And it wasn’t as if I had the strength to make any kind of move yet. If I tried to do anything but lie there and break down the toxins in my bloodstream, my liver would lead a mutiny. I was still desperately hungry and now in dire need of a drink as well, but the kitchen might as well be on another plane.
∼Why are you here?
“Shall we trade questions and answers?”
∼Hrrr. Very well. But one at a time, and I go first. “Why are you here?”
“I came to visit Midhir, the owner of this estate, and found him dead. Who imprisoned you here?”
An angry roar preceded his answer. ∼One of the Irish gods, but I do not know which one. He or she wore a shapeless covering and had an odd voice.
My jaw dropped with the implications of that. As the goddess of poetry, Brighid could speak with three voices at once. Ahriman asked his next question before I could follow up.
∼I am supposed to kill whoever comes to visit Midhir. I can reasonably conclude that this Irish god wishes you dead. What have you done, Werner Drasche, to inspire the wrath of the Tuatha Dé Danann?
“I wish I knew. I suppose I must threaten them somehow, but I cannot imagine why. I have no designs against them and wish only to be left alone. Tell me, if the person who imprisoned you was covered completely and the voice was strange, how did you know it was an Irish god?”
∼Hrrr. The god told me as much. “You now serve me and the Tuatha Dé Danann,” the god said. But I did not accept the mere words. The truth of it was supported by the method of my capture. They used earth magic to render me immobile and to encase my tail in a wooden box, a hardwood not easily splintered. Then a squad of giants—I heard them called Fir Bolgs—shackled and muzzled me. I killed two of them despite my handicaps, yet here I am.
Interesting. Granuaile and I had thought the manticore was acting willingly as a mercenary, but obviously this mysterious god had chosen to make him an unwilling conscript.
∼For a time, Ahriman continued, ∼I was stranded on this plane and left to guard a certain tree; I was to kill whoever appeared. Someone did: A man, a woman, and a dog almost stepped through. That man had a sword and a scabbard—a scabbard that looked identical to the one I now see near the red sofa behind which you cower. I wonder—were you that man?
Telling him the truth would do me no harm; he still thought I was Werner Drasche. And confirming the truth would perhaps earn a measure of his trust, which might allow me to deceive him with something else. “Yes, that was me. So under what conditions might you be set free?”
∼Killing you is the condition of my freedom. I do wish you would come out from behind that couch so we can get it over with, but you are probably determined to make me wait. Where are your companions?
“They are elsewhere. Listen, Ahriman, this god is being extremely careful to cover his or her tracks. You are wise enough to see that someone so careful would hardly let you live to speak of your role in this. If you kill me, you cannot hope to live much longer—you will be killed once you do this god’s dirty work. So why do we not agree to set each other free instead?”
Something between a laugh and a purr rumbled out of the manticore’s throat. ∼I thought you would propose such a scheme. You may as well beg for mercy. You would have the same chance of securing my agreement. No, Werner Drasche. You are prey, and that is the end of it. There will be no escape for you. Remain behind your couch and die like a coward, or attempt to flee and I will shoot you with many more of my tail spikes. How many of them hit you the first time?
“Only one.”
∼I thought as much. And you barely survived, judging by the squalling I heard. Two will suffice.
I couldn’t argue with that. “Who’s feeding you while you lie in wait?”
∼The same Irish god who captured me returns every so often to minister to my needs.
That was a ticking clock. If the person who killed Midhir found me like this, I’d be toast for sure. At the moment, my future toast status was only highly likely.
Ahriman continued. ∼But I do not require daily food and drink, so if a day or two passes, I will not suffer much beyond boredom. The suffering of others, however, is capable of invigorating me. Hence the properties of my venom. Your pain was delicious, by the way, and it lasted for far longer than that of most humans. I am pleased that you have survived to feel that pain again.
He finished by making a couple of juicy smacking noises. He was licking his chops, and somehow he sounded smug while doing it.
