The Firehills Read online

Sam felt his arms seized from behind and began to struggle. A coarse rope was looped around his wrists, biting into the flesh. He felt a wave of panic sweep over him and almost instinctively shifted shape. The two men who were attempting to bind his wrists found themselves wrestling with a large and angry wolf. With cries of fear, they released him and fell back. Sam stood in the center of the room, ears flat against his skull, the soft gray fur on his spine bristling. A low growl came from his throat. Otherwise, the room was silent. No one moved. And then Sam felt a familiar presence in his mind. I thought as much, said the Malifex. You stink of my brother. I did not know he had taken to training pets. Well, let us see how well he has taught you.

  Without moving or otherwise betraying his powers, the Malifex began to assault Sam’s mind. Time seemed to stand still, the faces of Haesta and his guards frozen in expressions of amazement. Waves of malice beat against Sam, forcing him backward, stiff-legged, step-by-step. His lips were pulled back from his teeth and the long, low growl seemed loud in the unnatural silence. He tried to throw up some sort of shield, a barrier in his mind against the evil radiance coming from the still form of the Malifex. But as he concentrated, his shape slipped, and he was Sam once more. As he slumped to the floor, a wave of angry noise washed over him as time began to flow once more. Men shouted and cursed, scrambling backward in fear. King Haesta called for his guards, and the Malifex, standing quietly behind the throne, merely smiled. Not good enough, boy, came the voice in Sam’s head.

  Still, perhaps one day—

  And then rough arms grabbed him from behind. A voice cried, “Take him outside!” and he felt himself dragged backward, heels bouncing on the rough earth floor, toward the door.

  News of the excitement had spread around the town. A crowd began to gather. From houses and taverns, running figures converged on the central square. Sam was lifted up onto the shoulders of several of the king’s guards and found himself bouncing across the heads of the crowd, sky above him, noise and the stink of unwashed bodies beneath his back.

  Then the crowd parted, and Sam was thrown to the ground. He rolled, the air knocked from his lungs, and sprawled to a halt in the dust. Gasping for breath, he pushed himself up and looked around. Dusk was falling, and in the soft twilight, he saw that he was in the wide square of trampled earth at the heart of the town. Not far away, he could see the low circular building that served as the king’s feasting hall, the plume of smoke rising from its thatch tinged pink by the light of the setting sun. The crowd had pulled back, whispering and muttering, forming a rough circle around him. Children clung to their parents’ legs, excited and scared by the rumors of magic. As Sam peered at them, they gasped and hid in their mothers’ skirts. Slowly, with great effort, Sam got to his feet and stood swaying in the middle of the circle of faces. The efforts of the day were beginning to catch up with him, and he felt weak and dizzy. To one side, the crowd parted and Haesta strode into the square, with the Malifex, as always, at his shoulder. The muttering of the crowd ceased. With his hands on his hips, the king said, “It is clear that you are some sort of wizard or evil spirit. Counselor Morfax, however, seems to believe that you can be killed, and so we will attempt it. Now, what, I wonder, is the best way to destroy you?” He turned to the Malifex, and the two of them began a whispered conversation.

  Sam became aware of a commotion in the crowd, where the main street of the town entered the square. Gradually the stirring spread, and the crowd began to part. Through the gap rode Wayland on what appeared to be a cart horse. He reined the horse to a standstill. The crowd fell silent. King Haesta broke off his conversation and looked up.

  “Smith, what is the meaning of this?” he demanded.

  “I’ve come for the boy,” replied Wayland, steadily.

  ‡

  Amergin swam back up to consciousness like a man surfacing from deep water. Suddenly, he found himself gasping in the cool air of the cave, the blood roaring in his ears. For a moment, he thought he was on the shore of Ireland, thrown onto the sands of a new land by the stormy sea, but the darkness and the drip, drip of water said otherwise. Then he remembered. He had been hanging in the center of a cave in a world of agony, his mind fleeing through visions of the past, with the voices in his head, tormenting, questioning, demanding. Finally, he recalled with horror, his defenses had fallen, and the probing mind had picked from his exhausted brain one choice thought: an image of Sam, his eyes the color of amber, soft tendrils of foliage spilling from the corners of his mouth. Slowly, the realization dawned on him that he was not alone. Without moving, he cast out his mind to Finnvarr and Una, their thoughts almost audible.

