Echo City Page 28

"Okay, so tell me what you want to try," I said, knowing I sounded a little pathetic but unable to help myself. "I'll try it too."

  Fresca let out a long, shuddering breath. She reached out lightly and brushed her hand across my cheek. "I'm not ready to commit. I don't think I can be any clearer than that. The best I can do is friends with benefits, an open non-monogamous thing, and Kay, I think that would kill you. Some people can do casual sex, and some people can do non-monogamous intimacy. I don't think you're one of those people."

  I raised my hand to cover hers with mine, but she pulled away before I could. "Stop telling me what I want. How do you know? I don't even know! How can we know if we don't try?"

  "Because I'd break your heart," Fresca whispered. "We can be stupid and bad for each other and make each other miserable, or we can go live our lives and be the happiest people we can be, and find people who make us happy. And maybe someday, if we want the same things—maybe then, who knows?"

  I want you, I thought, tracing the curve of her cheek with my eyes, the fullness of her lips. I'll never want anyone but you, Fresca. I'll wait a thousand years if I have to.

  "So how about this," I said at last, shaping the words carefully, salving the part of me that was struggling not to feel like it had been scraped out with a rusty spoon. "I'm going away soon and I don't know what's going to happen to me. I don't even know if I'll come back. You might have to be Gwyn's concubine."

  Fresca squinched her eyes shut, but in a less heartbroken way this time. She looked like she was fighting not to smile. "Stop, that's just cruel."

  "We're outside the world right now," I said, and nerved myself, bridged the distance, touched the perfect edge of her perfect mouth. "This isn't real—I mean, we could say it wasn't real, couldn't we, if we had to? To ourselves, I mean. No one else knows. No one would ever know."

  Fresca didn't answer. I kept stroking her face, let my hand slide under her hair to the soft skin at the nape of her neck.

  I slid across the furs until there was no space between us at all, just a smoosh of hands and knees and fur capes all tangled up together, and kissed her again, long and slow. She wasn't responding as enthusiastically this time, and when I broke away, I said anxiously, "Fresca, please say something."

  She took my hands gently, very gently, and took them and put them back in my lap. "You should go," she whispered, and kissed the corner of my mouth. "Maybe it will work out someday. But not now."

  And, I guess ... that was that.

  Chapter 23

  I met Taliesin at a boat launch under the barrow. Getting there meant descending slippery stone steps in the dark, led by one of the palace servants carrying a lantern with a candle in it. By night the damp cold was even sharper, and I huddled into my fur cloak and tucked my numb fingers under my armpits.

  I'd left Fresca sitting on the bed. She said she wanted to be alone for a little while. She had better be fine when I got back, or ... I wasn't quite sure what I'd do, but I'd make Gwyn sorry somehow if he hurt her, even if it killed me.

  Be safe, I thought.

  All the rest of it, the pieces of my broken heart, I tucked away deep down to deal with later. Right now, there was no time or space for self-reflection.

  I could hear the sound of slapping waves before Taliesin came into sight, kneeling on a dock thrust out into dark water. He had a lantern of his own, but his was the modern Coleman kind, and ripples of white light reflected from the walls and ceiling of a cave too geometric to be natural.

  The boat was modern too, a sleek speedboat that wouldn't have looked out of place at some rich yuppie's vacation home. I had seen plenty of them on Lake Michigan in the summer.

  "I was expecting something a little more mystical," I said, accepting Taliesin's offer of a supportive hand. The boat rocked under my feet.

  "Don't knock technology until you've tried living without it." Taliesin passed me the lantern and then untied the boat and leaped aboard, agile as a man half his age.

  ... half his visible age, that is. It was difficult to wrap my mind around the knowledge that he'd lived a millennium and a half.

  "Can I do anything to help?"

  "You can put that out and stow it." He nodded to the lantern.

  The engine coughed to life. In the absence of the lantern, the boat's running lights gave the impression we were floating on a cushion of moonlight. Taliesin brought us around slowly as the engine's low, deep thrum echoed off the walls around us.

  "Are you prone to seasickness?" Taliesin asked me.