“Have you heard of Wheaton’s Law, Ahriman? It goes like this: Don’t be a dick. I know it’s a tough one, and I have broken that law myself more times than I would care to admit, but I think it’s a law that every being should try to observe, regardless of faith or position on the food chain.”
Ahriman made no comment except to chuckle deep in his chest. ∼Hrr-hrr-hrrr! Silence fell after that. Apparently he had no more questions, and he was content to wait for me to make a move.
I was a physical wreck, so I wouldn’t escape through acrobatics of any kind. I had to come up with a magical solution.
That red couch deserved my eternal gratitude. I loved that couch and promised it in a fit of sentimentality that, if I survived, I would buy one just like it and build a memorial. Perhaps I could move it along with me through a series of bindings, screening my slow crawl?
It was risky. There was no such thing as a kinda-sorta binding. Either you bound something or you didn’t. So if I bound the leather on the end of the couch to the far wall to make it move, there was no telling how fast it would travel—or how far it would continue to move on after I broke the binding. If I didn’t break the binding at precisely the right time, it could wind up leaving me exposed to more fire from the manticore.
I looked down at my right hand, still resting in the hole and clutching a handful of crumbled stone, and it occurred to me that a wall of marble would protect me far better than a floor. If we were back on earth on bare ground, I could ask an elemental to create a wall for me, but elementals always remain on earth even though their magic can be tapped, and they wouldn’t be able to help me with dead, quarried stone anyway. Despite the time it would take me, the wall was a much safer option than gambling with the couch. And it would give me something to do while my body continued to purge the manticore’s toxins. I rolled myself over so that I was facedown again, in the original position of my fall.
Beginning with the hole in front of me, I modified the unbinding spell so that the affected area would be a thin sliver of stone, only as wide as the thickness of a fingernail; the length was about six inches, starting from the ragged, crumbled edge of my hole and extending toward the pillar. I repeated it twice more, at ninety-degree angles, so that when I was finished I had “cut” a rough square of marble, with the hole side looking chewed up. Those three cuts I bundled together in a macro and then proceeded to the second operation.
Looking at the flat surface of what was now a marble tile, I mentally selected the right third of it and then bound it to the inside edge of the cut floor facing the manticore. The effect, when I completed it, was that the tile wiggled up off the ground and then flipped so that it stood facing the center of the room, but the newly bottom portion of it was bound to the rest of the floor. It left a small crater of exposed earth—they pour no cement foundations in Tír na nÓg, since it’s tectonically stable, lacking actual tectonics. As more marble left the floor and became my shield wall, I would be left with an easy source of magic to tap.
I tacked the tile binding onto the end of the slicing macro and then cast the whole thing as a new macro. It executed much faster, and I grinned when the next tile cut itself and clacked into place. I repeated it again and again, creating a trough of earth and the tiniest of walls, only four inches high above the surface of the floor.
Once this self-erecting wall appeared beyond the edge of the couch, however, toxic thorns fired into the upper lip of the wall—Ahriman’s reflexive response to movement, per
haps. The barbs bounced off in a wholly satisfying manner. A few more sailed high, presumably in case I was trying to get across using camouflage. The manticore waited for me to scream, but when I didn’t and the marble squares kept rising and clicking into place all the way to the pillar, his voice pressed into my brain as his growls filled the room.
∼Hrrr. What nonsense is this?
“It’s a modified Cask of Amontillado. Treat your foe like Poe.”
∼Explain, Werner Drasche.
“Call me Montresor if you like. Explanation won’t be necessary if you will be patient.”
In response, several thorns thunked into the ceiling above. Ahriman had tried to ricochet them down on top of me, but they were too sharp and plunged deep into the sexy fresco, pumping their venom into hapless plaster fornicators. Ahriman roared his frustration—impotent rage in the Hall-O-Love.
