Unfallen Dead

CHAPTER 17

I sat on a concrete block overlooking the fairy ring, waiting for Dylan. The trees on the hill had dropped their leaves in a thick carpet around the mushrooms. The air felt damp, cool, not cold. The fairy ring gave off its own warmth, a residual effect of its power. Gargoyles crouched among the trees, humming to themselves as they enjoyed the concentration of essence. They gathered around the fairy ring like an odd bunch of people watching the grass grow. I was curious why Dylan had asked me to meet him there instead of at a bar.

Despite the late hour, people milled outside the ring. Two Danann security agents roamed the perimeter, not actively preventing anyone from going near the ring but sending the message to behave. They ensured the mushrooms didn’t get damaged. Every year the city asked the Guild for security backup since it was better equipped to deal with drunk fey people who might, for instance, accidentally set things on fire with their minds. The Guild beefed up security on Samhain especially. Fey groups arrived with competing claims to the spot, fought over space, and trampled the ring as they attempted to perform their ceremonial rituals. The veil between worlds wouldn’t open, just as it had never opened since Convergence; people would be disappointed; everyone would go home grumpy. Except the here-born like me.

The here-born were fey who never knew Faerie or the ability to travel the Ways across realms. The Samhain celebrations have the odor of nostalgia for something we don’t remember or believe. Older generations may talk of speaking with the dead and seeing long-lost loved ones, but to the here-born, they’re all just stories like those of Santa Claus. Nice to know growing up, hard to swallow as an adult. We went through the prayers and the ceremonial fire-lightings, then hightailed it out on the town for Halloween parties with the human normals.

“Woolgathering?” Dylan asked as he came up behind me. He swung his long legs over the concrete bench.

I shrugged. “A little. I was just wondering if rituals mean anything to me.”

Dylan gazed across the fairy ring. “Everyone has rituals that mean something to them. You’re asking a larger question.”

I eyeballed him. “Do tell, O, psychic one.”

He kept his gaze ahead, but smiled. “You’re wondering if anything means enough to you to have a ritual for it.”

Dylan always seemed to understand what I was thinking before I did. Apparently, he still had the knack. “True enough. I’ve been ripped down to the point where everything I thought I wanted is kinda meaningless.”

Dylan swayed his feet in small arcs. “We used to want the same things. You’re not as sure of yourself as you used to be.”

I smiled ruefully. “Maybe not all the same things. Lots of things have changed about me. I’m going to go with ‘that’s a good thing’ for now.”

He seemed about to say something, but changed his mind and chuckled. “Yeah. I guess you have to. We have to. Everyone has to get through the day.”

I glanced at him. That sounded a little world-weary for Dylan, but I didn’t detect any hint of melancholy about him. He was happy with where and who he was. It showed in the set of his jaw and the relaxed way he held his shoulders. He may recognize flaws in himself, maybe even admit to them, but they didn’t bother him. They never had, for as long as I could remember. He was comfortable in his own skin in a way I didn’t know if I could be anymore.

We sat in companionable silence. “Why did you leave like that, Connor? After everything that happened, you up and moved to Boston without even discussing it.”

The question was ten years in the making. I tried to brave it out, so I didn’t look at him and tried to sound indifferent. “It was my career, my decision.”

He snorted. “I didn’t say you needed my permission. We were a team. A good one. After the Pride Wind, we could have written our own orders. I thought you’d at least ask my advice. Danu’s blood, you left a message on my answering machine and didn’t take my calls for a year before I gave up.”

I rubbed my face. “I didn’t want the responsibility.”

He frowned. “For what?”

I couldn’t look at him. I didn’t want to see the hurt. “You. I didn’t want to be responsible for you. That day on the ferry, when our essences merged, I felt what you felt. I didn’t want the responsibility of not hurting you. So I left.”

He shook his head. “Uh… thanks?”

My chest tightened with anger. I never wanted to have this conversation. Whether I was angry at myself for causing the situation or Dylan for pressing it, it meant facing up to yet another example of my bad behavior. I knew I had to if I wanted to get on with my life. I didn’t have to like it.

