Role Playing Fan Fiction ❯ In Mortality's Grasp ❯ May, 1969- April 1970 ( Chapter 1 )

aIn Mortality’s Grasp
"The portents speak of many changes....drastic changes." The seer sighed. "But that is, as usual, all that I can get out of anything....." She shook her head, eyes locking with the chill blue ones of her questioner. There was silence in the room at odds with the number of people within, the only sound the cold hard ssssschunk of a whetstone dragged across an edge. The man who questioned frowned, his eyes straying to the girl, his daughter, who slowly and methodically sharpened the sword resting across her knees.
"And you?" he demanded of his daughter. "What do you see, Laine?"
She shrugged slightly, still mesmerized by her task. "I see....nothing." she finally answered him. "Nothing, Father."
It was a lie. That he knew, without any gift of sight to aid him. Laine lied. And she did it badly. But she still readied for battle, in a slow, methodical way that chilled him. Laine had denied, or refused, the use of her sight since the last, disastrous time she’d spoken from its prodding, but she knew something....something that he, Magnus Einarsson needed to know as well. If it affected the safety and well-being of his people, it was his business. Laine saw something...something that made his normally noncombative daughter all business in preparations for a fight. That blade across her knees....he’d taught her to use it, and use it well, but it normally carried the blunted edge of a practice blade. Now the firelight danced golden along a razor keen line when she held it up to test its sharpness with a cautious finger.
"You lie." he finally accused, and she met his stare, her dark, golden eyes fuming with constrained rage.
"I do...not." she snapped back, running an oily rag over the blade and replacing it in its scabbard.
"Perhaps, Magnus...." The seer began slowly, "The girl sees nothing...but feels much."
Magnus could understand that. He had not been born with the sight, but he could feel the rising.......wait........that the very air held. He did not sense any malice in the feeling... perhaps Laine did, or perhaps his daughter chose caution in the face of this unknown. It was unlike her to decide to rely on her martial skills rather than her level head, but caution was an admirable trait. He glanced at her, but she had bent back over the blade, rubbing it with an oily rag to smooth away the last traces of the sharpening.
"Aye." he finally agreed. It was obvious that the seer could give him no more, and that Laine would give him no more. Anyway, tomorrow was a holiday, and he wanted a celebration, a celebration as close to the ones that they’d had before as possible. Before Gunnar had listened to Laine’s advice....back when they were truly a family.
Laine gripped the war-horse’s snaffle reins, her eyes locked on the empty field before her. Someone else straddled the black stallion she held, someone whose attention was elsewhere.....someone who trusted Laine to control him while......the edge of a handpainted map fell across Laine’s elbow, dragged back up again by the unknown rider. It was hot...hotter than hell... the black chainmail that she wore dragged at her shoulders, the horse reeked of salt stronger than she’d ever smelled before. She could smell the verdant growth, the alfalfa on the horse’s breath, the oiled steel and leather she wore. She could feel the multitudes behind her....waiting...waiting....she could feel the sweat trickle down her scalp...drop to disappear into the darkness of her cloak. The stallion maneuvered tapir like lips towards the finely gauntleted hand she used to hold him, and like a movie she had no control of, she brought her left hand, (also gauntleted in the same luxurious mulehide as the one that held his reins), up towards him in a threatening gesture, fingers clenching in a fist. He blew a leery snort out at her, shifting nervously under the rider.
The rider snapped something in a language that Laine didn’t recognize, pulling up the slack on the curb reins to assert more control over the stallion. The rider’s (whom Laine understood to be male) voice was melodic, yet terrifying in its command. The stallion froze....ears flicking in agitation, but he remained rock still. Finally done, the rider rolled the map, stowing it away in the saddlebag behind Laine’s shoulder. His hand, gauntled as hers were, dropped to the top of her head with the same casual ownership that he had just used on the horse........ She glanced his way, not up into his eyes, but over, enough to see high, dusty black boots set into silver stirrups, black breeches, the rolled edges of his saddle, high pommelled and cantled as a knight’s saddle should be. His shirt was black silk, plastered to a thin abdomen by sweat and a finely tooled black leather waist belt. His cloak fell over her arm, black lined with silver silk, the only relief from the inky blot of blackness of his clothing, his horse, Laine’s clothing and armor..... "Do ye see them yet?" he demanded slowly.
"No....I don’t." her own voice, different in age and echoing through the dream, answered.
The fingers resting on her head tightened slightly, then moved as he smoothed down her sweat slicked mass of raven black hair. The touch was the same he used on the horse, commanding, yet soothing......
Laine woke suddenly, still gripped by the dream. The humid, oppressive heat still pushed down on her, her fingers still grasped the stallion’s reins, she felt the weight of the rider’s hand upon her head. She slid from her bed, the sheets soaked in sweat despite the chill in the room, and paddled barefoot to the window, wrestling it open. Cold air, spiced with snow and pine, flooded the room, chilling Laine immediately, banishing the remembered swelter. It was May, Syttende Mai, to be exact, but winter did not give up easily in the mountains. Goosebumps rose on her skin, and her teeth began to chatter a long time before she ceased to feel the miasmic heat. Finally, it did go, and she pulled the window shut against the dawn’s cold. She dressed quickly, and came down the battered wooden stairs to the main hall.
It was empty, the embers banked in the hearth, the trestles pulled in under the long table. Laine paused, listening. Nothing. She had beaten them down stairs, but not for long. Soon, Gudrun and Sigurd would be up, Gudrun to begin preparations for the holiday meal, Sigurd to help until she needed to go to school. Normally, it would be taken for granted that Laine would help, but Gudrun and Sigurd did not forgive nearly as easily as the men seemed to. Gunnar was gone. Gunnar was dead, on Laine’s advice, something his mother and sister was determined that Laine would pay for.
The thought of staying around for more of that brought the chill back, so Laine stuffed a heel of bread and a chunk of cheese in her bag, and slipped from the main hall to the armory. She took her bow from a hook on the wall, fetched a spare bowstring and a dozen arrows, her padded leather armor, a bag of split chain links, and a pair of pliers. The skies were dark gray limed with peach in the East when she made her escape into the craggy woods. Let them celebrate Syttende Mai without her, she would take comfort in solitude.
"Where is Laine?" Magnus demanded over breakfast, eyeing the empty space at the trestle. His wife, Gudrun, and daughter, Sigurd, shrugged their ignorance together. The seer blew into her bowl, entranced by the rising steam.
"Laine has gone already this morning. We won’t be seeing her today."
Those were the words that he feared, and he disliked the conspiratorial glance between Gudrun and Sigurd at them. He was aware of the cold and steady alienation occurring in his household, his wife and blood daughter squaring off against his adopted daughter as retribution for Gunnar’s death. He had decided at the beginning to stay out...let the three of them work it out. Laine was blameless in Gunnar’s death, and he had thought it would only take a little time for Gudrun to come to that conclusion. Without Gudrun’s support, Sigurd’s attacks against Laine would fail as they had always failed before. But Gudrun had not come around, she continued to fan the growing malice, and Laine could not be raised in malice. The implications numbed him as he finally faced them, it was something he needed to consider. He had been entrusted with Laine’s upbringing, and he was failing. Malice bred malice, and his adopted daughter had always walked just a little bit too close to her own personal darkness.
He was concerned, too, with the bated wait he felt in the air around him. He was not particularly endowed with the sight, or any other occult senses, but he felt it nonetheless. Those around him who were gifted had begun to act oddly. The seer was more watchful, more cautious than normal. Laine prepared for war. The woods burst with dryads, butterflies the size of dinner plates, a griffin nested on Hawson’s Ledge. He wished for normalcy, a chance to catch his breath and figure out where he was going with this.
Laine sat under a spreading aspen, fingers moving with a mind of their own. Ring spliced to ring...spliced again.......again.. gain.. the repetition calmed her.....
Her fingers, heavy with rings, a fortune of rings, rings of silver and onyx, platinum and black sapphire, piled one over another on her long fingers, fingers deftly, smoothly, quickly running mail rings together...each one crimped shut to be soldered later. She sat in a pool of black silk edged with silver fox, resting against an enameled set of field plate as she constructed the lighter, less constrictive mail shirt for......
The scene faded, and Laine shut her eyes, her fingers stilled for the moment. She spent much of her time elsewhere...elsewhen, it was, as the seer said, part of the payment for her "gift". Before Gunnar’s death, she spent a lot of time in "elsewhen", remembering lives that had come before. These images were cold with time....memories healed, only snatches of visions from which she might glean important insights. Then Gunnar had died, and she spent months replaying that situation in dreams that were no expression of any so called gift. But now, this was different. These images were warm, vibrant, real, and they came even when Laine was awake. She was becoming as bad as the seer...fumbling around in several worlds, disjointed life aided by those that surrounded her as long as she remained useful.
