Mystify the Magician Page 6

  Just as we reached the far edge of town MacCool broke out of the column to review us as we passed and to pull off a neat little trick: He whipped his sword up out of its scabbard, threw it twirling end over end way up in the air, and caught it by the pommel just as the point was about to plunge into his area. The suckers loved it. Big huge cheer and cries of encouragement from the onlookers.

  Still all and all, it did prove that MacCool could handle a sword. Almost as well as Etain had done the night before.

  Maybe she should have come along.

  "You're jealous, aren't you?" I said to David. "Wish you could do that, don't you?"

  A rare David smile. "Damn right."

  We trotted along the road out of town, out into the stone-fence-and-clumps-of-moss countryside. It was maybe two miles to the stone circle where Senna had opened herself up as the gateway. Between here and there the road followed the stream mostly. At places the road was shadowed by clumps of trees, or edged by tumbles of scabbed green-and-white boulders.

  "What will she do?" I wondered aloud.

  "Senna?" David sighed in that deep, depressed way he had whenever Senna was the topic. "She knows we're on to her.

  She knows we're going to try to counter her advantage. Given enough time we could neutralize it. If we reached the Coo-Hatch and shared all we know, they..." He fell silent.

  "Yeah," I said. "We arranged for the Coo-Hatch to bail out of Everworld, didn't we? With Senna's help. No way to know how many Coo-Hatch have made it back to their own real world, but one way or the other, there are going to be fewer of them. You've been outgeneraled, General. Senna let us force her into removing the one bunch of people in this nuthouse who could have built guns for us."

  He had nothing to say for a long time as we rode in morose silence, filled with the sphincter-tightening expectation that we were in someone's sights.

  Finally he said, "It would be a mistake to overestimate her.

  She's not ten feet tall. She knows guns are useful, doesn't mean she knows how to use them."

  "We got swords, she's got machine guns," I said.

  "She's going to ambush us," David said with certainty. "She doesn't count me for much, obviously, but she's scared of Jalil.

  She's going to try to go for a fast kill. Hit us hard, take the castle, kill all of us. She's not ten feet tall but she's smart: Her edge is technology. She knows that Jalil can eventually wipe out that edge. She's seen how quick these folks are to adopt modern technology, telegraph lines going up, that cable car, primitive electricity."

  "You reading her mind now" I said. "Kind of late, isn't it, Maximus?"

  "Yeah, it is kind of late," he said. He spurred his horse a bit and caught up with MacCool. "Listen, MacCool, I'm going to tell you what's going to happen. You can believe me or not, but when it happens you need to remember what I'm telling you."

  MacCool gave him the condescending up-and-down look the serious hero reserves for the wanna-be. But he let David talk just the same.

  "One of these little clumps of trees, like this very one we're riding into, they'll be waiting. They'll be on both sides of the road, concealed, you won't see them. Then all of a sudden it's going to be like a lightning storm: A lot of very loud noise and bright flashes, and your men and horses are going to start dying. But not all of them. The ones who aren't dead right away need to get down off their horses and run away, staying as low to the ground as they can."

  "Run away!" MacCool yelled. "Run away, is it? And run away crouching low like beaten dogs, no less?"

  "Yes, that's exactly right," David said.

  "Listen, stranger, the Fianna do not run."

  "I figured you'd say that, MacCool. But I had to try. Now my friend and I are going to drop back to the tail of this column.

  And when it happens I'll try my best to get some of your men out of here alive."

  David turned his horse and rode to the rear with me following. I don't believe I've ever liked David more than at that moment.

  "Ride all the way back to the village and find yourselves a good root cellar in which to cower!" MacCool jeered at our backs. "We need no —"

  The burst blew a hole in his chest and knocked him off his horse. His horse died at the same time.

  Chapter

  XIII

  Flashes from the stone fence to our right. Flashes and yells from the trees on our left. A sudden, deafening clatter all around.

  Fraich had time to yell, "Charge!" before a round hit his outstretched right arm. The man nearest to him slumped in his saddle and fell over.

