Drink Down the Moon

  “I’m pleased to meet you both. But Bhruic— he’s left Kinrowan?”

  “Maybe you should come back to the Tower with us,” Jacky said. “It’s a long story. Do you have a place to stay?”

  “I’d thought to stay with Bhruic.”

  “We’ll give you the hospitality that he would have— it’s the least we can do after you chased off that dog for us. Right, Kate?”

  “Sure,” Kate said with a nod.

  But she wondered at the scent of magic that she could still sense in the air. Jacky was wrapping her chain around the seat post of her bicycle now, locking it in place, chatting to Cumin the whole time. Kate looked at the place where the gruagagh had stepped from the shadows. How could they have missed seeing him there? And why would the dog disappear when he grabbed it? It had killed a Pook

  .

  “Coming, Kate?”

  She started guiltily and hurried over to her own bike.

  “Sure,” she said again, and fell in behind them, walking her bike as Jacky was.

  What she wanted to do was jump on hers and leave this gruagagh far behind, but she didn’t know why she felt that way. There was no real reason for her nervousness, except that once it had turned into an unpleasant night, why should it necessarily change at this point?

  She listened to Jacky talk about the Pook and how she wouldn’t like to be the Hay of Kelldee, who was taking the body to Puxill right now in hopes of finding a fiaina to claim it, and wasn’t it a shame

  Oh, don’t tell him too much, Kate wished at her friend.

  She stepped up her pace so that she was walking abreast of them.

  “So where’s Lochbuie?” she asked in a pause of the conversation, speaking quickly before Jacky could launch into something else.

  Cumin’s eyes appeared to narrow for a moment, but then he smiled and Kate wasn’t sure if he’d actually looked angry just then, or if she’d projected that on him because of the way she was feeling.

  “Far east of Kinrowan,” he said. “Though not so far as the sea itself. I’m on a trip to Gormeilan, you see

  .”

  The rest of the way back to the Tower, Kate kept the Gruagagh talking about himself. Jacky didn’t interrupt, but whether that was because she understood what Kate was doing, or because she was simply interested in what Cumin had to say, Kate didn’t know.

  Seven

  Leaving their instruments in the hollow hill, Johnny and Jemi returned to the riverbank. The mists were thicker now. The night had grown still quieter. The flat stones shifted underfoot as they walked, the rattling sound loud in the stillness. When they paused by the water’s edge, the sound continued. Johnny wasn’t aware of it immediately, but Jemi turned her head quickly to look behind them.

  “Faerie,” she murmured.

  Johnny turned then as well to see three small ponies soft-stepping across the stones. Two had riders, the third a long bundle tied across its back. Jemi’s hand crept to Johnny’s arm, her fingers tightening painfully as she clung to him.

  A half-dozen yards from where they stood, the ponies stopped and their riders dismounted. The foremost was a fat dwarf with a dark beard and darker hair. The other was taller and smooth-shaven. The dwarf cleared his throat.

  “Are you friends to Puxill’s Pook?” he asked.

  “I am,” a voice said from behind them before Jemi could reply.

  The tall, ebony-skinned figure of a naked woman stepped around them to face the dwarf. Water glistened on her skin. This’ll be Loireag, Johnny thought. Before the woman could speak, Jemi let go of his arm and pushed her way in front of the woman.

  “I’m Jenna’s sister,” she said.

  She shot the kelpie a quick glance. Loireag briefly touched Jemi’s shoulder with the long dark fingers of one hand— a feathery touch that was gone almost before it was made— then returned her attention to the two Seelie faerie.

  “My name’s Hay of Kelldee,” the dwarf said. He frowned, then cleared his throat again. “Oh, it’s bad news I have for you tonight.”

  While he spoke, the other faerie was loosening the bundle from the third pony. Tenderly he laid it on the ground and Johnny had a sudden premonition. He started to move towards Jemi, meaning to comfort her, then froze, abruptly aware that there were more than just the five of them abroad tonight.