There was no need for Laine to have mail. She’d never had an interest in it before, just as she’d never been interested in honing the greatsword’s edge to a keen sharpness. Padded leather was good enough for the obligatory martial training that Magnus Einarsson’s daughter must possess...and for the sword, it tended to cut through whatever it was aimed at, no matter how blunt it was. That was, after all, the nature of a magical blade. But the fugues descended more and more often now, and Laine was drawn closer and closer to battle readiness, although she was considered as much a noncombatant as any who resided in the lodge, except, of course, Sigurd.
She sighed, listening to the woods. Laine had never gotten along with Sigurd, Gunnar’s death was only an excuse for the other girl to openly hate Laine. Laine had been adopted by Magnus three years ago, close to her twelfth birthday, which made her just three months Sigurd’s junior. Gunnar had loved Sigurd...but had worshipped Laine, an affront that the other did not forget.
Finished with the (insert), she pulled the liquidly metal mail through her hands, studying the gloss of the steel links. That simply would not do...it screamed "shoot me" for fifty yards distance, at least. Laine hung it high in a nearby fir tree, imprinting its location firmly in her head. She would come back for it later, when it had dulled.
She must return home now, the sun had dipped halfway behind the mountains. Laine could survive the coming night outside, but she did not have the necessary gear to make such a stay comfortable. It wouldn’t be long before the deepening shadows made the journey back more treacherous than she cared to attempt.
Laine slipped in the back door the lodge, assaulted by the smell of limed cod and Magnus’s homebrewed ale, the sounds of her entry covered by the revelry. She wrinkled her nose, making her way up the steps to her own room in the lodge’s loft. The others would celebrate for hours more...but she would sleep...if that was possible.
Strangely, no dream of past or future came, and Laine woke refreshed early the next morning. She crawled out of her snug bed, waving bare toes inches above the wooden floor. It was going to be cold, but the best thing would be to just go for it. She pushed off, landing gracefully, then froze at the chime of something small and metallic hitting the wooden floor in her wake. A quick scan of the floor showed the gleam of an object that Laine did not recognize, and she picked it up to scrutinize it. It appeared to be a large button, but some part of her understood instinctually that it wasn’t. It was a white rose crafted out of differing shades of mother of pearl set in silver, the whole of it about the size of a quarter dollar. The shank was sturdier than a button’s shank, threaded with a white silk ribbon that sported a long silver tassel on each end. "What the hell?" she wondered aloud, running the ribbon through her fingers. She recognized the emblem of the Seelie Court, of course, Magnus wore a cloak brooch much like this, but the use of this finely crafted and obviously expensive item was beyond her, not to add that she had no idea how it came to be here. Magnus frowned on personal ornamentation, in his own mind it was unseemly to flaunt what one had. Laine was not as humble by nature, but in Magnus’s lodge, as his oathdaughter, she obeyed his wishes.
She glanced around the spare room in confusion. It was not unheard of for Sigurd to go through her things when she was absent, but things tended to disappear when that happened, not appear, and Laine was fairly certain that this had not been around when she had gone to bed. Sigurd was unable to sneak well enough to leave Laine asleep.
The rosy dawn light caught more metal strewn across the plain coverlet, and the puzzled frown between Laine’s brows deepened. There were another three of the "buttons", each the same, down to the eighteen inches or so of tasseled ribbons. Laine did, however, recognize the last object resting precariously near the edge, and she picked it up slowly. It had the same basic design as the "buttons", two finely crafted mother of pearl roses set into silver, a third again larger than the roses on the "buttons". Instead of button shanks, each of these had a sturdy hook of steel for a backing, the hooks opposed to each other, and the roses had small, intricately carved jade leaves carved to mirror each other. A left rose, and a right rose, joined to each other by three finely linked silver chains, each an inch or so longer than the one that was above it. Laine had seen this before, though she had not possessed one. The hooks latched into the grommets at the neck of a cloak, the chains falling across the wearers chest. The identification did not help with solving the mystery of how this came to be resting on Laine’s bed, with the matching whatever they were. She gathered the "buttons" in her hands, holding them closely, pressing her nose against their smooth chill. The slight scent of lavender and cinnamon contained in the ribbons dragged her unresisting towards the vision.
"You have beautiful hair." he murmured, running the brush through Laine’s raven wing tresses. He sat in a chair, she sat on the footstool before him, her back to him, her elbows resting on his thighs. Two of the "buttons" were visible, one on each of his knees, tassels dangling over his boot tops. He gathered the mass of hair up in one hand, snatching up the "button" on his right knee. He deftly tied the ribbons into her hair, long fingers plaiting it. When he reached the end, he secured the braid with the other "button", dropping the braid over Laine’s shoulder into her view. The rose faced out, it’s silvery white, gray and dove pink brilliantly displayed against her blue black hair, shank hidden in her hair, tassels cascading along the last few inches of unrestrainted tail.
The vision ended politely, and Laine chuckled. Hair fasteners....four of them. Fancy, fancy hair fasteners, and an ornate cloak chain. All affectations that Magnus would frown on and would require explanations that Laine didn’t have. The best thing to do would be to hide them away until Laine didn’t need to explain how she came by them.
She dressed quickly, gathering the jewelry together and tying them into a pouch that she secreted in the bottom back corner of her foot chest, and locking the only lock in the lodge to keep them safe. She hadn’t managed to get Magnus’s permission to lock her room door after finally managing to catch Sigurd red handed in her forays.... "There will no locked doors in my lodge....." but she had managed to gain a lock for her chest, over his grumblings. The pretties would be safe in there, hidden from Sigurd’s prying ways.
Five more days passed without incident, except for the slowly heightening electricity in the air. It swelled so slowly, so persistently, that even Laine, as sensitive as she was, only noticed it the first thing each morning. After the fifth day, more and more objects began to appear around Laine, small, luxurious objects of great craft and value. But, also on the fifth day, the manifestations in the lodge began to grow in blatancy, and Laine could hide the mysteriously appearing items without notice.
In the first days of June, the fire in the hearth, usually banked to a dull red glow nearly lost in the gloom of the great hall, burst into life. The flames were tall, barely restrained by the hearth, vivid shades of peacock blue and teal green. All attempts to bring the fire down, calm or control it, failed, and it cast eerie, surreal lights and shadows across the simple trestles and chairs. By the middle of June, it was unapproachable, a wild torrent of uncontrolled flame, and the family ate in the kitchen where the light was calm, normal electrical yellow.
Laine sat on a spur of rock that overlooked the lodge valley, hands folded in her lap. She was thankful for the balefire’s continued misbehavior, for this morning had dawned with the appearance of more objects...one too large to hide well. Her mornings had become a Yuletide of new, lush treasures, each outshining the first. They really, honestly did appear out of thin air....as their occurrences waxed, Laine caught them blinking into existence more and more often. Indeed, as she considered it, she felt the edge of a ring that had not been there before, its cold band encircling her right ring finger. She did not glance down, the rings were much of a sameness....different in design and components, yet alike in their quality and coloring. They had started as onyx and silver, but jumped in worth with steady increments. This morning’s addition had been black sapphire set in a white gold band, and it had become obvious that these objects were worth a fortune. New this morning was the appearance of a convenient carrying case for all the largesse, a large, intricately carved and inlaid ebony chest with a clever, removable and foldable stand that raised the chest to Laine’s hip height. Too, too large to hide, but the lodge was more concerned with the inferno contained in the great hall to worry about what Laine hid in her room.
The clouds boiled on the horizon towards Denver, it had been dark that way when Laine woke, but she could now pick out the leading edge of the storm against the high blue of the sky, and it was moving fast in her direction. They were in for a blow, that was obvious.
Less than an hour later, it was clear that this storm was not natural, the clouds boiled with the same colors as the balefire, lucent blue flashes that became lightning dancing from cloud to cloud as it approached. The birds silenced...the winds died abruptly, and that part of Laine that was sane and sensical screamed that a quick return to the lodge would be the most prudent course of action. Laine usually listened to that part, but for some reason she could not comprehend, she only sat and watched the storm come.
The first golden droplet landed with a sharp hiss less than a foot from Laine’s knee...the second dead centered on her head. It was warm in spite of the crisp day, warm and alive. Then the skies opened up and drenched her to the skin in a moment. The sensation was incredible...warm...alive....whole....true.....then outrage overwhelmed her.
The main door to the lodge, in the lee of the storm, threw open, and Magnus raised his head to peer at his returning daughter. She had been caught by this damnable storm, dripping golden drops on the floor.. drops that slowly began to roll towards the main hall, towards the door that shook and moaned against the sudden onslaught from the uncontrolled balefire. Laine’s stare was dark, furious, and Magnus cut short his irate response to her condition.
"Laine?" he asked softly, feeling the hair on his neck raise, the skin under his tunic pucker. She locked eyes with him, a gaze that he would have normally rewarded with the back of his hand. Magnus tolerated little from his charges, both blood and oath related. He taught them to be too dangerous to not teach a healthy dose of respect with it. But this was different.
"Do you know who I am?" she demanded hoarsely, "Do you know who you’re dealing with?"
Magnus decided quite quickly that he did not, and cast his glance around for the seer. The ancient woman was already on her feet...slowly and cautiously closing the distance between herself and Laine. "Magnus." the seer murmured softly... "Close the door...and do it quickly."