  "Dismount!" David yelled.

  "Charge!"

  Two more men fell. Horses, too. Some were trying to organize for a charge but they were dying before they could spur forward.

  "Dismount, damn it!" David yelled, and swung himself down just as his horse's head jerked sideways and an exit hole appeared beneath the animal's eye.

  I rolled off, hit the ground, got up into a crouch, and scampered toward the rear. I heard the mad-buzzing of bullets passing just over my head.

  "Get off your horses, you idiots!" David roared.

  "Get down! Get down!"

  Most of the Fianna were still ignoring him, but I guess the logic of the situation was looking pretty convincing to others.

  Men were climbing down off horses. Those that insisted on sitting high and proud were being ripped apart.

  And yet, three of them managed to spur their horses forward and charge straight at the fence. It was glorious, it really was. I saw one of Senna's killers rise up into clear view, take aim, and fire. The first horseman fell straight back.

  More fire, and men and horses died, still twenty yards from the fence.

  "Down, down, use the horses for cover," David was shouting.

  And all at once, David was boss. Men were listening. I saw scared tough guys crouching behind dead horses. I saw others crouch-walking like me, bailing out, heading for home, Fraich was one of them. He was dragging his useless right arm, trailing blood.

  "Grab those horses," David instructed. "Grab the reins, lead them, keep them between you and the enemy." We backed away as fast as we could move, leading the kicking, rearing, scare-masked horses behind us as shields. They died and fell, but we only had to get over a slight rise in the path to be out of the line of fire. Fifty feet maybe. Already the fire was becoming less accurate and intense. The killers were yelling triumphantly, like sports fans smelling victory.

  I ran, the others ran, we all ran, no horses left for cover, ran and topped the slight rise and ran all the faster. But then, just ahead, right across the road was a stone fence that had definitely not been there ten minutes earlier. A stone fence that was building itself higher and higher, like an army of invisible stonemasons were working. Stones flew through the air, flew like iron filings going to a magnet, zoomed through the air from the surrounding fences.

  The fence was rising fast and behind us I heard a familiar voice crying, "Go after them! Finish them off!"

  I’ll tell you something: Lots of guys have stories about ex-girlfriends from hell, but I was pretty sure I had a special case.

  A whirlwind of head-sized rocks ahead, an advancing wave of flying lead behind. Another Fiannan caught a bullet in the back, stood up, arched all the way back like he was trying to do a backflip, and collapsed.

  We were screwed, well and truly screwed.

  "Get past the fence and we're safe," David yelled.

  "What?"

  "Cover your head with your hands and arms, run for it!" he said. Then he demonstrated and followed his own advice. A flying rock nailed him in the side. Another caught him in the side of the head and spun him around. He plowed into the rising fence, now nearly six feet tall, scrambled up the side, slammed again in the kidneys.

  I was right behind him, arms twisted all around my head, crouching, running, staggering when the rock hit me right between the shoulder blades. Up and running again, cover your head!

  Wham. I was down, head swimmin
g, sky and clouds spinning around and around, some guy leaped over me, rocks flying like big demented crows. I rolled over and started crawling the wrong way. Turned again, staggered up, ran, was nailed in the butt by a rock. And now the rocks in the fence were being chipped and hammered by bullets.

  Into the wall, legs climbing, kicking, scrabbling, one hand grabbing, the other trying to cover my head, and bang something hit me in the face. But I was off the ground, climbing, all at once falling, rolling over onto the far side of the fence.

  David was there, face bloody. He grabbed me by the arm and yanked me to my feet. I couldn't see out of my left eye.

  Something hurt. Everything hurt. Me and David and half a dozen Fianna ran exactly like beaten dogs, tails between our legs, scared to death, bruised and bloody.

  Of the twenty-three men and horses who had ridden away from the castle an hour earlier, nine men came dragging back, reaching the gates just as the sun declined past noon.

  We rode the fancy cable car the last quarter mile through a town no longer cheering.