  I shook my head. "When I was a teenager, I spent two weeks on a sailboat with my grandma. It was fine." I'd packed a ton of Dramamine just in case—even then, I was a worrying kind of kid, though Mom regaling me with everything that could go wrong hadn't helped.

  "That sounds like an interesting story. You will have to tell it to me someday."

  We motored slowly through a narrow channel that was just wide enough for the boat, the ceiling so low I had to duck. From high-water deposits on the walls, I guessed that the water sometimes filled this little passageway, and tried not to think about it. Mom would have had a lot to say about that too, but Mom wasn't here. I hushed up her little inner voice and put a mental padlock on it.

  I was still looking at the walls when our forward progress stopped. Ahead, a gate blocked the passage, filling it from the wavering water reflection to the ceiling. Taliesin rose from the pilot's seat and started to climb onto the nose of the boat.

  "I've got it," I said, and crawled over the windshield before I could second-guess myself. There was a low railing around the boat's prow, and I hung onto it while leaning out to reach the gate. It was wooden, made of supple willow withes lashed together into a wicker mesh. A simple rod-and-eye latch, also wooden, held it closed. I loosed the pin, pushed it open, and we slipped through into a little cove. Taliesin turned the boat around. I hauled the gate shut and pinned it before looking over my shoulder to see where we'd come out.

  We were in a horseshoe-shaped bay faced with cliffs. Rocks stood all around us, silent pillars like the remains of an ancient city, blocking my view of the sea I could hear beyond them. Sea stacks, I thought. I'd read about them, but had never seen any. I could taste the salt tang of the ocean on my lips.

  To get from the rolling inland hills of Gwyn's barrow to this, we'd come a lot farther than the few hundred yards we had appeared to travel.

  "The Ways of Taliesin," I said.

  "More like the Ways of Gwyn ap Nudd," he said, giving me a hand back into the boat. "I must do a thing now that I don't like to do, but Gwyn insists on it."

  "Will it hurt?" I asked warily.

  "Gwyn insists that no mortal eyes should see the approach to his fortress." He settled a handkerchief over my eyes, cinching it tightly behind my head. "Also," he added, "some of what you may see would be disorienting to you. You'll be more comfortable this way."

  I gripped the edge of my seat, feeling disoriented already. In the darkness behind the blindfold, I was acutely aware of the boat's gentle rocking and the low thrum of the motor. Taliesin throttled us forward, and I felt us move, the slow steady rocking of wavelets in the cove giving way to the longer swells of the ocean.

  From my perspective, not much changed for half an hour or so. The waves were higher or lower, our speed was more or less. Sometimes we made sharp turns. Once I smelled woodsmoke, another time a sharp tang of pine. At one point, from the echoes, I was fairly sure that we passed through some kind of narrow gateway in the rocks—I could envision it clearly, though I think the visuals in my head were from the Lord of the Rings movies. Then Taliesin leaned over and undid my blindfold.

  We were nowhere near land now. There was only the empty expanse of the ocean all around. The night was clear and still, the moonlight sharp as a blade. We left a long glittering wake behind us.

  "Are we still in Annwn?"

  "No," Taliesin said. "We are passed on from that place and come to the seas of Manannán mac Lir." He gave me a curious look.
"You met him once, you said?"

  "It wasn't a great time." Since I'd been dying and all. "I didn't know who he was. Muirin told me later."

  "You did nothing to offend him, I hope."

  "Not that I know of. He gave me something, actually. Some hawthorn berries. I don't have them anymore, but they were helpful. I think."

  "Really?" Taliesin frowned at me. His expression was more concerned than pleased. "There is no gift of that sort that doesn't come with strings attached."

  "No one's ever sent me a bill," I said. He didn't smile. "That was a joke."

  "I know you may think I'm being over-cautious," Taliesin said. "Still, we're about to place ourselves under the dominion of the son of Lir and his lady. Anything that is owed may well come due."

  "Okay, that's not the happy thought I was hoping for."

  "My apologies." Taliesin gave me a sideways smile. "I could tell you a story. It is useful sometimes, this small skill of mine—to divert the mind from troubled times. Is there a tale you would like to hear?"

  I turned away from the moon-spattered sea. "Well, if you're offering, I wouldn't mind knowing what went down with Muirin and Gwyn. They used to know each other; that's pretty obvious."