That made sense, and was a request he was happy to oblige. Laine watched him, expression unchanging, drying with unnatural speed as the drops jumped to freedom and slid across the floor. "You can’t do this to me." she snarled coldly. "This is a mistake. I cannot....I will not be treated in this fashion."
The seer made a soothing noise, and Laine’s head snapped around towards her. "Leave me alone. This is an outrage." Laine continued.
"Outrage is right." Sigurd laughed from the kitchen. "She’s finally lost it."
Thankfully, Laine appeared not to have heard that statement, rolling her head back against her shoulders, falling forward onto her knees. The seer retreated, and Sigurd came out of the kitchen to watch the show. "No!" Laine shouted, her voice husky and low. "No, no, no, no, no! Damnit, no!"
"Can we get her a straitjacket and some nice drugs now, Father?" Sigurd demanded, sarcasm bridling her voice, as she wiped her hands on her apron. "I think she’s swimming in the deep end."
"NO!" The snarl grated viciously across Magnus’s nerves, and even the seer seemed at a loss. "No! Fallllllllling! Fallllllllling!" Laine howled, volume rising to a fevered pitch. The door to the main hall thumped irately against the door jamb and there was an audible pop as one of the nails in the hinges gave. The door jamb blackened with charcoal, and Magnus stepped cautiously away from the erupting scene. Laine’s last scream was incoherent, the door exploded, and the entryway was riddled with oaken shrapnel.
For a moment Magnus thought the silence came with his deafness, then the timid call of a bird shattered the emptiness. The seer and Sigurd rose to their feet, both stunned into wordlessness. Laine knelt on her shins, the door behind her, and terror leaped into Magnus’s stomach.
"Laine?" he demanded harshly, glancing into the main hall. The inferno had ceased, the table shattered against the wall, a healthy fire burning contentedly in the hearth.
"Father?" her voice was small...faraway. She stood, hair obliterating her features until she raised her head to look over at him. She extended her hands towards him and her fingers dripped blood.
"You’re bleeding." he noted the obvious, coming to her. The wounds were not from the door exploding, he realized, scrutinizing them. She was untouched except for her wrists, ringed by blistered, angry, worn gouges which bled profusely. There was a ring on the middle finger of her left hand that he had never noticed before, the engraving on the silver band channeling her crimson blood, the stone a large, perfect ruby lost in the scarlet drops. If it were real, it would be worth a fortune. He tugged on it slightly, attempting to remove it, but it did not budge.
"Are you all right?" he finally managed to say.
"The Gates are open. They have returned." she noted helpfully.
"That’s nice." he muttered with the same distance he gave a child’s fancy, stanching the bleeding with his tunic hem. The blast must have stunned her silly.
Chapter 2.
"NO!" he was falling...falling...fallllllllllllling. He landed badly, knocking the breath from his lungs, and sending a wave of pain through his body. It took him long moments to regain his breath, longer to fight the dizziness and nausea down. He opened his eyes cautiously, seeing a moon partially obscured by high scuttling clouds. The stench around him kicked his nausea up, and he retched, bringing nothing up from his painfully empty stomach. He finally managed to get an arm underneath himself, and he pushed himself to a seated position. A quick survey of his surroundings put him in an alley, squatting in what could only be a refuse container. The outrage he had felt was draining away into exhausted confusion. Who was he? Where was he? He groped up with a shaking hand, a hand adorned with a silver ring, its engraving darkened with his blue blood, the same blue as the large, perfect sapphire lost in the blood and the darkness. His grip failed on the edge the first two times, but the third time held and he managed to fall gracelessly out of the midden bin to the ground.
Who was he? There was a bump on his head that might explain that loss. His hands were wet with blood, blood that he absently wiped on his once black breeches. Who? It came back as a whisper..... Eamonn. Eamonn Mathory. Eamonn Mathory ap Ailil. Where was a question that did not answer itself so easily. He pulled the edge of his cloak around him although the night was warm. The air was thin, and stank of burning pitch.
He was in a city, loud, raucous, brightly lit, filled with people and buildings, but it was a city unlike any that he’d ever seen before. The two buildings that formed the alley towered over his head, fifty, sixty feet tall. They, in turn, were shadowed by buildings even taller. The noise and scenery confused him even more, and he shook his head slowly, taking a few shaky steps towards the street. He pulled himself together as he walked, forcing the confusion out of his stance. Three steps brought him into the street...and into the path of the oncoming car.
"To bed with you, girl." Magnus said gruffly, easily carrying Laine’s bulk upstairs and pushing the door to her room open. The seer followed, carrying bandages and tea.
"The Gates have opened. They have returned." Laine sighed against his shoulder.
"You’ve said already, girl." he soothed, finding her bed by the lighter shadow of the bedspread. The seer lit a lamp, placing it on the legged chest pushed against the wall next to the door.
"That’s strange." the seer muttered. "Where did that come from?" she shrugged in answer to herself, before kneeling to study the wounds on the girl’s wrists. "You know what these look like, eh, Magnus?"
Magnus did. If he didn’t know better, he would say that Laine had been bound for a long time, shackled with iron. Days, at least, to cause that much damage, enough time to cause the bleeding that still seeped down her palms, the iron to cause the blistery burns in evidence. The girl had been fine at breakfast that morning, only eleven hours previous to the explosion in the hall.
"Odd magics at work tonight indeed." the seer sighed, carefully sponging blood away. "Does look like iron. Iron shackles. And this room, it’s filled with glamour. Don’t you feel it?"
Yes, Magnus did feel the thrum of magic that continued even though the other manifestations had suddenly calmed after the explosion. He sighed. It had seemed like an easy enough task....raise Laine until she was ready to go on her own. It was the right, the honorable, thing to do. Reality was more difficult than imagining, however. She was a troll, same as he was. Same as Gudrun. Raising her should have been easy enough, but he had not counted on what he’d received. He had not expected her attitude, the thin edge of darkness she rode, within whispering distance of her Unseelie nature. He had not expected her looks...the incredibly fair looks that had entranced Gunnar instantly, and alienated Sigurd just as quickly. And he had most definitely not counted on the "gift" of sight that she brought with her, uncontrolled and unconfined. He didn’t blame her for Gunnar’s death, not in the slightest bit. Gunnar would have gone to Vietnam come hell or high water after he was called to do so. Laine’s statement confirming that he should go just made it easier for him to do so. Magnus found the other problems inherent in Laine’s "gift" intolerable, her distance and inattentiveness bothered him. And now, all of this. Magnus liked his life...his lodge, in good order, predictable. Calm. Things had not been calm since Laine had walked through his door.
"She’ll recover, of course." the seer noted, "It’ll scar, though." she scrubbed at the ring with the cloth she had used to clean up the blood. Like Magnus had before, she gave it a thoughtful tug, then a more determined pull. "It doesn’t come off." she said, peering at it closely.
"I noticed." it was just another weird thing about Laine that Magnus did not like. He loved the girl dearly....but liked her little. He had been expecting.. hoping...for a child much like Gunnar, another young one who needed his nuturance, his guidance, and would be appropriately thankful for it.
"Let her sleep it off." the seer advised, casting another glance around the room. Things were afoot....but it was best to keep that from Magnus. He disliked change. This was most certainly a change.
Laine woke to silence, and pain. She hurt worse than she had during the worst of Magnus’s training sessions. Her side ached with a dull, gnawing spasm, and her wrists were bandaged. She was in her own room, with no recollection of how she’d gotten there. The last she remembered.....a headache drowned out that question. It was best to leave it with not knowing right now.
She dressed clumsily, struggling to manage her clothing around the pain and the blood stained bandages. Had she done something stupid? She didn’t think so. She opened her door to the distinct smell of charcoal, and there were chimerical streaks of smoke up the stairwell walls. Fire. Her mind dredged up a vague memory of golden raindrops falling from the sky, warm and filling on her flesh, but no fire. She studied the stairs carefully before entrusting them with her weight.
The entire lower floor of the lodge was a shambles of overturned and burnt furnishings, overlaid with a pall of woodsmoke aroma. The door to the balefire was gone, only a twisted hinge dangled from the jamb. Magnus sat, surveying the damage when she entered.
"What happened?" she finally asked.
"You don’t remember?" he demanded, and she sighed. This was a no win situation, she could tell that already. She uprighted a chair, dusted off some soot, and sat beside him. If he thought she should remember, then she had obviously been here, and with the terseness in his voice, he held her at least partially responsible for the damage. Another attempt at recall only worsened the headache.
She fought back a snide retort. Magnus was quick with the back of his hand if crossed. He demanded respect, and she found herself reining in her first responses to his questions all too often.
"No." she finally decided on that as an answer. Truthful, yet not enough to get her into trouble.
"I don’t know what happened." he sighed. "The balefire...exploded, is the best I can say. There was the storm..."
The golden raindrops. The power, multiplying exponentially. Falling. Falling. Pain. Disorientation. Sudden blinding agony........