  Chapter

  XIV

  The town looked nearly abandoned as we lurched along.

  Windows were shuttered, although you could see eyes peeping out occasionally. A definite change from our happy send-off.

  News had traveled fast, faster than we ourselves.

  "Jalil's been busy," David said approvingly, nodding his blood-caked head.

  We reached the castle and slunk through the main gate like the losers we were. Fraich collapsed right away. We had stopped most of the major external bleeding from his arm with jury-rigged pressure bandages. But after a while we'd noticed he had another hole in him, right through the belly.

  Once we were in the courtyard they raised the gate and slammed home a big crossbar. I could see that David was right: The castle walls were lined with fairy archers. King Camulos came out to meet us. He was armored up and wearing a big, jeweled sword. He was a different guy now. Not the happy glutton, not even the concerned king. He was mad as hell in a cold-blooded kind of way.

  "Where is MacCool?" the king demanded.

  "Dead," David said.

  "Fraich?"

  "Over there. He's alive. But he won't be for long," David reported. "Where is Jalil?"

  All the while we were staggering to the keep, the biggest of the towers. Inside, in a vast, echoing room alive with busy soldiers, human and fairy, I felt a little better. Now I had two sets of walls between me and Senna.

  Etain came running up, pushing her way past men who were suiting up in useless armor. She made a pained face on seeing me.

  "Jeez, do I look that bad?"

  "Do you not know?" She touched my brow gently. "The flesh is torn. Hanging loose, here. It will need sewing up."

  "Gross," I said.

  Jalil came running up. "You guys okay?"

  "Yeah, Jalil. We're great. Why do you ask?"

  "King Camulos, with every respect, I need to be put in charge of defending this place," David said. "I need your authority to act."

  "I command here," the king snapped. Then he looked around at what was left of MacCool's elite troops and he softened. "But I heed my good advisers. I have done all that your friend Jalil has advised me to do."

  Jalil nodded. "We have every fairy archer we could find manning the walls. The armorers are turning out arrows as fast as they can. We've got the village locked up tight down below."

  "That's good," David said. "Very good. But she expects us to wait here for her. She won the first round. She may get cocky.

  How about April?" he asked, changing gears suddenly.

  "She's trying to sleep," Jalil said. "Not as easy as you might think."

  "Okay, sir. King Camulos, here's what I need: a dozen of your best bowmen. Six to go with me, six to go with Christopher."

  "I volunteered? Man, I gotta learn to keep my mouth shut."

  "You don't want payback?" David asked me.

  "No, that's you, not me, David. But I'll do it anyway. You know why?"

  "No," he admitted honestly.

  "Because you're just so cute when you go all Napoleon."

  "You're an idiot," he said, but he laughed as he said it. "Jalil, man, you know what's what here at the castle, stay on this end."

  Etain unwound the scarf from around my neck. It was saturated with blood, most of it probably mine, and with fear-sweat, all of it mine.

  "I shall replace this," Etain said softly.

  "Better wash it. Or maybe burn it," I said apologetically.

  "Never," she said. "Blood shed in defense of my land can never offend."

  She so totally wanted me. And I so totally wanted a shower and a meal and a case of beer. But after all that I'd have liked nothing better than to cuddle up with Etain somewhere, good lord, she was sweet. I felt drunk, you know, that emotionally vulnerable, sticky-sentimental kind of drunk, like I wanted to blurt

  "I love you," and then start boo-hooing.

  I was kept from making a complete ass of myself by the appearance of April. She looked matted and scrunched, having just woken up.

  "Did you see her?" David demanded.

  April nodded and yawned and said, "Yeah. I saw her."

  I went to her, reached around into her backpack, and pulled out her bottle of Advil,

  "What happened to you?" April wondered. "You look terrible."

  "Big rocks hit me in the head," I said. I popped two Advil and swallowed them dry. I handed the bottle to David.

  "We ran into some trouble," David explained in his usual Bruce-Willis-laconic style.

  "Senna and the Wehrmacht shot us all full of holes.