  They came from all sides, slipping from the forest and through the field, sidling from the river behind them, dozens of strange beings, not one quite the same as the other. There were little men no taller than his knee, with twigs and leaves in their hair, their arms and legs like spindly roots. Pale-skinned women with wet-green hair, dark eyes, and sinuous bodies. Rounded little men with grey beards and wrinkled faces. A woman with the face of a fox and a long bushy tail.

  Some were tiny, others taller than Johnny. Some he could see clearly and wished he couldn’t; others were hidden in shadow allowing him only brief glimpses of narrow pretty faces, all those he wished he could see better. Towering over them all was a nine-foot-tall troll, his hands hanging below his knees, his back stooped, his eyes glittering.

  Johnny found it hard to breathe. His chest was a tight knot and there was a sour taste in the pit of his stomach. The crowd of creatures pressed closer, encircling them. They filled the night with strange smells and a hushed whispering. Johnny could feel himself trembling, but couldn’t stop it.

  He felt like he had the one time he’d tried acid— years ago, and never again. That same sense of dislocation from reality pressed on him now. The sensory overload made it difficult for him to maintain any semblance of balance. He flinched when a small twiggish creature touched his leg, tugging at his trousers. Moving back, he bumped into a tall man, so thin he seemed skeletal, just bones and skin, without flesh. The man grinned at him, flashing rows of sharp teeth, and Johnny stumbled away from him.

  He lost Jemi in the crowd. He was aware that the dwarf was still speaking, but couldn’t hear what was being said. He tried to push through the press of bodies, to get away. When he came upon a sudden opening, he slipped into it only to find himself standing by the third pony. Jemi was bending over the bundle, opening it.

  A dead Jemi stared up from the blanket— skin alabaster, bloodied and torn, eyes bulging, but the features still all too recognizable. Jemi’s sister. Jenna.

  Jemi lifted her face to the sky and howled her grief. The sound was a wailing shriek that froze the blood in Johnny’s veins. This was what a banshee’s scream would sound like, he thought. This despair. This grief. This anger underlying both.

  His vision spun and he staggered back into the crowd, flailing his arms, trying to get away from that sound. Hands— little hands, big hands— shoved and pushed him out of the way. Jemi’s wail burned through his mind. He fell to his hands and knees on the stones, scrabbling for purchase, trying to stand, to flee.

  His limbs gave out from under him and he went face down on the ground. He cut his lip, tasted blood. His vision still spun, but the sound was finally gone— not faded, just abruptly cut off. Slowly he raised his head and looked around.

  He was alone on that beach of flat stones. The river mist was ghostly and writhing on one side of him, the forest dark on the other, while he was crouched on the pale strip between them.

  A nightmare, he thought. I’ve freaked out. Somebody slipped me something in a drink. A Mickey.

  Jemi. Jemi Pook. She

  It all became a blur. He fell forward on the stones once more, only this time he didn’t rise.

  It was late when they finally got back to the Tower. While Jacky sat the gruagagh down in the kitchen nook and fussed about getting tea ready, Kate excused herself and went upstairs. Ostensibly, she was going to bed, but instead she made her way up to the third floor where she took down a familiar book from its shelf and sat in a chair to leaf through it. The fat leather-bound volume bore the title The Gruagaghs, Skillyfolk and Billy Blinds of Liomauch Og and, like everything else pertaining to Faerie and Kinrowan in that room, had belonged to the original Gr
uagagh of Kinrowan.

  Bhruic Dearg’s books had a peculiar property Kate and Jacky had discovered very early on in their residence. Their content tended to change so the various reference volumes remained up-to-date all the time. It was Kate who had first discovered this one day, looking through the very book she was holding now. She’d come to a heading for Kinrowan and discovered that under the Court, rather than Bhruic’s name being listed as its principal magic-worker, it now had Jacky’s name, with her own underneath, listed as an assistant.

  The book called her Kate Crackernuts, but that didn’t stop her from getting a little smile of pleasure every time she turned to that page. She knew that in Faerie the hazel tree was often called the crackernut.