Laine bit back the gasp as she returned. Magnus hated her mind wandering away when he was speaking to her. She had learned to conceal it as best she could. "......You came back at the end of the storm...drenched, and spouting nonsense..."
Nonsense. Magnus’s designation for any soothsay babble he couldn’t immediately infer the meaning of, meaning most of it.
"You.. were different. Commanding. Quite an attitude...."
This is an outrage. You cannot do this to me. Do you know who I am?
"Eamonn Mathory a......." she whispered, her lips clenching shut on the end of the statement. The gates have opened. They have returned. They have returned. Ap Ailil. Eamonn Mathory ap Ailil. Is in Denver, now. The sidhe have returned. The gates have opened to Arcadia.....
She returned her stare to Magnus, needing no control to keep her face placid. The realization brought too much shock in its wake for an expression to encompass. Six hundred years gone, and they returned now.
"....Well...you seem well enough now...." Magnus continued, oblivious. "We’re going into town for supplies. There are repairs to be made. You’ll stay. Can’t have the questions."
Never the questions. Who was Laine? Where was she from? Why was she here? Where were her real parents? Why didn’t she go to school? And now, what had happened to her that left her wrists bloody and her sides bruised? But that was fine. Laine had no urge to go to Telluride this day, and it was best that the others left. The seer would not go, but she would not stop Laine from doing what needed to be done.
Laine watched the family pile into the truck, only nodding slightly at Sigurd’s triumphant look. She could feel the seer at her side, watching as well. The truck was gone for long minutes before the seer finally spoke. "You’re going."
"Yes." the call of fate...Dàn itself, called. And Laine Magnusdottir heard. Magnus had drawn so tightly into his own shell of denial and command to have lost it, but Laine did not belong to him.
"Be careful." the seer sighed. "Things are moving quickly...."
"The gates have opened. The sidhe have returned."
The seer was speechless, and Laine wouldn’t have stayed to discuss it with her even if she weren’t. It was time for Laine to go. Time to end her fosterage under Magnus and make her own way in the world. She had been his fledge for a year and a day, and his oath daughter for another three years. She had been here long enough.
She headed for the garage, for her way out of here. The car had idled, untouched in the garage since Gunnar’s death six months ago, but Laine would bet it still ran. And it was hers now, despite whatever Magnus may think. Gunnar had said so, and right now, Laine was going to hold that promise dear.
The Impala was dusty, and the engine was slow to catch, but when it did, Laine exulted to the gravely purr of its engine. A good run on the interstate should clear a lot of its problems out, and Laine intended on giving it just that.
She packed quickly and carried her belongings out to the car, under the seer’s stare. Magnus and Gudrun together could have attempted to prevent her from leaving... fighting one grump troll would have been difficult, two of them might stop her. But they were gone, and the seer, even if she tried, couldn’t stop Laine.
She backed the Impala out of the garage, nodding at the seer’s slight wave, before turning and heading for the interstate. Once there, she turned north, and let the car go to its cruising speed.
He wondered if she would come, hoped she would answer the call, in spite of all that was happening. Laine was no one he could command to return to his side, but he could send out a call for her. He had waited for hours now...would wait here as long as he could. The failing Gate flared and flickered...he was afraid to stray too far from it. Surely Laine knew it was closing, as it had been closing for weeks, and it was one of the few that remained open. The crowd to use it had passed through already, now the woods were deep and primordial, menacing in their coldness.
He heard the muffled, surreal thumps of hooves...but the low-lying fog played with his senses. He stepped back to the very verge of the Gate, just in case.....
The fog swirled and parted to reveal Laine, mounted on her war horse. She rode to within five yards of him, removing her helm and slowly untying her arming cap. "You have called, Eamonn. I have answered." she sighed, the pull of exhaustion tempering her voice. She ran fingers through the dull roach of her hair, and he felt a slight pang. Laine’s raven hair was a loss, tossed aside to the practicalities of living in armor. She was drenched in sweat, the silver dragon of her surcoat so obscured by filth and long dried blood that only Eamonn’s imagination could reconstruct it.
"This Gate is closing. Come back. Come back, Evhelaine." he implored softly. "You’ve done all you can."
Her nostrils constricted and she scratched absently at the back of her neck. "I...cannot, Eamonn." she finally stated, her eyes, as black as the darkest Baltic amber, falling first to his upturned face, then to the waning Gate.
"We’ll...I’ll...work this all out somehow, Laine." he promised. "But I can’t if you won’t come through.... There hasn’t been anyone through here in over a week...all that want through are through by now."
"That is not so. Darkness moves to block the way. It must be kept open. And after this one...then the next. The Silver Gate still stands open."
"Laine.. this is a lost cause. You have done all you can. No one can lay blame at your feet...you have fought well.. bravely." The Gate flickered, dulled, and Eamonn flinched. Laine’s face tightened, her visage dropping into a dark, enraged, utterly Unseelie expression, and Eamonn knew who stood behind him.
"I will work this out." he whispered to Laine, raising a hand beseechingly in her direction.
"Yes....Evhelaine of House Ailil." the tone was mocking, grating, and a snarl rose to Eamonn’s lips. His lady’s hand closed, tightly........painfully.............on his shoulder. Her voice was beautiful, and as cold as a wet snow. She herself was as beautiful, and as cold as her voice. He didn’t need to turn to know that her outward splendor far outshone Laine’s worn appearance. He had fallen prey to that splendor, and to that evil. His oaths to Galiena bound him as strongly and burdensome as chains would. "Eamonn will work this out." Galiena laughed mockingly, and hate boiled in Eamonn’s heart. He had made the wrong choice... He could have had Laine... but he had foolishly chased the glitter instead of the wealth.
Laine cocked her head, but said nothing in return. Eamonn knew it was lost, knew he was lost. Any chance he had of convincing Laine to cross the Gate evaporated in Galiena’s presence. "Evhelaine." he managed, knowing he was about to get himself into a world of hurt... "I love you."
Galiena’s grasp tightened, and Eamonn felt his fingers go numb. Later...later, he would pay for that. Dearly. But it had to be said. Laine cocked her head comically in the other direction, but her stare was sheer death.
"I...." she began slowly, ponderously, as if every syllable drained her, "I am...."
"You are what?" Galiena demanded, pulling Eamonn back He was powerless to stop her, held by oaths made from a foolish infatuation. He was hers, body, mind, soul...free only in his heart. "’Tis time to give this up, Eamonn. She wishes to stay...so be it."
Laine drooped, turning her face to study her horse’s neck, deep in thought. Eamonn felt the Gate envelop him, then release as he made it through. "He’s mine!" Galiena crowed, "Mine! You stupid bitch....!"
Laine’s head snapped up decisively, but Eamonn could only stare at her helplessly. "I am yours forever, Eamonn ap Ailil!" she snarled, her voice carrying well despite the Gate between them. "This I swear!" She galvanized into motion, shedding her exhaustion, one hand bringing up the bow hidden on the off side of the horse, her other moving with practiced ease to her quiver. Eamonn barely caught the motion as she nocked an arrow and brought the bow to bear. Air, slowed by the Gate, then released, flowed mere hairwidths from his ear, and Galiena staggered, her grip on him lost.
"And I will see you free!" Laine snarled, her horse plunging in response to her mood. A sudden flow of banality, centered just behind him, hit the Gate, and it faltered. Eamonn could sense it was on the edge of collapse, and he moaned in understanding. Laine had knowingly damaged the Gate beyond hope, trapping him on this side, and her on the other. Angry triumph painted itself on her features, and she charged the horse to the threshold of the dying Gate. "Free! I cannot be with you now...but she cannot hold you while I live. Do not forget! I am yours."
Eamonn brought his hand up to the Gate, and he could feel the tension of it now. It was closed to passage, would be completely closed before much longer. "You are mine, Evhelaine Olavesdottir, and I swear never to forget."
She nodded tersely, backing the horse away. Her lower lip quivered before she threw the horse’s reins against its neck and spurred him to gallop away. Eamonn watched until he could see her no longer before turning to Galiena. The iron tipped arrow had pierced her high in the chest, just beneath her throat. It was not the best shot Laine had pulled off, but he wouldn’t put a little vengeance past her. Galiena’s bloody fingers scrabbled ineffectually at the arrow’s shaft, and she turned pleading eyes on him. He shook his head slightly....even had he desired to aid her, she was beyond help. He gathered her into his lap, listening to the liquid distress of her breathing. She finally went limp, and he stared over at where the Gate had been, its presence banished by the weight of her death. He began to scream, and when a traveling party discovered him, they assumed that the name he screamed was that of the fallen woman in his arms. They asked him where the murderer was, and he could only gesture at the stone markers where a gate had stood. They assumed he was somewhat mollified by the crushing agony the murderer must now endure, as that individual had escaped justice. They were wrong on both accounts.
Eamonn jerked back into consciousness.....every muscle screaming in pain as he sat bolt upright. "Laine! Laine!" he screamed a name that suddenly had no meaning for him. Never to forget..... But he had forgotten. Of course he had also forgotten his own name, but this was an oath.... Never to forget what? Who?
