It means something disrupted the flow of the Moon’s luck in this place, Caraid replied. It need not necessarily have been the droichan.
“But it was the same grey as was in the places where he did work his magics,” Kate said. “Doesn’t that mean something? Or are we on a-wild-goose chase?”
“I could use a goose,” Gump said. “I’m feeling peckish.”
Kate glanced at him, hoping his appetite didn’t run to human women.
What you have postulated could be true, her book admitted. The droichan could well have worked magics here. But that doesn’t necessarily mean that his heart is hidden here. Or that it was ever hidden here.
“Well, what magics could he have worked here? What did he need this place for?”
Magics are always stronger when worked in a place where moonroads meet.
Kate looked at the trow. “Oh, what are we going to do?”
“For one thing,” Gump said, “we should finish looking through the house before we give up.”
He set off again, making his way down the second-story hall to the first open door. Kate glanced at Caraid, but the book had nothing to add. She put it away in its bag, then left the window where she’d been standing to follow the trow. Gump was waiting for her in the second doorway down the hall.
“Here,” he said. “Can you feel it?”
Kate squeezed in beside him and stood just inside the room.
“I
” she began.
The feeling of being watched returned to her, stronger than ever. On top of that sensation lay the taste of old magics, used and discarded, only their echoes remaining.
“Yes,” she said. “This is where he worked his magics. And he’s left something behind” she glanced at the trow “hasn’t he?”
The room was longer than it was wide. It had been someone’s study once, but the bookshelves were all empty now. A table, that had once served as a desk, she guessed, stood by the window, a stained and tattered ink blotter and a scatter of pencil stubs and paper on its surface. A chair stood by the table. In the middle of the room were a few cardboard boxes.
“Just trash,” Gump said as he looked through a box.
“Gump,” Kate said. “You didn’t answer me. He left something in here, didn’t he?”
“I’m not sure,” the trow replied. “When mages and gruagaghs settle down to work their spells
things tend to gather, to watch them. That’s what we’re sensing, I think.”
“Things? What kind of things?”
“I’m not really sure. I’m not a gruagagh, Kate. I’ve just heard the same stories that everyone knows. There were spirits in this land long before we reached its shores. They like to spy on our skillyfolk some say to make sure that they work within allowed boundaries, but mostly it’s thought that they do it simply out of curiosity.”
“And that’s what’s here now?” Kate asked.
The trow nodded. “I think so. I hope so.”
“And there’s no droichan’s heart?”
“I can’t say yes or no, Kate. Someone worked powerful spells here. Maybe one such spell was the droichan hiding his heart.”
Kate sighed. She went over to the table and pried about, moving to the boxes when she was sure there was nothing of interest on either it or its adjacent windowsill. She emptied the first box unceremoniously on the floor and pawed through its contents. Most of the papers had something to do with governmental statistics.
How boring, she thought.
As she started on another box, Gump left the room and went into the next one down the hall. Kate followed his progress by listening to his weight creaking the floorboards. She was bitterly disappointed at coming up with nothing in this house. The idea had seemed so perfect when it first came to her at Gump’s home.
But that would have made things too easy, she realized now. And nothing was ever easy when it came to Faerie, and especially when it came to Faerie’s skillyfolk like the gruagaghs.
When she was finished going through the boxes, she stood in the center of the room and made a slow turn, trying to feel where the magic echoes were the strongest, or where the hidden watchers were concealed. She felt a tug near the table and returned to it, wishing she’d had the foresight to bring a flashlight with her. Holding up papers to the window was all well and good, but it didn’t do much for looking into crannies or finding hidey-holes.
She ran her fingers over the table, wishing she knew something about dowsing. That’d do the trick just wave some stick over the table until it bent down at the required hiding place. But she didn’t have a magical dowsing stick didn’t even know all that much about dowsing in the first place and the table had no secrets to give up, or at least none that it was willing to give up. She turned away, defeated, to find Gump standing in the doorway.
“This is the only room with such strong echoes,” he said.
Kate nodded glumly. She toyed with the buttons of her jacket, started across the room to join him, then remembered the rowan twigs sewn to the inside of her jacket.
“Wait a sec,” she said.
Gump watched with interest as she unfastened the twigs from the inside of her jacket and tied them into a rough Y-shape.
“You know how to do that?” he asked as she stood with her makeshift divining rod in hand.
“Not really. But Finn seemed to think I could work magics if I studied hard. And this isn’t really magic anyway, is it? Even humans can do it.”
“If they have the skill.”
“Oh, don’t be such a poop,” Kate told him. “Have a little faith.”
The trow shrugged in agreement and sat by the door to watch, leaving Kate wondering if she’d bitten off more than she could chew. She’d read a book once on the Cambridge don Tom Lethbridge and his experience with dowsing. Having fully planned to immediately try it herself, she’d ended up getting distracted by something else and never really coming back to it. But she tended to remember everything she read, so she settled down now to concentrating on the task.
Keeping her mind empty of everything but the vague “something” that both she and the trow had sensed in the room, she made a slow circuit, her divining rod loosely gripped in her hands and held out before her. To her delight, the rowan twigs gave a definite tug in the direction of the table.