  Taliesin's smile lost some of its wattage. "That's not a very pleasant story, my lady."

  "Still," I said, "I think at this point, I'd like to know what I've gotten myself in the middle of."

  "The tale of Muirin of the Sea and Gwyn ap Nudd." He nodded and rested a hand lightly on the steering console, his long white hair streaming back in the wind. "I can tell you some of it. Much of the story is not mine to tell."

  "I'd like to hear whatever you can tell me."

  Taliesin nodded. "Then you shall." He closed his eyes for a moment, then opened them, and began to speak.

  "On the night of Samhain, Summer's End, Gwyn ap Nudd took his hounds and Du y Moroedd, his black steed marvelous swift, and hunted the hills with his retinue.

  "In those days, all stayed indoors when the Wild Hunt rode, for the prey that Gwyn sought went on two feet or four. It was a dark and wild world then, lady.

  "On this darkest of nights, by the lashing sea, Gwyn ap Nudd rode down to the rocky shore. His hounds flushed a white bird on the shore, and oh, that bird led them a wild chase. It was great sport. Up the hill and into the valley, over river and over stream. Arrow-swift on wings like smoke, that bird flew until Gwyn's retinue began to fall behind one by one, and only Gwyn and his hounds were left in the vanguard of the chase.

  "They cornered her on the rocks at Pen Strwmbl—you can still see those rocks, where the lighthouse now shines near Abergwaun. And that was when Gwyn beheld upon the seabird's ankle a silver chain, and knew her for what she truly was: one of the serving women of Fand, lady of Manannán mac Lir, who dwells on the Isle of Man across the far sea.

  'Lady,' he said, 'take your cloak of feathers off your maiden shape, and let us speak.' And he sent everyone away.

  "Muirin, the handmaiden of Fand, took off her feather cloak. She showed him where his hounds had torn her flesh, and said, 'I am Manannán's creature. I serve his lady Fand and I am under her protection. You must do me a service or treat with my lady and explain to her how you came to hurt her servant.'

  "And Gwyn said, 'You trespass upon these shores, Lady. For all who walk here on this night are mine. I might tell my hounds to fall upon you now, and your lady-liege could not object.'

  "The lady said, 'I was lost in a storm as I flew, and did not know upon whose shore I tread.'

  "'That matters not,' said Gwyn. 'On this night, all who walk on this land are mine.'

  "The lady then drew a knife, and said, 'I know the law. I need only to live until the sun rises. And I will slay every dog. Even the lowest woman among us is the equal of twelve men of your land. See, I have torn them cruelly with my beak and claws, and I will tear them more cruelly with my knife. They are afraid to come near me.'

  "Gwyn was amused by her, and invited her to dine with him in his dark halls. Here he said to her, 'What truly brings you to this land, lady of the gray sea? For I know you did not light upon my shores in any storm.'

  "And she said, 'I love a mortal man named Faolán, strong-limbed and well favored, with hair of spun gold. He dwells now in the land of the dead, but he is not meant to be there. It is not his time yet.' She showed her flesh where the dogs had torn it, and said, 'Your creatures have torn me; now I ask a service of you. I cannot fetch him from that place, but you can.'

  "And Gwyn said, 'You serve the lord of the dead in your own land. Why do you not ask him? Why do you come to me?'

  "And she said, 'I cannot ask him because he sent my love to the land of the dead for a trespass. Faolán looked upon the lady Fand and watched her bathing, and for that, my lord had him slain.'

  "Then Gwyn said, 'This is not my affair. I will not help you.'

  "And the lady said, 'Then I will go to my lady Fand and show her my torn flesh, and I will tell her your hounds coursed me, and she will speak to her lord and he will bring his host against you.'

  "'Even should I wish to help you, lady, I cannot,' Gwyn told her. 'You are a serving woman of Fand, one of those who carries home the souls of warriors slain in battle. You know that once someone passes beyond those dark gates, they will not return.'

  "But she said, 'I believe there is a way.'

  "They parried words like swords for a day and a night, and at the end of that time, Gwyn said to her, 'If I do this thing for you, it will upset the balance between the son of Lir and the son of Nudd; there may be war between our lands.'