  She went straight to the index tonight, looking up Lochbuie. Surprisingly, for all her suspicions, there was such a place listed in the book. From the map she was directed to, she realized it was a part of Gaspe. But there was no Cumin listed as its gruagagh, in fact no gruagagh listed at all. There were two hob skillymen in the area— one named Scattery Rob, the other Dabben Gar— a wisewife named Agnes Lowther, and a longer list of Billy Blinds for the various faerie holdings in and about the immediate vicinity.

  There was a Court mentioned as well, but it appeared to be a small one. Not big enough for a gruagagh, it seemed, though there had been one at the turn of the century. According to the book, his name was Balmer Glas, which, even by a long stretch of the imagination, didn’t sound a bit like Cumin.

  Kate frowned. She turned to the index again, this time looking under the C’s for Cumin’s name. When she found the listing, it referred her to “Comyn.” That listing sent her to a brief paragraph that told her that the Comyns were an old family of Billy Blinds and gave her various other references to turn to, none of which helped her with her present search.

  Sighing, she laid the book aside and went to stand in front of the wall of bookshelves. There were just too many titles. What they needed— as she kept telling Jacky— was a proper index. A file system like in a library, or even a general index book that could send them looking in the right direction. Kate knew that it wasn’t important how much you knew, so much as that you knew where to look for what you wanted to know. Anyone could keep a clutter of information in their head— after all, people were supposed to remember, somewhere inside them, everything that they had ever experienced. The trick was accessing that information.

  She replaced The Gruagagbs, Skillyfolk and Billy Blinds of Liomauch Og on the shelf and went to stand by the window. Kinrowan lay spread out before her. She checked on the house with its grey aura and found that while the aura was still present, its greyness didn’t seem as pronounced at the moment.

  A thought came to her, and she looked at where the Pook’s body had been discovered. She shivered at the small smudge of grey she saw there as well. It wasn’t near a moonroad, so she probably wouldn’t have noticed it if she hadn’t been looking for it. The spot where the black dog had attacked them had a grey smudge about it as well.

  She turned her back on the window and leaned against the sill. They were connected. Whatever had sent the dog after them and killed the Pook was connected to that house on the criss-cross of leys. Had something terrible happened there as well— something really bad, she realized, for the aura to be so dark— or could that even be where the black dog and its master were? It was worth looking into.

  She sighed again. This was their first real crisis in the year or so since they’d taken over the Gruagagh’s responsibilities in Kinrowan.

  Normally, they did a daily check on the various leys, making sure that the luck flowed properly. There really wasn’t much to the task. Since the Gruagagh hadn’t been all that well liked or trusted, and the faerie had gotten out of the habit of coming to him for advice, they hadn’t had to deal with very many requests for help beyond that duty. The few times they had, long hours of going through the Gruagagh’s books— with the help of Finn— had pointed them to a solution. But now

  It wasn’t just the house’s aura, or the Pook’s death, or even the dog’s attack, Kate realized. It was that man downstairs. She didn’t trust him one bit.

  Jacky had the unfortunate habit of being impressed with important people. She liked hobnobbing with the Chiefs of the Laird’s Court when she could. Liked to spend time with the Laird and his daughter. She had an on again, off-again relationship with Eilian, the Laird of Dunlogan’s son.

  There was no real harm in any of that so far as Kate could see, because Jacky didn’t lord it over anybody just because she knew some highborn folk. But it was just like her to latch onto a strange gruagagh without so much as a thought to the possible consequences. There was something about Cumin, supposedly of Lochbuie, that told Kate he was far more dangerous than anything they could deal with. He was a gruagagh, after all. He had magics that they couldn’t hope to match. If he should turn on them

  Her gaze went to the door, then to the secret hollow in the worktable’s leg where the six remaining wallystanes were hidden. The wallystanes could be a problem. After Jacky and her first failure

  It had been disconcerting to see Jacky walking around looking like Bhruic Dearg, and a little funny to hear her woman’s voice coming from the tall shape of a man.