My base completed to the first pillar, it was time to practice masonry without mortar. First I unbound some more of the marble around my hand so that I would have a squared edge near me, adjacent to the side that had just been sheared off. I began on a new set of macros for what I supposed must be thought of as skinny bricks, or perhaps really beefy tiles. Since I now had two sides of the squares exposed, I needed only two cuts for squares in this row, and then I had to bind the bottom of each square to the top of the foundation. When that binding executed, the tiles flew off the ground to land on top of the wall, adding six inches of height. As the row passed the couch and proceeded to the pillar, Ahriman divined my purpose and moved. Cables stretched and slithered across fur, and squelching noises from the mud reminded me of gastrointestinal discomfort. He did not bother announcing his intention; he merely fired more of his poison barbs over the couch at as steep an angle as he could manage. He had raised himself to improve his chances—and they weren’t bad. The thorns landed mere inches beyond my mangled left side. There was no need to inform him how close he had come. Continuing to build the wall and simply not screaming in agony would let him know that he failed.
He gave up after a short while and I could hear him pacing, wet splortches mixed with the clank and rattle of his confinement. I continued to cannibalize the floor to build the wall, a bit higher than I had originally intended to cut off the manticore’s field of fire. I didn’t want him to be able to nail me from afar once I started moving toward the kitchen door.
Gods below, I hoped there was something edible in there.
The last of the poison had been broken down and a modest skin covering had closed the wound on my shoulder, but my tattoo wouldn’t heal up all on its own, and I was running on fumes. Once the wall was completed to my satisfaction, I began to drag myself along the ground, using my right arm and leg. Ahriman heard me moving and he lost it. He didn’t speak; instead, he roared and attempted to pull free of his chains, though he had doubtless tested their strength long before and found them sufficient to restrain him. He made quite a ruckus back there, but it didn’t stop my long slog to the kitchen. After picking up Fragarach and realizing how profoundly unable I was to use it right then, I had occasion to reflect that crawling away was not my most heroic moment.
Ahriman spoke one last time, as I pushed open the kitchen door and hauled my body out of the sex hall. That half-human voice slithered into my head, menace in every syllable.
∼I may die here, Werner Drasche. But if I am freed, I will hunt you.
“Okay!” I called back, and let the door close behind my feet. I hoped that, if he did escape somehow and found me instead of the arcane lifeleech, it would be far enough in the future that I would be in better condition to fight him.
An important step to improving my condition would be to eat something. Magic could boost my base strength, which was barely keeping me moving, but it couldn’t boost low blood sugar or stop the growling in my belly, and since the kitchen had been tiled, I was now subsisting on my bear charm until I could find some other source of energy.
The kitchen appeared to be well stocked, and should it prove to be the case, I silently swore to give Brighid a fruit basket and no explanation whatsoever.
Since Tír na nÓg lacked electricity, food was kept safe in iceboxes—the enchanted sort one could find at the goblin market. Midhir had three huge ones and a prep area made entirely of wood; his faery servants wouldn’t have appreciated the modernity of stainless steel. The cutlery and cookware were bronze, copper, and glass.
In the first icebox, I found a cold roasted chicken with only a single drumstick missing, so I counted it as a major score. I pulled it off the shelf, laid it out on the tile floor, and tore into it.
Finally able to think of the future, now that I had something on which to chew, I tried to salvage some useful information from my debacle of a shortcut. Whoever had rolled through here was an utter boss. Judging by the bodies and ash piles and by the fact that I still hadn’t heard a sound beyond those made by Ahriman or myself, it was quite likely that we were the only living creatures in the compound. If that was true, then I could have walked in the front gate and avoided becoming a chew toy for the pieholes. I would have had to face Ahriman no matter what, though, if I wanted to learn what happened to Midhir.