  "'I do not care,' said the lady. 'My lord has wronged me. I will have your aid.'

  "But he did not know then that she had not told him all."

  "Hey, wait, you can't stop there," I said when Taliesin fell silent.

  "I feel," said Taliesin, "that I have told you as much as I dare, and perhaps, too much already."

  "So you're really not going to tell me the rest of it."

  "You'll find in your dealings with the fairy kind that it's important to know which of their secrets you may pass on to others—and which you should not. Besides, Gwyn is my friend, and I'm rather fond of the lady Muirin as well."

  "She doesn't seem to like you much."

  Taliesin laughed. "She thinks of me as Gwyn's creature. And she and Gwyn are ... not easy with each other, at the moment."

  An awful thought occurred to me. "Gwyn doesn't mean to hurt her, does he?" Rescuing Muirin from one form of captivity, only to deliver her into the hands of another enemy ...

  "No, not at all. Hurting her is the last thing he wants."

  I frowned at him, but just then he cut the engines, looking sharply up at the star-filled sky. I looked up too, unsure what he was looking at. The boat wallowed on the waves. I'd just opened my mouth to ask when I glimpsed a silver dart above us, a glimmer of moonlight on pale wings.

  The birds landed on the back railing of the boat, one after the other. They were big white waterbirds, cranes or something similar. Around the knobby orange ankle of each bird's left leg gleamed a silver band. I thought at first they had been tagged. But these looked nothing like a birder's leg band. They were made of delicate silver links, like a bracelet.

  "Ladies," Taliesin said, dipping his head.

  The leftmost bird bowed her head to her white breast, and then—I suddenly understood what Taliesin had meant when he said that Muirin took off her feather cloak, because that was exactly what happened: the bird skin peeled off like a coat, and left a woman standing in the boat's stern, holding the feathered mass of her inverted skin in one hand. Her hair was dark and long, contrasting sharply with her pale skin, and she wore a calf-length blue dress and leather boots. The chain around the bird's ankle had become a silver bracelet on her left wrist. Her sister bird followed suit, peeling her bird skin away to reveal a blonde woman in a green dress.

  Taliesin rose smoothly and bowed to them, balancing with ease in the rocking boat. I did likewise, thou
gh less gracefully. When in Rome, and all of that.

  "You are trespassing, bard," the brunette said.

  "No, lady, not by intent. We seek audience with Manannán, son of Lir the sea-lord."

  "Do you? Hmm." She turned to the other; they spoke quickly and softly, and the fluting words that passed between them weren't English or any human language. Then she said, "Follow," and each of them shrugged back into her bird feathers. One and two, they launched themselves from the stern of the boat into the sky.

  "Now what?" I murmured to Taliesin.

  He fired up the engine. "Now we go where these lovely ladies tell us to."

  Like an escort of fighter jets, the birds streaked across the waves, one flying to the left and one to the right. They kept up with the speedboat easily. At first I didn't notice the dark mass of land rising out of the ocean ahead of us, but we closed on it rapidly until it loomed above us: a great rocky island, buttressed by jagged, forbidding cliffs lashed by the waves. Above the cliffs I glimpsed a softer land, fields silvered by moonlight and speckled with the lights of scattered farmhouses.

  Our escort guided us around the headlands and into a sheltered bay. Unlike Gwyn's modest, hidden barrow-palace, the stronghold of Manannán mac Lir was a rambling structure that truly deserved the term "fortress." Towers, walls, and even roads hung over the bay, carved out of the cliffside: a fortress-city with causeways and stone spires and hanging bridges. The more I looked around the bay, the more of it I saw.

  What was this place in the real world? I wondered. We couldn't possibly be on the real Isle of Man; there would be no way to hide something like this. Or could glamour do it? It felt real, without the hallucinatory quality of Shadow New York—but so did Gwyn's barrow fortress.

  Perhaps it was like Seth's apartment, one foot in the real world, one foot in another place.

  Guided by the birds, we maneuvered up to a long stone pier. Other young women silently took the lines of the boat to moor it. At the foot of the pier, one woman stood alone, her blonde hair falling loose in the moonlight. I recognized her as we drew near, and somehow I wasn't surprised.