“What did you want to happen, Dylan? Have me tell you I didn’t feel the same way? Did you want to hear that? Could we have worked together after that? What would have happened if you took too many risks for me and died because of it? What kind of position is that to put me in?”

He shrugged and smiled. “The same one you’d be in anyway. When our essences merged, I felt what you felt, too, you know. The difference between us was that it confirmed what I already knew. I’m not stupid, Connor. I knew the score. The one thing I knew was that regardless, we would still do the right thing at the right time. That’s why we worked so well together. When that knife hit my chest, you threw yourself in front of that essence-bolt to protect me, and it had nothing to do with how you felt about me personally and everything to do with the man you are. Above everything else, I knew I could always respect and trust you. I thought you would do the same.”

I frowned. “What essence-bolt?”

He looked at me in disbelief. “The essence-bolt on the Pride Wind that hit you in the head. I thought it killed you.”

“Dylan, I don’t remember getting hit with an essence-bolt.”

His face turned pensive. “I’ll never forget it. You fell next to me. Everything but you faded to white. All I could see was you. The next thing I knew, you merged our essences and saved my life.”

I stared at my feet. I didn’t remember. My stomach felt sick. All this time, and Bergin Vize wasn’t the first time I’d lost my memory. Maybe the Pride Wind wasn’t the first time either. How the hell was I supposed to figure out the first time I didn’t remember something?

“Con?”

I shook myself out of my reverie. “I’m sorry, Dyl. That’s all I think I can say, and it doesn’t cover it. I should have trusted that you would have been okay about it.”

“You did, but, maybe not in the right way. I got over it. You. I would have either way. But, thanks. I needed to hear that,” he said.

“I’m an idiot. We could have been friends all this time.”

He shrugged. “We’re druids. Ten years is nothing.”

I didn’t want to get into my mortality fears, so I tried to lighten the mood. “Now that that’s out of the way, want to go get a beer?”

He hesitated, and I felt a smidge of guilt that he was thinking I was trampling on his feelings again. “Actually, I asked you here for your input on my current job.” He nodded to the fairy ring. “I was hoping with that hopped-up ability of yours, you could tell me what’s there.”

It wasn’t an unreasonable request. My essence-sensing ability focused on the surrounding essence, and an alternate vision of the landscape materialized. For those who can see, essence manifested as light in an infinite array of colors and intensities. Why it did that was anyone’s guess, but the effects of the various kinds and levels defined what it meant to be fey. Some of us could see it acutely, while others had a vague sense that it was there. Some fey had the ability to manipulate it with fine precision, and some did it with blunt force. Human normals can’t see or use it at all, one of the many reasons they fear the fey. I can’t say I blamed them.

The fairy ring emitted a spectrum of yellow hues, the ring of mushrooms a deep gold, the ground within and without it a deeper bronze. Above the ring, the air shimmered a faint yellow-white in an inverted cone that twisted off into the night sky. The Taint surrounded the cone in a mottled green-and-black vapor. It made my stomach queasy when I looked.

“Except for the Taint, it looks how a fairy ring looks around Samhain-a bright spot of focused air essence, the kind fairies love. They don’t call them fairy rings for nothing.”

Dylan squinted. By the way he focused, he was using his own ability to look at the ring. “Exactly the same?”

The colors were unusually bright considering Samhain was still a few days away. “Stronger. I think. I’ve never been this sensitive to essence before, but it looks stronger than it usually does this early. The Taint amplifies essence, Dyl. That’s what we’re seeing-the natural increase of essence during Samhain, enhanced by the Taint.”

He considered before responding. “I think it’s more than that. Essence has been building for days, especially here in Boston. Fey portals are glowing more intensely everywhere, but nowhere as strongly as here. A lot of smart people think the veil between worlds may finally be thinning again.”

I stared at the thickening yellow essence. Convergence closed all the realms — Faerie, TirNaNog, Valhalla, Avalon, Caer Wydyr, Asgard — all sealed off from this land where I was born and raised in Boston. Some people thought the realms weren’t sealed but were simply gone, destroyed by a cataclysm no one remembers. What we saw every year, when the so-called veil thinned, was a residual memory on this side of the veil, the only side that existed anymore. Every Samhain, the fey gathered about their fairy rings and hoped that maybe this time they’d find a way back to Faerie. “It’s an illusion, Dylan. The Taint is raising false hope.”

