Jack, the Giant-Killer, page 18
“So we have to steal the Horn.”
“Listening to Bhruic, I thought so once, Jacky Rowan. But the Horn is too great a power. It corrupts any being who wields it. It corrupts any being who even holds it for safekeeping.”
“But Bhruic…”
“Wanted the Horn to find Lorana. She was his charge; he was responsible for her.”
Jacky frowned. “And you’ve known where she was all the time and said nothing to him. How could you? She’s been suffering for months! Jesus Christ, what kind of a thing are you?”
“I don’t know what I am, Jacky Rowan, but I never knew she was there until we stood on the road, you and I, and I strained all my senses to find you. Instead I caught a glimmer that was her. They hide her well, with glamours and bindings.”
“But now we know,” Jacky said. “Now we can help her.”
“You and I? Are we an army then?”
“What about your fiddle? And your wally-stanes?”
“They’re tricks—nothing more. Mending magics, making magics—not greatspells used for war.”
Jacky stared away into the trees, seeing the tormented face of the Laird of Kinrowan’s daughter no matter where she looked, and knew that she’d do anything to help her.
“If I had the Horn,” she asked, “could I use it to command the Hunt to free her?”
“You could. And then what would you command? That all the Unseelie Court be slain? That any who disagree with you be slain? You may call me a coward, Jacky Rowan, but I wouldn’t touch that Horn for any bargain. Use it once and it will burn your soul forevermore.”
“Bargain…” She looked at him then. “Tell me about your bargain with Bhruic.”
“In exchange for what?”
“Tell me!”
Kerevan regarded her steadily. The fierceness in her gaze gave him true pause. Here was gruagagh material… or another wasted poet turned to war. But that was always the way with Jacks, wasn’t it? They were clever and fools all at once. But the image of Lorana’s torment had stayed with him as well, and so he made no bargains, only replied.
“I was to bring you safe to the Keep and then he was to come with me.”
“Where to?”
“To where I am when I’m not here—that’s not a question I’ll answer, nor even bargain to answer for, Jacky Rowan, so save your breath.”
She nodded. “This is my bargain then: I’ll return your fiddle, for safety from you and for some of your wally-stanes.”
“That’s all?”
“That’s all.”
“And you’ll let me lead you to the Keep?”
“I have to go to the Keep. My friends are there, if they’re still alive. And the Horn’s there.”
“Girl, you don’t know what you’re talking about. That Horn is no toy.”
“Boy, you’ll take the bargain my way, or your fiddle will lie in pieces from here to wherever the hell it was that you came from in the first place.”
They glared at each other, neither giving an inch, then suddenly Kerevan nodded.
“Done!” he said. “What care I what you do in that Keep or with that Horn? I want the Lairdlings to be safe—all of Lairdsblood—and whoever will come with me, by their own desire or if I must trick them, those will be saved. But not by doing what you do. Not by the Horn.”
“Running away from what you have to face doesn’t solve anything.”
“And running headlong into it does? Willy-nilly, and mad is as mad does? Oh, I wish you well, Jacky Rowan, but I doubt we’ll meet again in this world.”
“I don’t know,” Jacky said. “You seem to do pretty good moving from one to the other.”
“What do you mean by that?”
“I was told you’d died about a hundred and fifty years ago, but I get the feeling that, even if you did die back then, with you it’s never permanent.”
“I’m no god—”
“I know. You’re Tom Coof and Cappy Rag and you’re full of tricks and bargains. I think you might even mean well in what you do, Kerevan, but sometimes I think you’re too damn clever for your own good—you know what I mean?”
Before he could answer, she stood up and offered him his fiddle. “Come on,” she added. “I want to get inside the Keep before it gets dark.”
“There’ll be an uproar,” Kerevan said. “They’ll be scouring the countryside, looking for you.”
“Well, then. If you want to keep your bargain with Bhruic, you’d better start thinking about how you’re going to get me in there in one piece, don’t you think?”