  After that, they’d waited to use any more of them until they’d found some working instructions in one of the Gruagagh’s books— a long process with Dunrobin Finn translating for them. The next two spells had worked out fine. The stones just took a lot of concentration. You had to fill all your thoughts with what you wanted, keeping them crystal clear in your mind as you broke the wallystane.

  Kate knew what she wanted right now. She knew it very clearly.

  She argued it out with herself for a few moments longer— weighing her need against the unfairness of using one of Jacky’s stones without asking her— then made her decision. She crossed the room quickly, locked the door and fetched the wallystanes from their hiding place. She took out one of the crystalline spheres and replaced the others. Taking it in hand, she pulled a blank book from the bottom shelf— these were the books that Bhruic had been using to keep his notes and journals in— and brought them both over to the worktable.

  She needed a general index and this was going to be it. The blank book, when she opened it after using the wallystane’s magic on it, would answer all her questions. It would tell her where to look for what she needed so there wouldn’t be any more of these marathon expeditions through the hundreds of books that made up the Gruagagh’s library. She just hoped that Jacky wouldn’t be too mad at her. But there was no way she was going downstairs to ask her— not with that gruagagh sitting there, listening.

  She held the wallystane between her hands. It was hard and smooth against her palms. It was odd how the stones worked. They were virtually unbreakable. But when you held it between your hands and worked the spell, pressing your hands together, the stone just dissolved, like candyfloss did in your mouth.

  Keeping the book in front of her, she held the stone over it and concentrated for all she was worth. A fierce scowl wrinkled her features. She breathed slowly. Not until she was absolutely sure she had it perfect in her mind— that the book would answer her questions, that it would tell her where the information she needed lay— did she press her palms together.

  The feeling of the wallystane breaking sent a pleasant tingle up her arms. She grinned as she opened her hands and looked at the sparkle of crystal dust that filled her palms. She counted to ten slowly. When all the crystals had dissolved, she picked up the book and opened it to the first page.

  Blank.

  Quickly she flipped through the book.

  All the pages were blank.

  Now she’d done it.

  She went through the book carefully a second and third time, holding the pages up to a lamp in case the words were written very, very lightly in it.

  Still nothing.

  She went over her thoughts. Had she kept them absolutely focused? The book was supposed to ans
wer her—

  I’ve got marshmallows for brains, she thought.

  Oh, she’d been so clever. She’d concentrated on what she expected the index to do for her, but faerie magic, like the denizens of Faerie itself, were a capricious lot. They were fair. A bargain made was a bargain kept. But you had to spell it out so bloody carefully

  .

  She looked at the book. Clearing her throat and feeling somewhat foolish, she spoke aloud.

  “Will you answer my questions?”

  Nothing.

  She rifled through some more pages, but they were all the same. Blank.

  “Oh, come on!”

  The leather-bound cover of the book looked back at her. She flipped through the pages some more, shook the book. She was so sure that she’d figured it out. But the book wasn’t obliging her. Jacky was going to kill her for wasting a wallystane on an empty-book

  .

  A grin touched her lips again. Quickly she found a pen and opened the book to the first page. What was a book? Pages bound together with words on them. If a book was going to answer her questions, how would it speak? With words. On a page. And how would it hear her questions?

  Will you answer my questions? she wrote at the top of the blank page.

  As she lifted the pen, words began to form under her question. They were in a neat script, the letters rounded. In fact, she thought, it looked a lot like Bhruic’s handwriting, which she knew from the journals he’d left behind.

  What would you like to know? the words said.

  Kate gave a sharp sigh of relief. Picking up the book and pen, she went to her chair and sat down, the book open on her lap.

  Do you know a gruagagh named Cumin? she wrote. He claims to be from Locbbuie, but he’s not in the book of wizardfolk listings.

  Did you look under his name?

  Of course. She underlined “course.”

  There was a moment’s pause.

  Touchy, the words finally said. After another moment, they continued with, If this Cumin is not Listed in the Annals, he will be a rogue gruagagh and should be considered dangerous.