The Sea Peoples(86)

“Gather,” Deor said, his thin clever face drawn. “Something wakes. It is part of this place, but beyond the appearances we see, from deeper down in the . . . the structure. And it comes in wrath.”

He paused, seeming to see beyond the grubby, cracked plaster and lath of the walls.

“It hunts.”

Thora and Toa lifted the man he’d just freed under the arms and dumped him unceremoniously near John. Deor looked at the long knife he still held in the gauntleted hand.

“Fitting,” he said, and began to inscribe a circle around them, alternating a precise line with runes. “This blade was meant to sever that which is connected.”

Toa stood easily with the shovel held loosely in his hands; the long shaft and his long arms put the door easily within his reach.

“Quiet out there, but we shouldn’t overstay our welcome,” he hinted broadly.

John looked up at Pip. “This is going to be an embarrassing bit in my chanson about all this,” he said.

“What, because I rescued you?” she said. “Well, made a good beginning on it.”

“No, that’s fine. It’s because I haven’t told you I love you or asked you to marry me yet,” he said. “I’ll have to be careful or I’ll look like a cad, and we can’t have that, can we? Marry me, my beloved, and make me the luckiest man on Earth!”

Pip sighed. “Damn you, John Arminger Mackenzie, I thought I was immune to charming musicians! All right, take the three words as said, and . . . doesn’t your mother have any say in who you marry?”

“Not a word,” he said cheerfully. “In any case, I don’t have to go home for a while yet. My sister’s High Queen in three years, but I don’t inherit the Lord Protector’s throne until my mother passes . . . and she’s only forty-five.”

He crossed himself. “God and His mother and all the company of the Saints preserve her.”

“Amen!” Pip said. “Plenty of time to fossick about, then.”

Wait a minute. Did I just agree to marry him? Pip thought suddenly. Well, I suppose I did. I’m going to have to watch this one; he’s a charmer!

Their hands met, clasped and squeezed.

“We must retrace our steps,” Deor said as he worked. “Remember that your gear will shape itself to your surroundings and your own wishes. And remember your protectors . . .”

He looked at John. “Yours is Raven, my Prince; She above all others wards your House. And yours . . .”

The Mist Hills scop looked at the anonymous man they’d rescued.

“Yours, I think, is Coyote, man of many names and none. A strong Power, but a chancy one. Call on no God you are not sure of.”

“Hold on—wouldn’t what we did here change what those other places were like?” Thora said. “We were traveling back along the history of this world.”

“It’s not that simple, oath-sister,” Deor said. “This is a story many times retold, and each telling a cycle of the universe, from the void of Ginnungagap to the fires of Sutr at Ragnarok. What comes later is . . . may be . . . the product of many, many retellings, not of a single one. We’re deep in a . . . a sheaf . . . of cycles that this Power here dominates.”

“Do you actually understand what you just said, old friend?” Thora asked.

“No. I don’t think even the High King did ken it fully,” Deor said frankly. “Perhaps Lady Juniper, if she’d had the Sword as well. Or perhaps only a God might, and while I sing of them, I’m as mortal as any in Midgard.”

“The next part is likely to be sort of alarming,” Pip said to John. “But it ought to get you out of those ragged pants, at least.”

“I hope it gives me a metaphorical bath,” he said.

“And I wasn’t going to say a thing, darling!”

The blue-green eyes of the nameless Boisean were starting to glow a little with hope; it probably wasn’t something he’d had much of before.

Deor completed his work and stood back, looking at it critically. “Not as elegant as Lady Juniper’s work, but it will have to do.”

There were voices outside the hidden door, and crashing sounds, as if someone was knocking books onto the floor. Toa flashed a look at Deor, and the scop nodded, drew a deep breath and shouted.

And the world changed.





CHAPTER EIGHTEEN


BETWEEN WAKING WORLD AND SHADOW

For a moment John Arminger Mackenzie felt nothing but sheer relief. It was as if everything that had happened since the tower fell at the siege of the Carcosan fort had . . .

Not never happened, he thought, reveling in the feeling of health and strength and youth. Just happened long ago and I’m fully recovered.

The Boisean was looking more cheerful too—understandably so, since the fetter-cuffs were gone. He was dressed—

We all are, John thought.

—in a tough-looking uniform of yellow-brown khaki, with plenty of pockets and pouches, and found himself carrying a rifle.

So am I, John thought.

Information poured through his mind, and the memory of it kicking against his shoulder and the feel of cartridges stripping out of a clip into the magazine under his thumb, all as familiar as using a bow or a crossbow. All of them had them, except Deor, who had a massive revolver in a leather holster at his waist. Thora and Pip had Medical Corps in badges on their shoulders, and Toa had a nonsense-word in the same place: Suanee Auxiliary Force. It was all visible, though only just; the light came from cracks in the wall, and it was as red and flickering as an open fire in the hearth.