Kerevan considered himself a manipulator, one who cajoled, or tricked, or somehow got everyone to follow a pattern that he had laid out and only he could see. It was worse than disconcerting to have his own tricks played back on himself. He took his fiddle bag, returned his bow to it, and slung it over his shoulder. Taking out his wally-stanes, he let her choose as many as she wanted. She took nine.
Three times three, he thought. She knows too much, or something else is moving through her, but either way he was caught with his own bargains and could only follow through the pattern that was unwinding before him now.
“Come along, then,” he said, and he led her back into the forest once more.
* * *
CHAPTER NINETEEN
« ^ »
“His daughter?” Arkan said, staring at the pig-headed woman. “Oh, that’s just bloody grand, isn’t it?”
“Arkan, be still,” Eilian said softly.
Kate, looking from the poor creature to the two faerie, was suddenly struck by what a difference Lairdsblood made. Arkan, brash and not easily cowed except by the Gruagagh, had immediately obeyed Eilian’s quiet statement. She could see the distaste blooming in his eyes, but he said not another word as Eilian came to where she sat with the giant’s daughter.
“If they’re not born Big Men, and strong,” Eilian said, “oh, it’s a hard lot to be a giant’s child.”
The creature tried to hide her features in the crook of Kate’s shoulder as he leaned closer, but he cupped her chin and made her look at him.
“You weren’t born this way,” he said. “Who set the shape-spell on you?”
“The Gruagagh,” she said.
Kate gasped. “The Gruagagh?” Her worst fears were realized. Bhruic Dearg had set them up.
“I warned you,” Finn muttered. “But would anyone listen?”
“Not so quickly,” Eilian said. “There is more than one gruagagh, just as there’s more than one Billy Blind. It’s like saying weaver or carpenter—no more.” He turned back to the creature. “Which gruagagh? One in your father’s Court?”
The creature nodded.
“That could still be Bhruic Dearg,” Arkan said. “For all we know he—” He broke off as Eilian shot him a hard look.
“And what’s your name?” the Laird’s son asked the creature, gentling his features as he looked at her once more.
“Monster,” she said gruffly and tried to look away, but Eilian wouldn’t let her.
“We came here to help another,” he said, “but we won’t leave you like this when we go. We’ll help you, too.”
“And how will we do that, Laird’s son?” Arkan asked, emboldened by the fact that there was no way Eilian could make good such a promise. “Even if we had spells, you know as well as I that Seelie magic’ll never take hold in this place. We can’t help her. We can’t even help ourselves.”
“Be still!” Eilian cried, his eyes flashing with anger. “We have a Jack with us,” he said to the giant’s daughter, “loose outside the Keep and she’ll help us. Don’t listen to him.”
“A Jack,” Finn repeated mournfully. “And what can she do, Eilian? Didn’t you see the Court Gyre’s gathered here? All it needs is sluagh to make its evil complete—and they’ll be here come nightfall.”
“Our Jack’s all we have,” Eilian repeated quietly. “Let’s at least lend the strength of our belief to her, if nothing else. What’s your name?” he tried again, returning his attention to the giant’s ensorceled daughter.
There was no escaping the Lairdling’s gaze. It penetrated the creature’s fears, burning them away.
“Moddy Gill,” she said.
“That’s a nice name,” Kate offered for lack of anything better to say. The creature gave her a grateful look.
“And a powerful one, too,” Eilian added. “There was a Moddy Gill that once withstood the Samhaine dead, all alone and that whole night—do you know the tale?” Moddy Gill shook her head. “It was a bargain she made with the Laird of Fincastle. One night alone against the Samhaine dead and if she survived, she could have what she wanted from the Laird, be it his own child.”
“What… what did she take?” Moddy Gill asked.
“His black dog,” Eilian replied with a grin. “And with it at her side, she stormed Caern Rue and won free the princeling from the Kinnair Trow. Oh, it’s a good story and one I never tired of hearing from our Billy Blind. They married, those two, and went into the west with the black dog. No one knows what befell them there, but do you know what I think?”