Without looking at Gump though she was feeling very pleased with herself and dying to tell him, I told you so she walked slowly over to the table, the makeshift rod increasing its tug against her fingers, the closer she came. Behind her, Gump lumbered to his feet and creaked his way across the floor after her. He towered over and watched as she made a circuit of the tabletop with the rod.
In the center of the table, closest to where she was standing, the rod jumped sharply downwards. The movement was so quick that Kate involuntarily held on tighter to the rod. Threads snapped and her divining rod fell to pieces.
Kate jumped back, startled, bumped into Gump, and almost screeched before she caught hold of her nerves and steadied herself. She took a deep breath and let it out again before turning to face the trow.
“It’s right here,” she said, pointing to where the twigs had fallen. “There’s something right here, Gump.”
She gathered up her twigs and stuck them in her pocket, moving aside so that Gump could have a look. The trow bent down until one big eye was level with the spot and he could study it.
“Something
” he agreed in a bemused voice.
He reached out a hand and moved it around the spot.
“Oh, look!” Kate cried unnecessarily since Gump’s eye was still inches from the spot.
A vague outline was taking shape on the wooden tabletop, slightly luminous like the failing display on a digital watch. Kate stared with rounded eyes as it became clearer. It was a round, slightly domed shape, with a flourish of intertwined ribbonwork encircling the central design, which appeared to be a pair of cow’s horns.
“What is it?” she breat
hed.
“An echo of magic,” Gump replied.
They both stared at it, trying to make sense of what it was. Before trying to touch it, Kate took out Caraid and held the book open overtop of it so that a copy of the design could be made on a blank page. Then she tried to touch it, but whatever it was, at the contact of her fingers, it simply dissolved away.
“Was that his heart?” Kate asked.
Gump shrugged. He looked from the table to where the design was now taking shape on Caraid’s page.
“I don’t know what it was,” he said. “Perhaps his heart more likely some magical object that he was imbuing with power.”
I agree, Caraid wrote under the image on its page. This is a droichan’s work there is no doubt of that. Notice the symbol of the broken crescent moon.
And she’d thought they were cow’s horns, Kate thought, glad that she hadn’t said anything.
“We should show this to Finn,” Gump said. “He might recog”
The trow broke off as a distant music rang through Faerie. Only slightly aligned to the Seelie Court through his friendship with Finn, Gump felt the strong pull of the sidhe calling-up tune. He wanted to run out into the night and find the piper, to follow her anywhere.
A rade called up.
The thought of it filled him with an inexplicable joy.
“What’s that sound?” Kate asked.
For a long moment, Gump said nothing, then he slowly shook his head. The hold of the tune on him lessened. He blinked and concentrated on ignoring the music as it continued to sound.
“The fiaina sidhe are being called up for a rade,” he said.
“And you want to go?” Kate asked.
Gump nodded, surprised at her insight. “I don’t need its luck, but I’ve been there, a time or two, following the winding pattern of a fiaina rade. It’s not something you forget.”
“I sort of feel like gathering with them myself,” Kate said. “What does that make me?”
“A skilly mortal who’s spent too much time in Faerie.”
“You make it sound dangerous.”
“Not dangerous,” Gump said. “But it changes you. Faerie don’t steal mortals not so much anymore, at any rate but the Middle Kingdom is still a chancy realm for mortals, Kate. Too long in it and you’ll never want to leave.”
“Then I’ve already been in it too long.” She gave him a quick grin. “We should go back to your place and show Finn and Jacky what we’ve found.”
The music had died away now, but there was a new sound in the air of Faerie. Gump paused, staring at the window, listening. Then Kate heard it, too. Part of the sound was the wind, rising at the call of the sidhe to mask the sound of their movement. But part of that sound was something else, a sound like dark wings cutting the night skies, of Unseelie creatures called to their own gathering.
“War,” Gump said. “The Pook’s calling up the sidhe to ride to war and the droichan’s gathering his own army to meet her. Oh, this is a bad night for Faerie, Kate.” He sat down in a slump and leaned against an empty bookcase. “I don’t like fighting. I don’t like it, Kate. I’ll stand up and do what needs doing, but I don’t like it. It makes us all small winners and losers alike.”
Kate had a moment of thinking it was odd that such a big, gruff creature like the trow would feel this way, but then she remembered the beautiful mechanical birds she’d seen in his home and realized that she was being very small-minded. Just because Gump was a trow didn’t mean he had to like hurting people. She sat down beside him and leaned her head against his arm.
“No one likes it,” she said. “Not if they’re at all decent.”
Gump nodded unhappily. “I don’t take sides, because I don’t like being a part of what comes from taking sides. Unpleasantness. Fighting. But this
We’ll all lose our luck if we allow the droichan to win.”
Kate tried to think of something she could say to make it easier, but there was nothing. Just because something had to be done didn’t make it any easier to do it. She stroked Gump’s arm.