"Shhhhhhhh." a voice calmed, small hands tried to push him back into the comfort of the pillows. "There is no Laine here."
No.. no Laine here. There hadn’t been a Laine since.... his head began to hurt in raucous discord with his side, and he dropped in exhaustion to the pillows. Everything hurt, it seemed suddenly. It almost seemed too much trouble to live...too painful to breathe, but he couldn’t stop. "Where am I?" he croaked.
"A town called Denver." the voice answered softly, but it gave Eamonn nothing to go on. He knew of no place named that. "You’ve come through." she continued. "Out of Arcadia. You’re back in the Waking Lands."
Back? Back with..... A woman with glowing amber eyes, golden as she laughed, black as she raged. A woman with purple black hair and skin the color of a robin’s egg, with nubby horn ridges sweeping back from her slanted brows, with large hands and an easy manner. Evelyn? Laine? Close. So. So. So close.
"What happened to me?"
"You were struck by some sort of nocker contraption." she sighed, her fingers soft and caring. "It injured you badly. What is your name?"
"Eamonn." Caution returned in some measure as the pain faded to a manageable burn. "Eamonn ap Eiluned."
"We bid you welcome, then, Eamonn. Rest. You need to recover."
Laine’s mind filled with plans. Her clothing was beautiful, some of the finest available to the oathdaughter of one of the most influential troll chieftains in the area. All hand-crafted, dyed with wild Colorado plants and intricately adorned. The clothing that had arrived with the flush of glamour was even more so, fine silks, velvets, embroidered with silver threads in mind bogglingly complex designs. To another of the Fae, these clothes marked her as a respected and respectable sort. To the mundane world at large, these clothes marked her as a hippie. She had enough to worry about without that. She was fifteen, she had no driver’s license and had been technically a runaway for years. Add to that the fact that she was driving a rather flashy car that she didn’t actually own, and it all added up to a messy situation. She would get new clothes in Utah, clothes that blended in better than what she wore now. She reached down to turn on the radio...still heading north, as her Dan demanded. Montana. Missoula.
".........One small step for man, one giant leap for mankind......." the radio proclaimed in static. Foreboding grasped Laine’s heart and her hands clenched on the steering wheel.
"Again, yesterday at 10:56, Eastern Daylight Time, 12:56 our time, Neil Armstrong became the first man to walk on the moon. All eyes turn upwards, and all our prayers are with the astronauts of Apollo 11 as they continue this momentous event. We will continue to keep our listeners up to date with continuing reports of the moon landing as they become available...."
Unable to listen any longer, Laine turned it off, her heart a crushing weight in her chest. She was finally forced to pull over, and the Impala’s engine idled powerfully as she rested her forehead against the wheel. She felt like Calpurnia in Julius Caesar, seeing omens of doom everywhere, yet powerless to stop, to slow, to understand them. Events were stuck in fast forward, dragging her along with them.
She sighed, putting the Impala back into gear and continued on under an empty blue sky.
Eamonn watched the street from the freehold’s window, both repelled and irresistibly drawn to what he witnessed. The world was cold, methodical, banal, and his heart mourned that his......oathmate, bound vassal, love........ had been lost here. On the other hand, the world was now filled with great curiosity and amazement. He wanted to go, do, see. Find Laine. Evelyn. Whatever. See if she remained intact in this place. Reclaim what was his.
But first he had to rest. Recover. Get his feet under him and gain a further understanding of what was out there before he jumped in a what was literally, a New World. A world that had only existed in troll rumors when the world shattered and the Gates slammed closed. America. Denver. A city that was a mile high in the clouds. His heart thrilled to such a thought, but there was niggling worry, a niggling, growing distance that he couldn’t quite put his finger on.
"Hey. Babe. Nice car. How about you and me.. going for a ride?"
Laine shot the speaker a look that was anything but peace and free love. He was hyped up on hormones and peer pressure, emboldened by the presence of his two friends. Apparently one good looking girl in "hippie" clothing and a black ‘67 Impala was all it took to get his attention. Laine had little experience with dealing with this sort of situation...she had been young when Magnus had adopted her, and well sheltered at the lodge. Gunnar had been interested, but.....
"Get lost." she snapped. She wasn’t particularly worried about the three of them, but dealing with them could get her into a raft of trouble she wasn’t prepared to handle. The Colt .45 under the front seat would get her point across...just a little too sharply. Not to mention the greatsword hidden by her duffel bag in the back.
"Awhhhhh...sweetheart. How about you and me....?"
"Never clapping eyes on each other ever again in either of our lifetimes?" she retorted, still heading resolutely for the K-Mart. He was the largest of the three, but she still had at least five inches on him in her human form. His friends snickered at his expense, and there was anger in his eyes when he maneuvered to cut her off before she reached the door. His bravado melted when she closed distance to half a foot, forcing him to crane his neck painfully to look up at her. "No." she stated slowly, reaching out and taking hold of his shoulders. She let her arms hang, and he staggered slightly under their weight, his eyes widening at the subtle threat.
"Yeah. Well.. you’re not my type anyway." he grumbled unconvincingly. "Too damned big."
Laine grinned, "Exactly." as she pushed gently by him and into the artificially lit interior of the store. Trolls in minidresses just didn’t work, so she took a couple of pairs of jeans, some T-shirts and a pair of loafers. Not precisely fashionable, but serviceable and normal enough to cut down a little on how much she stuck out.
A crowd mulled around the electronics department, most of the store personnel and a lot of the customers watched dark, grainy, flickering images in rapt fascination. Man on the moon. Irresistibly drawn, Laine watched over their heads, but her eyes were dark and her expression was grave. This event, this action, had brought the end of her life as she knew it. This had already brought the sidhe back. How, she wasn’t exactly certain, but it had.
She finally pulled herself away from the sight, going to the line with the one cashier still at her post. She paid for her purchases out of her small stash, and left quickly. Everything in her lately screamed run. Run from this. Run from that. When was it time to stand?
The fog moved and rolled with a life of its own, gray even in the darkness of night. It was cold, damp, and it settled with a grinding ache into Laine’s bones. She was an old troll...too damned old to be sleeping out of doors on a night like this. She ought to be at the lodge, surrounded by her children, tucked warmly into a chair by the fire. But it was the night, the night she waited vigil by the moss stained stones that had once marked a gate. Eamonn. Her eyes locked on the space between the stones, but it remained as clear and unwarped as it had for these past one hundred eighty nights that she had pondered it. Not coming back. The gates would never open again, and Eamonn was not coming back. Her last remaining oath rested in her heart, unresolved. She belonged to Eamonn ap Ailil, but he resided in Arcadia, a place she could not make it to. The only comfort was that he did it freely. She sighed, bundling her cloak into a makeshift pillow and resting next to the ancient war-horse’s stocky legs. Nothing would happen tonight... nothing... nothing...nothing....
Laine woke suddenly out of a dream of fog, damp cold, horse legs and her own death. She sat, trying to get her bearings. She slept in the back seat of a car, Gunnar’s car. It wasn’t as cold as the ache in her bones claimed, no, Laine would judge it to be early summer. She got out of the car and looked around, she was somewhere in Idaho already, still heading resolutely north. It was a clear night, and the moon rode the velvet sky. Laine studied it for a long moment. Once beyond the touch of man, sacred, inviolate, it seemed to look no different now. But it was. Smaller, closer, profaned. Why? Was nothing sacred anymore? Laine already knew the answer to that one.
There would be no more sleep tonight. She may as well just continue.
Diarmid ap Scathach rested on the porch of his cabin, drinking in the sweet air, the bird song, and Habib’s intricate story. The eshu stopped, peering intently down the mountain, and Diarmid heard the sound of an engine, a big engine, V-8, dying, and the hollow slam of a car door. Who could be here? Who would be here, and more to the point, drive a vehicle to get here? Diarmid sensed no banality, not even from the automobile, and relaxed slightly. Whoever it was, they were Fae, driving a car so beloved to be nearly enchanted.
Habib stood, raising his hands binocular wise to his face. "Hmmmmmm. Diarmid. How many trolls do you know?"
"Not many, and those not well."
"It’s a troll. Just about the fairest bit of troll femininity I’ve ever had the joy of clapping eyes on. Young wilder."
Young female wilder troll. Fair. Diarmid stood slowly, shading his eyes with his hand and staring intently towards the sound. That described only one individual he knew, a fact proven when he caught his first glance of her. "Laine Magnusdottir." he identified. What had brought her all of the way from Telluride’s lodge, driving the car that Magnus so despised?
"Einarsson’s daughter?" Habib demanded.
"Yes."
"The one with the sight?"
"Yes." Doubly, triply yes. The child so intensely burdened by the sight that it hurt Diarmid to know she lived with the slow, stolid and conservative Einarsson. He himself had tried to gain custody of her, but it had been decided that the Telluride lodge with its ready-made troll family would be much more stable than a sidhe bachelor. He agreed, and he disagreed. But that was all past now.