  At the festival? he picked up from Una, and from Finnvarr, . . . await the coming of the May King. So that was it. They would attack the festival at the castle, break the power of the Green Man at the moment when he manifested as the May King. With the spirit of the Green Man broken, dispersed, his power—and that of the Malifex—would be taken by the Sidhe. Control of the cycles of nature, birth and death, the turning seasons, would fall to the Hosts of the Air, whose hatred of humankind spanned millennia.

  Amergin sensed that the faeries were leaving and risked opening one eye. As they left the chamber, the Lady Una turned and made a gesture with one hand. A webwork of pale lavender energy sprang into being across the doorway, sealing Amergin inside. The wizard sighed and pressed his cheek against the cold rock of the floor.

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  Megan and Mrs. P. sat in the old lady’s attic room, the light of the moon slanting in through the high window in the end wall. The room was crammed with old furniture, richly polished desks and bookcases. There was nothing of the tackiness of the downstairs rooms here. Everything had an air of age and quality. Like Megan’s study back in Dorset, every available surface was laden with books and artifacts—scientific instruments in gleaming brass, lumps of rock encrusted with fossils, incense burners, candles in elaborate holders. At one end of the room, in the one area relatively free from clutter, was a small altar, with a silver chalice, a wand of rowan wood, a small, exquisite athame—a black-handled knife—and a pentagram. Megan sat with her legs tucked up beneath her, seeming calm and still. But Mrs. P. could sense otherwise. She could read an aura better than Megan, having had many more years in which to practice. And Megan’s aura was thick with worry, violent colors swirling in constant agitation.

  “My dear,” she said, looking up from her work, “do try to calm down. You’re playing absolute havoc with the vibrations.”

  “Sorry,” replied Megan distractedly. But try as she might she could not drag her thoughts from their downward spiral. It seemed as if her life were falling apart. First, Amergin taken from her, who knew where. Then Sam . . . what on earth was she going to tell his parents? And now her baby, her Charly, newly initiated into the Craft and out in the dark hills, alone. She had gone to Charly’s room to make peace and found her gone, the drapes flapping in the open window. She chewed absently at a fingernail and stared blindly into the moonlit dark.

  Mrs. P. bent once more to the sphere of clear crystal on the desk before her, trying to shut out the background hiss of Megan’s thoughts. Her heart ached for her friend. Over the years, she had initiated many young girls into the Craft of the Wise, all of them as dear to her as daughters, all of them—when the time came—making that painful break.

  The heartache brought wisdom, in time, but all the wisdom in the world could not comfort a mother newly separated from her daughter. Still, in a way, she was glad that her friend was distracted. Her own aura, at that precise moment, did not bear close scrutiny.

  Time passed, and the silver minute hand of moonlight swept slowly across the carpet. Eventually, Megan could stand it no more. “Well?” she demanded, her voice loud in the silence. “Does it tell you anything? Is she all right?”

  “She is well,” replied Mrs. P. “Far from here—I do not know where—but well.”

  “And Amergin?”

  “He . . . is lost.”

  M
egan gasped, a look of sudden horror on her face.

  “No, my dear, not dead, but . . . lost to us. He wanders in his mind, I think, in places I cannot follow. But he lives. Sam, I cannot see, but I feel it in my bones that he is well. Some higher power, I sense, protects him.”

  Megan slumped back in her chair, eyes shut against tears of relief.

  “There is more,” continued the old lady. “The Sidhe are plotting, planning some evil. It involves the festival tomorrow. I think we should send out word among the Wise. I feel we will be needed.”

  “Right!” Megan unfolded from the chair in one fluid motion. “I’ll get on the phone, start letting people know.”

  Relieved to find an outlet for her tension, she bustled out of the room.