“I’ll be fierce for both of us,” she said. “You can”
She broke off as she heard a sound downstairs. Someone had entered the house. She shot Gump a quick glance, then stood quickly and moved towards the door.
“Now it begins,” the trow muttered.
He rose as well and took up a stance on the other side of the door. The floor creaked as he moved and Kate hoped that maybe the sound would drive the intruder away, but while the noise downstairs ceased when Gump moved, after he’d been still for a few moments, it began again. A stealthy movement up the stairs.
Gump lifted an arm so that it was raised above the doorway. He looked at Kate and gave her a smile, but it didn’t reach his eyes. Kate tried to smile bravely back, but all she could think of was, What if it was the droichan? What could they possibly do against him?
The intruder paused at the top of the stairs, then moved to the first doorway, stopping abruptly when a floorboard creaked underfoot. Long moments of deathly silence followed. Kate thought she was going to collapse from holding her breath, but she didn’t dare breathe. Then the intruder moved again, coming towards the doorway that they were guarding.
I should have grabbed a chair, Kate thought. Maybe a double-whammy chair and trow-fist would at least knock the droichan out long enough for them to make good their escape. Instead she was just standing here, hands closed into small fists, staring wide-eyed at the door and still holding her breath.
A figure moved into the doorway, Gump’s big fist started to come down, then Kate lunged forward.
“No, Gump, don’t!” she cried. “It’s Finn.”
The little hob froze at the sound of his name, then stepped hastily back as Gump’s fist narrowly missed him. The trow lost his balance, but Kate managed to steer him against a wall where he caught hold of a bookcase and saved himself from falling. Finn stood shaking, looking as though he was ready to bolt at any moment. Slowly he regained his composure and glared at the pair of them.
“You should have called out,” Kate said sweetly.
“There was a stink of magic about the place,” Finn replied. “I should have realized that it was no more than that of a trow and his sweetheart playing hide-and-go-seek in the dark.”
“We thought you were the droichan,” Kate said.
“And I thought oh, never mind. Listen closely now, for I”
“Look,” Kate broke in.
She thrust Caraid towards Finn, open to the page with the circular image on it.
“We dowsed and pried,” she said, “until we got a magical echo to give up this much. What do you think it is, Finn?”
“Kate. You’re not listening to me.”
“Oh, don’t be mad,” she said. “We didn’t know it was you, and you didn’t know it was us. It was an honest mistake.”
“I’m not talking about that,” Finn said. He caught hold of her arm. “Jacky left Gump’s home and has gone to the Tower by herself. I’m afraid the droichan’s captured her again.”
All the blood drained from Kate’s face.
“Oh, no,” she said in a small voice. “What are we going to do?”
Gump straightened up at her side.
“Rescue her,” he said.
Johnny woke with a start to find that he’d dozed off on the couch. Mactire was standing over him, shaking him awake.
“Huwzzat?” he mumbled, sitting up and rubbing his eyes.
“Listen,” the wild boy said.
“But I don’t hear anything
” Johnny began, then his voice trailed off.
There was no mistaking that sound, nor its urgency. It was Jemi’s pipe, its music ringing through all of Faerie. The tune went coursing through him until it seemed that his every cell vibrated to its call. He sat dumbfounded by the intensity it awoke in him, sat there long after its last notes died away.
“What
that tune
?”
>
“It’s the calling-up music of the fiaina sidhe,” Mactire told him.
He caught hold of Johnny’s arm and hauled him to his feet.
“But”
“We mustn’t delay. She calls the sidhe to war. That means she knows the name of our enemy.”
Johnny looked down the hall to where Henk was sleeping.
“But,” he started again.
Mactire shook his head. “There’s no time. Are you coming, or do I leave you behind?”
“No. I
“
Still fuzzy with sleep, and dazed from what the music had woken in him, Johnny finally started to move. He grabbed his jacket and started for the door.
“Your fiddle,” Mactire said.
Johnny went back for it.
“Jemi’s going to be okay, isn’t she?” he asked as he started for the door again, fiddle case in hand this time.
“Not if we don’t hurry,” the wolf boy said.
Outside he set off at a lope that Johnny was hard put to keep up with, but keep up he did. Down Bank Street they went and over Lansdowne Bridge into Ottawa South. In the Middle Kingdom they had another name for this place, Johnny remembered from talking to Jemi. They called it Crowdie Wort’s Bally. It was there that the Tower of the Jack of Kinrowan stood, and on the grassy park south of that Tower, the sidhe were hosting tonight.
Behind, in Johnny’s apartment, Henk awoke in time to hear them leave. He’d fallen asleep on the bed fully dressed, so that when he reached the door and saw Johnny and the wild boy hurrying off down the street, he had time to snatch his own jacket from where it lay on a chair, and set off into the night, following them.
His night fears scurried up and down his spine, but this time he was determined to ignore them. Unsure of where they were going, he still knew he had to follow. Just before he’d woken, he’d been dreaming. Nothing remained of that dream, not one image; only a haunting music that had called him up from sleep to find Johnny and his strange companion leaving the apartment.
As he ran in their wake, he wondered what was so important that it had sent them hurrying out into the night as they had.