She had grown since the last time he’d seen her, but she was still smallish for a troll. Almost impossibly fair of face for a trollish maid, close to sidhe lovely in a larger, more sturdy fashion. Her eyes were dark, and Diarmid moved with caution to meet her. The oathdaughter of Magnus Einarsson was notorious for standing on the line between Seelie and Unseelie. And now, that look was strongly Unseelie.
"Welcome, Laine. What brings you to me?" he greeted. The eshu remained behind, measuring, considering.
"I had to go." she stated, not something that surprised Diarmid. He was surprised that she had remained at Telluride as long as she had. Her eyes strayed to the sky, her hands motioning up. "The Gates, Diarmid...they’ve opened. They have returned."
"Gates? Open? Returned?" Diarmid spat out the key words from a mouth suddenly gone dry. Those words could only mean one thing......
She nodded, her face pale eggshell blue, her freckles tiny lavender spots across her nose. "The sidhe have returned. Are returning. Two days ago, the humans walked across Luna’s face. Somehow this has brought them back."
Brought him back. This Eamonn.. whoever he was. Even now, Laine could feel his presence to the south of her, calling...beckoning.... Denver, just a day or so behind her.
"Why have you left Telluride? I would think...." Diarmid’s head was spinning. It never occurred to him to doubt the news that the seer daughter of Magnus Einarsson brought him.
"Magnus will hide and deny the truth until it is too late. And there will be a too late." Diarmid fought down a shudder, his gaze going to Habib. The eshu only nodded agreement. She spoke the truth, unspiced by melodrama. "I am called to be elsewhere than Telluride." she continued slowly. "Magnus will just have to fend for himself."
"What brings you here.. then.. to me?"
She smiled wryly, her eyes lightening slightly. "I have come to ask you to teach me, Diarmid."
Teach her? Laine was one of the strongest seers that Diarmid had ever had the joy to meet. He could teach her nothing that she hadn’t been gifted with naturally. "I....." he began slowly.
Her gaze was level, and Diarmid realized that she met his eyes perfectly, their heights matched. She had been a hand shorter than he less than a year ago when he’d seen her last...arm in arm with Gunnar Magnusson at Pennons. That had been just a week before her oathbrother had been called to fight a mundane war in a country that Diarmid had never even heard of. He would be dead within a month, but Diarmid could only imagine the last picture he had in his mind...Gunnar, Laine...celebrating that Pennons, slipped free from Magnus’s and Gudrun’s influence, two beautiful young trolls full of promise. They had restored some of his faith in his own kind, that the Dreaming was still producing specimens of kithain on that level. It had shocked and saddened him to learn of Gunnar’s death, and his heart had filled with worry for Laine. Her brother’s steadfast adoration and uncompromisingly Seelie nature had kept her straight in a much truer manner than Magnus’s unbending conservatism could.
"Teach you? What?"
She tilted her head to study the sky. "To fight, Diarmid. It is what you do best. I want......" she sighed, shaking her head slightly, "I need to know how to fight."
"Magnus and Gunnar both taught....."
"No. I mean, yes, but. Nothing really seriously. There hasn’t been anything more dangerous than the odd chimera up here for years. And I’m supposed to belong to the Mountain. I’m not supposed to be a warrior. But. I need......"
Diarmid watched her struggle to explain the call of fate, of Dàn, to him. If she was correct, and nothing in him said she lied or was mistaken, then perhaps Laine Magnusdottir could use a little spit and polish to her combat abilities. The sidhe had been gone since Silver’s Gate fell in 1348, except for a few stubborn holdouts such as himself. He had no idea what their agenda would be six hundred odd years later. Even if she was not entirely truthful, it might be good to get her away from Magnus’s often cloying presence.
"I will see what you need to be taught." he agreed after a long pause. "But get this straight, Laine Magnusdottir...you are not a guest. You live here. Same as I do. You pull your weight, and you’ve got quite a lot of it to pull." It was a long speech from him, and he could come up with no more words.
She nodded, bunching her fists in the pockets of her very new jeans, gaze everywhere but at him as she took stock of her surroundings. Diarmid could feel Habib’s disbelief, his amusement, but the eshu held his tongue. "You can have the loft." Diarmid sighed, throwing the eshu a warning stare. Magnus was not going to let Laine go easily, and so Diarmid didn’t want the eshu spreading this tale until Diarmid was certain that the girl was ready and willing to stare Magnus down. She was an adult to Kithain society, but never to Magnus. Diarmid wasn’t exactly sure what his plans were for the girl, and he didn’t want to know. She was here now. By default.. she was his now.
"You need any help with your things?" he asked quietly. Hopefully she had indeed arrived with "things". Diarmid barely clothed himself most times... nothing he had was appropriate for her. Nor would it come close to fitting her. He was a sidhe..willow slim and seemingly frail. She stood as tall as he, odd for a troll, she should have surpassed him long ago, but she outweighed him by a good hundred pounds.
"No. Thank you. I can get them myself."
Ah...a good Magnus raised child, polite in the extreme. Only Sigurd, Magnus’s non Fae daughter, had an attitude. He didn’t know about now, but when Gunnar had lived, he and later, Laine, had overshadowed the girl. How did one compete for attention when they were the only human in a faery household?
"Good. Hop to it, then."
She nodded, barely disguised exhaustion crossing her face. Something, something much more than a thousand mile drive, had worn Laine to near collapse. Diarmid considered helping her for a long moment, then decided the better of it. She came to him to learn to fight. The lessons began now.
She had, thankfully, brought her belongings.. apparently all of them. Her flight from Magnus appeared to be truly serious in nature. She had two chests, one a perfectly mundane footlocker, and the other...... Diarmid could hear Habib’s indrawn breath when she left it on the porch for a moment. It was crafted from some black wood, inlaid in either silver or platinum, Diarmid’s soul told him it was the latter. His fingers traced the draconic pattern, feeling the tiny relief of every minute scale.
"That’s a house blazon." Habib stated.
Yes. Diarmid knew that. He also knew which of the houses it belonged to. He knew of three houses that used the black and silver color pattern, his own was one. And the dragon and stars motif was undeniably House Ailil. Where in the hell had Laine Magnusdottir, oathdaughter to a trollish chieftain, acquired a chest decorated with the blazon of the highest Unseelie noble house?
The chest reeked of pure, unadulterated, sensuous glamour; magic leaked from every pore in the wood, every gouge in the metal. No price could be put on an object like this... it was impossible to tell anything of the contents, if indeed, there were any. The chest itself was beyond belief.
She came, retrieving it...and Diarmid waited until she was inside. "She isn’t here. You haven’t seen her. Have no idea where she is." he told the eshu, who looked disappointed, but not surprised.
"Not here. Haven’t seen. No idea." The eshu parroted back, his dark face grim. Diarmid was stealing his newest news. And that was just toooo bad. Things were afoot.
She stood at the sink when he came into the spacious cabin, and he frowned when he saw the blistered burns she was washing. "What happened?" he demanded slowly. He had never considered Magnus to be openly abusive, just stern. Perhaps he was wrong in his judgment.
Her brow furrowed in confusion. "I..... don’t know." she began. "They appeared for no reason. They appeared...." she looked at them for a long moment. "....When the man stepped on the moon. When the Gates crashed open. When he came back."
Diarmid debated asking further, then decided that she seemed all there, not lost in some soothsay fog. "Who came back?" he finally risked asking.
"Eamonn. He’s come back. He is in Denver."
"Eamonn....?" Diarmid prodded when she silenced.
"Ap Ailil. He came back. He’s in Denver. It’s important. I know him. I remember... him. He’s back.... he’s been hurt. I..... don’t know what to do, Diarmid."
"What does your heart tell you to do?" he asked, pulling up a chair. This was all a little beyond him, but he knew ahead of time that she came with this problem. The sidhe were back. There were bound to be serious repercussions, especially for one as tied to the Dreaming as this one was.
Her eyes darkened, and she patted the wounds dry with a clean cloth. "I am supposed to come here and learn how to fight from you. Eamonn must be dealt with... later." She gazed at her hands, turning the right one so that the ruby ring she wore caught the sunlight. It was of Fae crafting, probably boggan work, intricate and exacting.
"May I see that?" he requested. It also hummed with glamour, less obvious than the chest, but with a life of its own.
"It doesn’t come off." she muttered, extending her hand to him. "It came the same day as the wounds."
He studied it. No, this was not boggan work, this had been sidhe crafted. There was a dragon carved into the stone, but it was not the Ailil dragon. It was a four legged, wingless worm, cleaved in two behind the forequarters. Dragonsplitter. One of the troll clans destroyed during the dark times, gone except in bard’s tales.
"And the chest?" he dropped her hand, adorned with a signet ring from an extinct family.
"It appeared same as everything else did." she sighed, and Diarmid nodded slowly. The Dragonsplitter family had been in service to House Ailil for generations, in the years before the Shattering. Rumors had several of the line crossing into Arcadia with the Ailil nobility, not surprising considering the oaths that had probably bound the lines together. If... as Diarmid was beginning to believe, that Laine might be the incarnation of one of those who remained behind during the flight to Arcadia, then her soul could very well remember itself as one... the memory fueled by the glut of glamour from the Gates crashing.