  Mrs. P. watched her go with a mixture of affection and pride. Megan had always been one of her favorites. She sat quietly, gazing out of the window at the dance of moonlight on the sea, remembering Megan’s initiation. But slowly, inevitably, her thoughts returned to what she had seen in the crystal ball. So many rituals down through the years, not only initiation and the marriage rite—the Handfasting—but also that other, more somber ritual, the Rite for the Dead. You would think that, as one who had presided for so long over the turning of the Wheel of Life, her own death would come as no surprise. Oh, well, she sighed, so much for wisdom. But one thing age had taught her was the futility of brooding. She took a deep breath and got to her feet. If she was to have one last adventure, then there were preparations to make.

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  Charly strode along the hallway, the soft padding of her boots loud in the silence. The twin rows of burning torches in their niches stretched away into the distance, almost converging at the vanishing point. They seemed to burn without smoke and with no sign that anyone attended to them. Their steady light barely illuminated the arches of the ceiling, far above. The air of the chamber, shielded from whatever season or weather prevailed in the world outside, was mild, and Charly began to feel uncomfortable in her leather jacket and boots. She had been walking for some time, and still the long hallway showed no signs of coming to an end. She wondered if she was in fact moving at all. The twin rows of torches and towering pillars marched by without any feature to mark her progress. She glanced behind, half expecting to see the exit from the treasure chamber. Instead, there were only the torches stretching away behind, but they seemed to stop a few hundred meters back. As she watched, the farthest pair of torches went out. And then the next. A wave of darkness was moving toward her along the hall, snuffing out the flames two by two.

  Charly turned back and began to walk more quickly. Perhaps it’s the wind, she thought, knowing as she did so that the air was completely still. Now she could hear a strange sound, a kind of hissing and murmuring, as though an unseen host of people was conversing in soft voices. She glanced back once more and saw that the darkness was drawing closer, faster than she could walk. She broke into a jog, wondering how long she could keep it up. Then, to her horror, she saw that up ahead the torches came to an end as they had behind, in a pool of darkness. She looked back over her shoulder and screamed. Like a black tidal wave, a sweeping shadow was bearing down upon her. And within it were creatures from her worst nightmares. Forgotten beasts from the elder days—driven underground along with the Sidhe, their masters—poured down the hall. The cu sith, huge black dogs with eyes of flame, loped toward Charly. Behind them came bugganes, shape-shifting from goblin to ram to giant bull. Swooping and flapping through the air, carrying the darkness to the high vaulted ceiling, were banshees, beautiful faery women with flowing black hair and fangs, who drank human blood. Farther back, lost in the black tide, were shapes Charly could not make out, terrible shapes. She screamed once more and broke into a run. Although there was darkness before her, she fled in terror from the horror behind her, from night into night.

  But as she ran, she made out a faint rectangle in the wall ahead, picked out in a flicker of firelight. The end of the torches ahead marked only the end of the long hallway, and Charly was within reach of a doorway. In blind panic, she ran down the last stretch, expecting with every pulse of her laboring heart to feel the breath of the black dogs on her neck. The boots she had created for herself rubbed against her heels and sweat was pouring down her spine within the leather jacket, but still she pushed herself onward. The noise—the immense, whispering wall of sound—was so close now it seemed to swirl around her as the rectangle of firelight grew, slowly, so painfully slowly. A red haze began to grow around the edges of Charly’s vision, and each breath burned in her chest like flame.

  And then the doorway was before her, the comforting flicker of firelight playing on its stone frame. She lunged toward the opening, boots skidding on the dusty floor, and flailed to a halt on the threshold. The room before her fell silent as the Host of the Sidhe paused from their feasting and looked up at her.

  ‡

  “Smith,” said King Haesta, “this is not your boy. In fact, it is not even a boy. It is a dwarf wizard of some sort. In your place, I would not wish to claim allegiance with a wizard sentenced to death.”

  “As yer like,” replied Wayland. “Still, I’ve come for the boy, an’ I ain’t leavin’ without ’im.”

  “In that case—” Haesta sighed. “You will die with him. Guards.”

