is
Second Sight? That’s twice you’ve mentioned it.”
“The ability to see into the Otherworld, I guess you could call it. I might see a mountain, or I might see a Faery palace. But I’m the only one who knows the Faeries are here, and they think I’m a threat to them because of that.”
“Are you?”
“I don’t know. I don’t mean to be. You’re the first person I’ve told and I doubt you believe me either—well, actually, I told Alec, but I didn’t have any better luck with him than I’m having with you. Who
would
believe it, though? You grew up in the same rational world I did, Liz. Grown people don’t believe in Faeries in this country in this century.”
“My granny did, and I think Uncle Dale might warm to the idea.”
“If he ever warms to anything again.” David paused, then continued. “Look, Liz, maybe you could use your power—or whatever it is you tried to use that day at the lake—and try to, you know, to read Uncle Dale. Maybe you’d get something that would convince you.”
She turned to glare at him in spite of the rain. “You’re serious!”
David nodded grimly. “Absolutely. You have no idea how serious. I would
love
to have somebody to share this with, Liz, only…only I think I’d be putting you in danger if I did. No, best I didn’t. The Sidhe might not like it, and would be after you next.”
“The Sidhe are
the…”
“…
Irish Faeries.” He paused, bit his lip thoughtfully. “Just a minute, Liz, I’ve got something here—” He reached into his knapsack, which rested on the floor between his legs, and pulled out something small and brown, which he laid on the seat between them. “This is the book the fortuneteller gave me
—The Secret Common-Wealth.
Got some stuff about Second Sight in there, some about the Faeries, too, though that part doesn’t seem to be too accurate. Maybe it’ll give you something to think about…but, then again, maybe I shouldn’t let you look at it.”