Chapter<>
Three weeks after his accident with the nocker conveyance, the "car", Eamonn bid goodbye to his rescuers. They had been hospitable in the extreme, but he needed to find his own House, his own people. His memories returned with a vengeance, and now he needed to act. He didn’t remember living in Arcadia, and didn’t remember why he was back in the Waking Lands, but he remembered Evhelaine Olavesdottir, the daughter of Dragonsplitter. And he remembered that she was here, and she was his. He needed to find her. And for that, he needed a seer, preferably one of the House borne of Eiluned. The darker children of Eiluned fit with Ailil’s children as a hand did in a glove. Find his House, and he would find one who could part the curtain of six hundred years to find Evhelaine. He was not a fool....she would have been through a handful of incarnations in the interim, perhaps more than a handful, but she was a troll...the only offspring of Dragonsplitter. Her soul would remember an oath, even if her mind didn’t. And he, Eamonn, had not died at any time during these centuries. He remembered the years before the Shattering like they had been last year, uncorrupted by the passage of time....
Ehvelaine, the only daughter of Olave, had been conceived on Samhain, born on Midsummer night. Eamonn, the youngest son of Maith ap Ailil, had been conceived on Midwinter, born on Lughnasadh night, of the same year, , at the same place. Lisnacrogher, in Eire’s country Antrim. They had been raised together, in the hopes that they would tie Olave’s fading line firmly to the Mathory line of House Ailil.
Eamonn sighed, leaning his forehead against the window of the "bus" headed for Las Vegas. It felt wrong.. he was headed in the wrong direction...away from Laine, but his sight was not as strong as hers had been. If he followed...the closer he got to her, the less it would pull until it would be lost. Let the seers look for her. It was better that way. He closed his eyes, drifting along on memories centuries old and a split second gone.
Eamonn lay awake in the pool of moonlight that spilled through the window and illuminated his bed. The bedcurtains on Laine’s side were pulled against the brightness, leaving her asleep in shadow. But Eamonn could not sleep. He reached over, dragging his fingertips down her bare back, hoping she would wake, but she only sighed in her sleep. Her foot snaked out, seeking, but he knew she looked not for him. He sat, retrieving the cover from the floor and tucking it carefully beside her. She purred slightly, snuggling around the soft fur. She would be happiest if he curled into her, but he was too restless to do so. He had been very restless lately. Laine had been his childhood companion since birth. His friend. His ally. She had shared every step of his life, changing and growing like a mirror reflection of himself. His lover since he had taken her to his side at the Beltaine of their first wilder year. The mother of his child. She was more like a member of his family than any person he could name, but. But. It was difficult, yet thrilling, to admit she no longer fulfilled him. She was like a child’s first pony..... steady, sturdy, forgiving, patient, utterly trustworthy, but Eamonn had outgrown her easy acceptance. There had been no challenge in gaining the affections of Dragonsplitter’s daughter. It had been condoned, expected from them since babyhood, Eamonn would be with Evhelaine. Three years from their first wilder year, Evhelaine had birthed a child, a daughter, and Eamonn felt empty. He dreamed of a lovely sidhe maiden whose hand he would have to win. Laine was a friend. A friend he loved dearly, but she was no paramour, no fine noble sidhe lady for him to prove himself to. And he yearned for that. Laine was no prize. She had been handed to him by their respective fathers.
Eamonn gnashed his teeth, watching the world spin by. He had been such a fool. Laine had been the ultimate prize, but he’d been too young and stupid to see it. He had to find her. She was out there...he felt it. With her returned to his side, Eamonn could claim his stake in this wild, cold, wonderful new world.
"Up! UP...dammit!" Diarmid snarled, narrowly missing cropping one of Laine’s pointed ears as he dropped the swing. She was decent with a sword, about what Diarmid expected from Magnus’s tutelage. Nothing imaginative or inventive. She had never been coached to find her own dance, her own balance, and it hurt her. She was too small and fragile for standard trollish hack-hack, but too large for his eye dazzling dance. She held the middle ground, and Diarmid had to make that her strength.
She spun quickly, and Diarmid ducked. She was not a big troll, but she still rattled his teeth when she connected with him. It was worse now that she had begun training with a vengeance, she was muscling up quickly, and he wasn’t young any more.
"Enough." he growled, and she returned cautiously to a midguard position. Good girl. The slice from the time she’d dropped her guard when he told her to should be almost healed.... the lesson would never heal.
Habib stood behind Laine, his face grave, and Diarmid motioned her away. She nodded, stripping off the padded armor she wore as she stepped from the area he had marked as open ground. The eshu must be worried, Diarmid decided, when Habib’s eyes did not stray to Laine as she shed her practice gear.
"What is it?" he demanded when she was well out of earshot.
"The Telluride lodge is gone." the eshu muttered. "The sidhe have claimed it as their own. It’s not the first. Magnus, Gudrun, the girl... they’ve taken sanctuary at Flagstaff. Diarmid... they’re claiming every freehold they can find!"
Diarmid’s eyes followed Laine as she climbed the cabin’s steps. "She knew. She knew this was coming."
"How can they claim any American freeholds? The sidhe weren’t here before the Shattering..."
"They’ll claim whatever they can get away with." Diarmid sighed. "Born to rule." Yes, the daughter of Magnus needed to know how to fight.. needed to know how to fight sidhe. "America is fresh territory. Unclaimed."
Diarmid could feel the eshu’s formless rage, but he quelled his own call to war. He was too old. Laine’s generation would be the one doing the fighting. He would fight, but now was not the time. It was time to nurture the young, to pass on his knowledge. The war had not begun yet. The loss of the Telluride lodge was annoying, but minuscule in the big picture. The only reason he would have been concerned about it was now in his cabin. Magnus and Gudrun would be no true aid in any upcoming conflict, but their oath daughter was a prize. A prize that Diarmid intended to keep away from the sidhe for now, despite her probable ancient allegiance to one of the Houses. Winter would come soon, and no one would be making it into the mountains then.
"Do you see her?" Eamonn demanded, and the seer glared at him for breaking her concentration.
"Aye. I see her. Her soul persists."
Eamonn could have said that. If Laine had been well and truly killed, her eternal soul destroyed by cold iron, then he would not feel the pull to return to her side. There would be a cold emptiness, where she had been, but he felt her now, alive.
"She is here...in the new lands."
That Eamonn also knew. The new lands were immense, they went on forever. He had felt her when he came, and had inexplicably felt her move away from him when he regained consciousness. Was she so far away from the incarnation he had known her in that she no longer felt the pull to follow her oath? She belonged to him. What if she wasn’t even a troll.... then the oath wouldn’t hold the weight it had. Eamonn could not imagine Dragonsplitter’s daughter as anything but a troll, but as she had said before, the Dreaming was fickle about such things. It had been fickle with the birth of their two children....
Maith had been thrilled by Ailbhe’s birth. His line bound by blood to Dragonsplitter’s in this small girl. Eamonn had been mortified by the child. He was sidhe, nobility, all of his father’s children had been sidhe. Yes, Laine was a troll. But Ailbhe was a satyr. Even though his heart knew the child was his, as if Laine’s word was not enough, he refused to accept the fact outright. Laine’s mixed blood had brought this to him. Her father the great Dragonsplitter, her mother a satyr. Laine’s face screwed up in anger when he said it, her voice deep with anger. "Lots of Kithain happen to have satyr parents!" she had snapped at him. "Babies are, after all, a result of certain urges that they have in abundance!"
Yes. But Eamonn shouldn’t have a satyr daughter. He wanted children like he was, children to carry on his family, his House, name. His troll consort growled in rage. "The Dreams are fickle, Eamonn." she began. "They follow no rhyme. No reason. Accept their gifts."
Laine was merely a handful of short months his elder, and she lectured like his mother. He needed none of this. He would see Ailbhe again, but as a stranger. He would never see Canute Eamonnson, their son.
"She’s died since the Shattering." Helpful seer. Of course she’d died sometime in the past six hundred years. At least twice...maybe even more.
"About how many times?" he sighed, wondering why he had bothered. He had learned nothing new so far.
The seer looked, her eyes narrowing. "At least a dozen times." she finally stated, and something died in Eamonn’s heart. A dozen! She would never remember an oath given over ten lifetimes ago. She could never remember that. Laine was gone from him, as surely as if she’d died by iron. He fought a keening moan down, it would be unseemly to show the Eiluned seer that sort of emotion.
"Thank you." he stated in a cold, distant voice, absently rubbing the fresh scars on his wrists. One of the reasons he thought he could be in the Waking Lands was now moot. Evhelaine would never be his, but there was a big, wide, unclaimed world before him. Eamonn would make it his, stride ahead, make something out of this situation. He just had to reach out and take it. There had been no chance for gain before, when the world was small, stagnant and full of young sidhe nobles. Now everything had changed, and Eamonn would win.