Moddy Gill shook her head. She was sitting upright now, just leaning a bit against Kate.
“I think that if they didn’t live happily ever after, they at least lived happily, and for a very long time. And so will you, Moddy Gill. We’ll take you with us when we leave this Keep.”
“You came for the swangirl, didn’t you?” she asked.
“In part,” Eilian replied. “But we came to make an end of the Unseelie Court here as well.”
“Is she your girl?” Moddy Gill asked.
“Who? Lorana?” Eilian laughed. “I doubt she knows I exist. I came here to help our dear Jack, not looking for swangirls to wed.”
Kate gave him a considering look. There was something in his voice when he spoke of Jacky that made her think that he had more in mind than simply helping her.
“I know something,” Moddy Gill said. Her pig’s head was nodding thoughtfully, the tiny eyes fixing their gaze on Eilian. “I know where they keep the Laird of Kinrowan’s daughter. They hang her out by day, but not at night. Then they put her in a cell—a secret cell—and I know where it is.”
“When our Jack comes, will you help us rescue her?”
Moddy Gill sighed. The sound was a long wheezing snuffle. “We’ll never get free,” she said. “And the night’s coming soon when they’ll give her to the Samhaine dead and then they’ll stew us for their feast.”
“Well, at least someone’s speaking sense here,” Arkan said.
Kate frowned at him. “Why are you being like this?” she demanded. “I thought you were going to help.”
“And I wanted to help, make no mistake about it, Kate. Your courage made me feel small, but moon and stars! I remember now why I had such a lack of it myself. We were helpless against the horde that ambushed us, and they were but a drop in the bucket compared to the size of the Court Gyre has gathered in this place.”
“We’ve no magics here,” Finn explained. “Not hob magics, nor Laird’s magics—nothing saintly. Not even a gruagagh’s spells will take hold in a place so fouled by the Host.”
“Then we’ll just have to depend on something other than magic,” Kate said.
Eilian nodded grimly. “Until we’re dead, there’s hope.”
Arkan looked as though he meant to continue the argument, but then he shrugged. “Why not?” he said. “I heard a poet say once that we make our own fortunes and if our future goes bleak, we’ve ourselves to blame as much as anything else. ‘Be true to your beliefs,’ he said, ‘and you’ll win through.’ They’re just words, I thought then, and I think so now, but sometimes words have power—when they fall from the proper lips. I’ll mourn our deaths no more—not until the blade falls on my neck.”
“Oh, they won’t use axes,” Moddy Gill said. “They like to throw folks in their stews while they’re still kicking—for the flavour, you know.”
“And have you tasted such a stew?” Eilian asked.
Moddy Gill shook her head. “I’ve no taste for another’s pain, Lairdling. Not when knowing so much of my own.”
Kate patted the girl’s shoulder, then stood up to investigate the wooden grating that served for the door to their prison. The beams were as thick as a large man’s thighs, notched together, then bound in place by heavy ropes that appeared to be woven from leather thonging rather than twine. The beam that lay across the door, held by a stone slot at either end, had taken five bogans to set in place. They didn’t have close to that kind of brute strength in their own small company.
“Why did they just use rope?” she asked Eilian as he joined her.
“Faerie can’t abide iron.”
“And even steel’s got a high iron count—big enough to make no difference,” Kate said with a considering nod. She turned to Eilian. “But what about those bridges the trolls live under—and the buildings in the cities? There’s iron in all of them.”
“True enough. Faerie that live in or near your cities and towns come to acquire a resistance to it. Some can simply abide a proximity to it, but can’t handle it themselves. Others, like our forester here, seem to have developed a total immunity—how else could he use your vehicle with such ease?”
Her car. Judith was dead and gone now. “And what about the Host?” she asked.
“They’re a wilder faerie, not always used to urban ways. Against many, a penknife would be enough defense.”
There was a long moment’s silence, then Kate grinned and reached into her pocket. “Like this?” she asked.