I knew how the Tuatha Dé Danann tended to think, and this slaughterhouse probably didn’t even count as a massacre to my adversary’s way of thinking. No, this was self-preservation. A strategic retreat, even. Bagging the Druids hadn’t worked out, so it was time to withdraw and tie up loose ends like Midhir and Lord Grundlebeard. Now that we had the help of the Olympians, Granuaile and I couldn’t be confined to earth anymore through pandemonium. So far as I knew, no other pantheons possessed that particular power. Whoever was behind all this would plot something else, for sure, and we’d have to remain paranoid, but at least the vampires were getting some payback, the dark elves had much to fear from the Ljósálfar, and our freedom of movement was restored. Or would be, once I healed.
A slow smile spread across my face, past a cheek full of chicken. As messed up as I was, it felt good to be alive. I didn’t want to stop living anytime soon.
I wolfed down the entire chicken and most of a leftover ham before my stomach issued a cease-and-desist order. Bloated but already feeling a bit better, I thought it was time to try standing again. Wedging Fragarach into the handle of an icebox, I hauled myself to an upright position and hoped that no other mortal surprises awaited me as I searched for an exit.
Midhir’s palace sprawled extensively, but I didn’t bother to explore it all. My errand had already been completed and I didn’t have the strength, so it was time to take my leave. I spied more ash piles as I moved through rooms; someone had made sure there would be no Fae witnesses to Midhir’s demise. There was a lush courtyard in the center of the estate, with a tall ash tree casting much of it in shadow. It was tethered to the network but only outward bound; no one could shift directly into the center of Midhir’s world. I didn’t want to shift anywhere in Tír na nÓg, because I didn’t want to appear crippled in front of all Faerie and because whoever was behind it all might be encouraged to finish me off. I needed a few days of food and healing—and some new clothes—before anyone laid eyes on me. So I shifted to my cabin above Ouray, Colorado, which had a stash of food and extra duds, in addition to a very strong elemental. Granuaile and Oberon would be worried about me being gone so long—especially since I’d promised them I’d be right back—but I wasn’t anxious to see them while I was so messed up.
Unfortunately, I didn’t have any choice in the matter. They weren’t waiting for me back at Goibhniu’s place but rather pelting out of the cabin toward me.
“Gods, Atticus, where have you been?” Granuaile cried.
“Why are you here?” I asked.
“You said you were going to the cabin and you’d be right back. Where did you go?” She ducked underneath my right arm and draped it over her shoulders so that I could lean on h
er for support. Her hair smelled like honey and vanilla, and she was wearing strawberry lip gloss. I probably smelled unspeakably bad and felt acutely embarrassed. She was wearing a pale-blue blouse and some jeans that looked new—definitely different clothes since I’d last seen her stretched out and healing from an arrow wound.
“Wait. How long has it been?”
Her jaw dropped in shock and she searched my face to see if I was joking. My question worried her more than the sight of my injuries.
“Atticus, it’s been two freaking days. Freaking as in I was freaking out.”
“That explains why I was so hungry.” And no wonder that they’d left Goibhniu’s taproom. He would have told them to bugger off eventually and promised to let them know if I showed up.
“I want to know where you went,” Granuaile said, helping me hop through the cabin door, “but first tell me what you need.”
My eyes welled a bit, a harbinger of impending schmaltz. I did my best to control it and said, “Actually, I think I’m all right. Or I will be. I’m glad you’re here. We’re safe now.”
“We are?”
“Well, for a little while, yeah. Still up for Japan?”
“Are you?”
“It’s as good a place to heal as any.”
Chapter 30
We spent five days in Japan, not being hunted. It was blissful—or at least as blissful as five days could be when you’re waiting around for your muscles to rebuild. We weren’t bothered by vampires or dark elves or Fae, giving additional weight to my theory that our mysterious enemy in Tír na nÓg had been using Old Ways to ferry assassins around. And it was there, on the third day, in a rock garden with a fountain gurgling the eternal poetry of the elements, that I found time to tell Granuaile what had truly happened with the Morrigan, how she had discovered the limits of godhood and had chosen to slough them off; how she had kept her word and found a way for us to survive while giving the middle finger to convention, which said she could behave only in prescribed fashions; and how she had never truly been defeated.