Laine cast the fly gently....hopping it across the golden stream. The fish were otherwise amused, but that never seemed to bother Diarmid. He fished for other reasons than dinner, and he expected her to do likewise. He stood twenty or so feet downstream from her, hip deep in the quickly moving water, painted with the late afternoon light. His waist length hair, longer than her own, was braided, snaking over the water. His shirt was plastered to him from the cold spray, and he moved with the unconscious grace of a stooping hawk. She appreciated the view, but it pulled and nagged at a memory buried deeply in time. Eamonn.
Of course, the two men would resemble each other in some way. Both were sidhe, tall, graceful, beautiful in the way of dreams. Both were arrogantly self assured... sidhe had been born, dreamed, as the ultimate rulers. Diarmid’s House had shed that right, had stuck it out with the rest of the poor schmucks fighting to survive on Earth once the Gates had crashed, but the Dreaming still graced Scathach’s children as born rulers. The children of Scathach and the children of Ailil tended towards the same coloring as well, but Diarmid ap Scathach was old. A grump, his coal black hair shot with silver all around his face, retreating into a severe widow’s peak. Eamonn had been a very young wilder when the Antrim Gate fell, with shining black hair and piercing ice green eyes, the same as the glaciers near Dragonsplitter’s lodge in Jutland, when the sun shone fiercely through the ice. His braid had dangled just a couple of handspans over the grass, and he favored black clothing, sparsely relieved by silver....
"You trying to catch me, girl?" Diarmid’s gravely bark shook her from her reverie. He was much closer than he had been before, and her fly dangled over his clenched fist.
"No." she replied bashfully.
"This is to teach to you to wait, while still paying attention. Please try the latter part of that." he flipped the fly back into the water and climbed to the shore towards the resting eshu.
"She watches you when she thinks you’re not looking." Habib stated, hopefully. Diarmid was aware of it, but didn’t think it was for the reasons the eshu attributed it to. "I know." he sighed, watching her. Magnus’s daughter was a fine looking piece of Fae. He’d grant her that any day. But her mind was elsewhere, especially when she looked at him with the gaze that had Habib thinking thoughts he shouldn’t be thinking.
"Diarmid... Lenore’s been gone a long time now."
Diarmid screwed his face up as if he’d eaten something sour. Yes. Lenore had been gone a long time. But he resented the gentle implication under the eshu’s voice. "Laine is a very lovely young one." he agreed slowly. But she’s not Lenore. And she belongs to another. She was not his long dead wife, and he knew with every part of his being that Laine belonged, somehow, to this Eamonn ap Ailil that she had mentioned. "Very lovely. And very young."
Young. Yes. Barely a wilder. He wasn’t certain of her exact age in this incarnation, but his eyes told him all he needed to know. He was too old. She was too young. And they both belonged to shadows and ghosts. She had been brought to him for his instruction, and that was what he intended to give her. Her sight had told her months ago what was now becoming apparent to him. The sidhe return engendered conflict. Too many years had passed for it to bring anything else.
"She’s legal." the eshu chuckled, and Diarmid frowned.
"You have a one tracked mind." he accused the eshu, who only shrugged. Diarmid couldn’t forget Lenore, and he had a deep feeling that Laine could not forget this Eamonn either.
"It will be winter soon." Habib noted slowly. "Just you and her up here."
Diarmid did not even want to guess what the eshu was getting at with that statement. The snows would keep all but the most persistent at bay until the mountains thawed, and the eshu was not most persistent. It would be Diarmid and Laine, alone. The sidhe found the thought oddly acceptable. Laine was a good companion, able to live with his long fits of silence without attempting to fill the void with her own sound. Silence was a gift, and she understood that already.
"I know that." he sighed, watching her cast into the deeper water. The day was golden, the trees were golden, and time waited with an eternal stillness. He felt like he should gather it around himself....while it lasted. Laine’s head tilted as if she’d heard him, and her eyes were mournfully dark when they met his. She knew. He knew. This was a reprieve, nothing more. He would carve out the winter to teach her further, but time was not on his side.

April 30, 1970
Rain poured from the dark Montana sky, turning the ground around the cabin to spongy mud. It was still bitterly cold, and the damp ground painfully in Diarmid’s bones. Laine, freshly turned sixteen, watched the rain fall, her nose pressed flat against the front window. She was immune to the chill, her age and kith protected her, but Diarmid was only truly comfortable beside the fire.
"Is....?" Diarmid began, and Laine jumped, knocking her forehead against the frigid glass. She was as jumpy as a hare lately, and he wondered what went on behind her inscrutable eyes. She glanced at him peevishly, rubbing the bump with her fingertips.
"Is what?" she demanded.
"Is it calming down?"
She sighed, resting her fingertips carefully against the glass. "No. No sign of letting up. We’ll have a wet Beltaine."
He nodded, stirring the coals to a brighter hue. They would only have a small celebration even if the weather had behaved, Diarmid was too old for much else. He felt a little sorry to deny Laine a more enthusiastic holiday, to be young and free and locked with an old geezer like himself for a festival sounded like utter boredom to him. She was sixteen... a prime wilder, but it couldn’t be helped. He had heard from no one since winter began, even though the melt was nearly through.
"Well.. lass...it’s time for this old one to sleep. I will see you in the morning." he stated, and she only nodded, still watching the torrents of rain fall outside.
Harsh sobs jolted Diarmid from sleep, and he blinked, trying to get his bearings. His cabin, his bed, the pale light of predawn gloomy in the east. All seemed as it should be. He slid from bed, ignoring the chill for once. None of his senses told him anything was wrong, he felt no one who shouldn’t be there, and the birds were beginning their sleepy hail from the trees. He slid his sword from its scabbard hanging from his bedstead and crept slowly and cautiously up the steps to the loft.
Laine knelt in her bed, still garbed in the shirt and leggings she wore to sleep in the cold, her hair loosely braided and fastened with a Seelie rose buttoned ribbon. Her hands were pressed over her face, muffling her ragged crying. Diarmid sat beside her, rubbing her back, but his efforts only seemed to bring louder distress. At a loss, he brought her into his arms, pulling her heavy weight up against him. She seemed to take it as permission, and let go with massively great moans that shook the pair of them.
Nothing that Diarmid could do would bring her out of the state, and it lasted all Beltaine. She drank tea when he offered it to her, but that was all he could coax down her. He was at a loss how to cope with her, and was relieved when she finally collapsed into a deep sleep near nightfall. He tucked her carefully into bed and set a fresh fire in the hearth, too nervous to sleep himself. Something had pushed Laine beyond her ability to cope, and Diarmid knew she didn’t buckle easily.
He heard the steps on the porch before he heard the rap at the door. It was dawn, but Laine still slept in the same deep exhaustion that she had earlier. Diarmid stood stiffly, crossing the distance to the door and cautiously peering through the crescent moon gash in the door. Habib stood outside, his face blurred by the handmade glass. He made no motion to enter the cabin when Diarmid opened the door, and the sidhe cursed him internally. "What?" he demanded, stepping into the early morning chill.
"You look like hell, man." the eshu noted glumly, "I take it you know already?"
"Know what already?"
Habib looked at him for a long moment. "I thought, with how you looked, that she would have told you already. Looks like you’ve gotten no sleep whatsoever....."
"She had a sanity free day yesterday." Diarmid snapped. "Was determined to take me with her. I’m too old for this shit." It was much harsher than he meant it to come out, but the eshu only nodded sagely.
"I understand." he stated, and Diarmid scowled, uncertain as to what, exactly, the eshu understood. "Listen, Diarmid..... Habib sighed, gathering will to continue. "There was a meeting with the sidhe yesterday, an attempt to work things out."
Diarmid felt the hairs on his neck stand on end, just as they had years before, when the car....Lenore....bad news....bad.....
The eshu frowned, pinching the bridge of his nose in thought. "They...damn, Diarmid, there’s no other way to put it...they were slaughtered. The people we sent to this meeting... they were slaughtered. Killed by iron."
"This means war." Diarmid stated, mind still scrambling to comprehend this news. It was bad, very, very bad. It was an explanation for Laine’s incomprehensible distress as well, a fact that calmed Diarmid greatly. It took an atrocity on this level to cause her to snap.
"Yes. The trolls are calling to arms already." Habib stated, glancing back over his shoulder towards the door hanging ajar behind them.
"She sleeps. Deeply." Diarmid stated, watching the fog wisp off of the warming trees. Out of time....they had run out of time already. He had to console himself that Laine had been taught by the best, and had learned well. He could have used more time with her, but wasn’t that always the truth? He had known that time was of the essence when she had arrived last summer, and he’d been given ten months to teach her what she needed to know. Everything else she would have to learn the hard way, he felt morbidly. If... if she recovered from this latest attack of her sight.
"She will go...answer the troll call?" the eshu asked slowly.
Diarmid shook his head. No, Laine would answer a deeper call than that of the outraged fae defenders. She might just end up with the massing trollish units, but she went of her own accord. "I do not know where her Dàn will call her." he murmured, his breath curling visibly as the sun rose, spilling lurid golden red light over the mountains.