She opened her hand to show her Swiss penknife. Opened, it had a blade length of two inches. She could have kicked herself for not thinking of it earlier when they were struggling with their bonds. But it didn’t matter. They had it now.
“Oh, Kate!” Eilian replied. His eyes shone with delight. “Exactly like that.”
“But these ropes are so thick…”
“They were woven with faerie magic. Even your little blade there will have no trouble cutting through them.”
“All right.”
She pried the blade out of its handle and began to saw away at the nearest rope. The others gathered round to watch the little knife cut through the first thick cord as though it were no more than a piece of string. Moddy Gill regarded Kate with awe.
“Moon and stars!” Arkan said. “When I find that poet, I’ll gift him with enough ale to keep him drunk for a fortnight.”
Finn nodded eagerly. “This hope’s a potent magic all on its own,” he said.
Arkan grinned. “And the next time you hear me whispering against it, Kate, just give me a good strong clout across the back of my head.”
“With pleasure,” Kate said as she continued to saw away at the ropes.
She didn’t bother to mention that once they got out of their cell their troubles would be just beginning. There was no point in dashing their sudden enthusiasm. But they were going to have to come-up with something more than a little Swiss penknife before they got out of this place. And then there was Jacky. Had the bogans caught her as well? Or was that strange being that had snatched her on the highway one of the Wild Hunt in another guise? She had the sinking feeling that the nightmare was just starting to get under way.
* * *
CHAPTER TWENTY
« ^ »
“What’s up now, Tom Coof?” Jacky asked in a whisper.
“Whisht—just for once,” the fiddler hissed back at her.
They were hidden in undergrowth, high up in the forest and rough terrain that was, Jacky supposed, near the Giants’ Keep. The land was certainly wild enough. The tree covering was mostly pine and cedar, with some hardwoods. Granite outcrops jutted from the ground like the elbows of buried stone giants. Roots twisted around the outcrops; deadfalls surrounded them. It had taken them the better part of the afternoon to get here from the road—Jacky in her hob jacket and Kerevan using his own spells. The forest was alive with the creatures of the Host, searching for her.
Jacky was just about to repeat her question when she saw what had driven them into hiding once more. As tall as some of the trees around them, a giant came, moving with deceptive quiet for all his huge bulk. He sniffed the air, a nose the size of Jacky’s torso quivering. Jacky stopped breathing. Finally the giant moved on. Gullywudes and bogans moved in his wake. Not until they were five minutes gone did Kerevan speak.
“Do you see that small gap? There—just the other side of the deadfall?” he whispered.
“In the rocks there?”
Kerevan nodded, but neither of them could see each other, so the motion was wasted. “That’s one of their bolt holes.” he said. “Take it and follow it into the heart of the mountain and it will bring you straight to where Gyre the Elder holds his Court.”
Jacky bit at her lower lip, which was getting all too much wear of late. “You’re leaving me here?”
“This is the Giants’ Keep. You did want to come here, remember?”
“Yes, but…” She sighed. Somehow she’d hoped that, once they’d reached the place, Kerevan would change his mind and offer to help her.
“A word of warning,” the fiddler added. “Seelie magics are of no use inside—so your hob coat won’t hide you, your shoes won’t speed you, your cap won’t show you any new secrets, and even the wally-stanes you took from me will do you no good. Not when you’re inside.”
“Is that why you won’t go in?”
“It’s suicide to go in there,” he replied. “A fool I might be, but I’m not mad.”
Jacky looked in his direction. If she squinted and looked very hard she could just make out the vague outline of his shape.
“I don’t know what to do,” she said. “Now that I’m here, I don’t know what to do, or where to begin. Can’t you give me some advice—or does that require another bargain?”
“This advice is free: Go home and forget this place.”
“I can’t.”
“Then do what you must do, Jacky Rowan, and pray you didn’t use up all your luck these past few days.”
“And nothing will work—I mean, none of the magics?”