  Soldiers with iron spears and swords stepped forward. Wayland slid from the back of his horse and dropped to the ground. It seemed to Sam as though the ground shook as his feet hit the earth of the square. From a sling on his back, the smith drew a hammer, a lump of blue gray iron the size of his two fists, mounted on the end of a long wooden handle. He dropped the hammerhead to the ground between his feet and rested his hands on the handle’s upper end.

  “Sam, me lad,” said the smith, “we better be takin’ us leave o’ these folk. Down the high street, if yer please.”

  Sam made to move, and the guards started forward to stop him. With incredible speed, the smith’s hammer lashed out, and two of the guards dropped to the ground, moaning.

  “Go on, lad!” exclaimed Wayland. “Don’t stand sowin’ gape seed. Shift it!” Sam closed his mouth and began to push through the crowd, heading for the long main street. No one seemed inclined to stop him. However, looking back he saw that Wayland was surrounded by a growing number of the king’s guards. Fearing for his friend, he paused. The smith’s hammer was whirling around his head, almost too fast for Sam to follow. The hum it made as it cut through the air was punctuated by the crack of bone. More guards poured into the square, but as he fought, Wayland seemed to grow. He was a good head taller than the largest of his opponents now, and a light seemed to be flowing out of his skin. As Sam watched, the smith became taller still and broader. Throwing back his head, he bellowed with laughter as the huge hammer hummed and sang. Sam decided it was safe to leave the smith to his work and slipped through the back of the crowd into the street beyond. Despite his exhaustion, he managed to jog down the slope toward the town gate. Soon he heard footsteps behind him and turned. To his relief, it was the smith, grinning fiercely, covered with scratches and cuts but otherwise unscathed.

  “Right then, young Sam,” panted the smith, “we needs get you back on yer quest to ’elp yer friend.” Outside the gate, he gestured to the right and led Sam around the curve of the hill, following the crest of one of the great defensive ditches that encircled the town. A quarter of the way around the town’s perimeter, Wayland pointed to a slight rise, a smaller version of the hilltop on which the town stood. Here a beacon fire was burning, throwing sparks up into the deepening twilight.

  “That’s where we’re ’eaded,” explained the smith. Sam looked puzzled but was content to follow. They crossed the ditch on a narrow wooden bridge and headed up the gentle slope onto the very crest of the Downs. Gazing out over the landscape below, the strangeness of his situation hit Sam like a hammer blow. Where he would have expected the orange map work of streetlights was . . . nothing. A rolling blanket of blue gray woodland stre
tched out under the soft evening air to the dying stain of the sun on the far horizon. What was he doing here, so far from home? He heard a grunt from Wayland and turned.

  Something moved across the darkened turf of the hilltop toward them, a blur of deeper darkness that resolved itself into the figure of the Malifex. The smith pulled his hammer from its sling once more.

  “Boy,” began the Malifex, standing before them, hands on hips, “I don’t know who—or what—you are, but you have powerful friends. Well met, Volund.” He nodded to the smith, who stared calmly back.

  “Your friend here,” the Malifex continued to Sam, “is the son of Wate, the sea giant. Almost a god. But not quite, eh?”

  Wayland shrugged.

  “But you, boy, you are a puzzle. My brother’s stench is all over you, but he is not one for meddling in human affairs. Strange. . . . There is clearly a tale to be told here. Sadly, though, I fear I will have to kill you and leave it untold.”

  He drew back one hand, fingers clawed.

  “Sam!” shouted the smith. “Into the fire!”

  “What?” Sam looked horrified.

  “The Gate of Fire! Quick!”

  The Malifex unleashed a bolt of energy, violet lightning crackling through the air. Quick as thought, the smith’s hammer flew into its path, deflecting it harmlessly to the side.

  “You’re a Walker Between Worlds, lad,” called Wayland. “Just think of where you want ter go and trust.”

  Sam turned from the smith to the beacon fire, a blazing pyre of logs on the hill’s summit, spitting sparks into the sky. His mouth went dry. The Malifex had turned his attention to Wayland now. The two of them were locked in battle, the smith huge once more and full of glee, glowing with his own power. The Malifex hurled bolt after bolt of malice, but Wayland parried with his hammer, occasionally lashing out to strike the Malifex with a force that shook the hill.