  MacCool is deader than Hammer's career. On the one hand guys with machine guns, on the other hand your lovely half sister throwing entire stone fences at us. It was a freaking massacre. And let me just say, I'm hungry."

  Etain yelled, "Food! Bring food and drink!" She had that princess voice available when she needed it. You know, that voice you obey before you've had a chance to think about it.

  She would be great at a crowded Chili's.

  April said, "Look, David, Brigid said —"

  He cut her off with a look. But it was too late. The name Brigid had the same effect on the king, queen, princess, and assorted druids that the name Elvis would have on the checkout line of a Tennessee Wal-Mart.

  "Brigid?" Etain said. "It is the goddess Brigid you speak of?"

  David looked impatient, but managed to get a grip on that and said, "Yes, she's in the real... in the old world. She made contact with me. She wanted me to do something."

  "What?" Fios the druid asked, speaking up for the first time.

  David hesitated and suddenly found his own shoes very interesting. Finally, in a soft voice un-like his own, "Long and short of it, I guess she wanted me to kill Senna. Or at least make sure Merlin got hold of her. Make sure the gateway was never opened."

  "And you failed," Fios said.

  "No," David snapped. "I didn't fail, I never tried."

  "If this witch is a gateway between the old world and Everworld then the danger is greater than you can imagine,"

  Fios said. "All the gods will sense the opening. All the gods will know that she has opened the gateway, even though she closed it again. Why did you ignore Brigid's warning? You have brought every curse down upon us. Every evil."

  The mood had been bad, now it was worse. No one had anything to say. David couldn't defend himself, of course, that would be making excuses and in his twisted brain that was a no-no.

  The fact that Brigid had talked to David gave him a certain extra importance in these folks' eyes, I could see that. But the fact that he had not done what she'd asked him to do, well, that was making people think he was either stupid or bad.

  "Senna's one of us," I said.

  April's eyebrows shot up. So did Jalil's. It was funny there for a moment, the two of them identically amazed.

  "She; was one of us, anyway," I explained. "Besides, she bewitched David. She
put the magic moves on our boy here."

  There was a universal sigh, a sort of unspoken "Ahh, now I understand" thing from the locals. That made perfect sense to them. They were pretty tech-friendly for Everworlders, but they still respected the magic.

  "So, what did Brigid say?" Jalil asked April.

  Every eye was on April, every ear listened, even as the food was carried in and David and I and the remaining Fianna went at it like lions going after the last wildebeest.

  "She said it wasn't too late. She was glad we were here.

  Not in Ireland, I mean, but right here in Merlinshire, although she was sad because she said a lot of people were likely to die." "There's some real Psychic Friends insights," Jalil muttered.

  "Guys with machine guns pretty much means people are going to die."

  A dozen fairy bowmen came zipping into the room and stood at attention against the wall.

  "What else?" David asked April between bites of some kind of meat. "That's all mush — can she help us?"

  "She wasn't exactly optimistic, David. She said its probably too late, that no man's sword or arrow will stop Senna: Her power is too great, Brigid could feel it, that's what she said. She could feel Senna's presence, like a weight on her soul, a darkness on her mind, a shadow over the future. That's pretty close to a direct quote. No man would kill her."

  "Yeah. Well, an arrow will sure as hell stop Keith," I said. But my brave words had zero effect. King Camulos looked about three-hundred years old. The stuffing was leaking out of the old boy. Goewynne's cool gray eyes were sad. Fios looked like he'd just gotten the diagnosis and the doctor was talking about how he should make the best of his last few weeks.

  Etain seemed shocked, angry, but even she wasn't arguing with the basic pessimism.

  David was bummed and guilty, April was bummed and pissed, I was bummed and worried about Etain.

  Only Jalil wasn't buying into the gloom and doom.

  "I have an idea," he said. "Let's build a tank."

  Chapter

  XV

  Senna had recruited us into this madness, she'd chosen us and hijacked us into Everworld to work for her. She'd picked David to be her champion. She'd picked Jalil to be her brains.