“Bergin Vize is certainly curious about it,” he said.

I narrowed my eyes at him. “Spill it.”

“He’s been spotted around Externsteine.”

If Tara was the Irish heartland of the Celtic fey, Externsteine in Germany served the same purpose for the Teutonic fey. Ancient rock formations formed a line of spires that the Teutonic Consortium claimed they had inhabited eons ago. It was outside the Teutonic Consortium’s homeland, but Donor Elfenkonig, the Elven King, was granted sovereign status over it.

“Celts haven’t been there in centuries. There’s no fairy ring at Externsteine,” I said.

Dylan leaned back on his hands. “I said fey portals are flaring — fairy rings, stone circles, standing stones — anything positioned at traditional sacred sites.”

My memory clicked. The ancient German tribes used stone pillars carved like trees to commune with the realms of their gods. The most famous, some say the only true one, was near Externsteine. It vanished in the Middle Ages. My Middle Ages. Who knows whether it still existed in the Teutonic regions of Faerie. Almost the first thing the Teutonic fey did after Convergence was restore the pillar at Externsteine and give it the original’s name. “The Irminsul,” I said.

Dylan nodded. “Reports say it’s alive with essence like this fairy ring. We know most every associate of Bergin Vize has gone deep underground. The pattern to their last sightings indicated they’re moving to join him at Externsteine.”

“Then the Elven King is supporting him?” I asked. It would explain why the Teutonic Consortium was no help with arresting him.

“If he is, he’s covering his tracks. We can’t make a connection,” said Dylan.

I stared at the fairy ring. “So Vize gets into TirNaNog. He’ll get the safe fey world he wants and stop trying to blow up this one. We’d be rid of him.”

Dylan perched one foot on the wall and rested his chin on his knee. “I’m not sure. If he wanted to get to TirNaNog, he could have someone kill him. He’d die and wake up there.”

“Not if he wasn’t sure it existed. Maybe he wants proof.”

He sighed, more in thought than exasperation. “According to the legends, the portals connect this world to the other realms. There’s no rule that says when you enter through one portal you can’t exit through another.”

“You think he’s going to go in through the Irminsul to come here? Is that why you’re worried about the Taint?”

Dylan let out a low chuckle. “Not here, Con. There’ve been Teutonic spies at Tara. I told you, we’re seeing evidence that a major assault is being planned. Three major portals are showing signs of opening to TirNaNog — here, the Irminsul, and the fairy ring at Tara. The Seelie Court wants to shut the portals down as a defense measure.”

I tried to wrap my head around that. “Shut them down? After all these years of trying to find a way back to Faerie, they want to shut down a possible way in?”

Dylan leaned back. “TirNaNog is only part of Faerie. If — and it’s a big if — TirNaNog opens, it doesn’t mean that it will lead to all of Faerie. If TirNaNog opens in Germany and here, it will probably open in Tara. Vize could use it as a path to attack the Seelie Court. If the Elven King is supporting Bergin Vize, Maeve could fall and the Celts with her.”

I shrugged. “Maeve has an army, Dylan. She won’t roll over for them.”

He nodded. “And her army is spread all over Europe. She can’t afford to pull troops back to Ireland on a ‘maybe.’ If Tara is attacked, Maeve will never be able to gather reinforcements in time. It’s a win-win situation for Donor Elfenkonig. By letting Vize do his dirty work, he either finds a way back to Faerie through TirNaNog and decimates the Celtic fey on his way or he stands aside while Vize attacks Tara through TirNaNog and ends up the dominant fey leader here. Either way, Maeve loses.”

Things shifted into place — the hearings, the pressure on me and Meryl, Ceridwen’s anger about the spear. “That’s why Ceridwen wants to know what happened at Forest Hills. They want to use the Taint.”

Dylan looked at me speculatively. “Boston is the wild card because it’s not an ancient fey site. Whatever’s happening in that fairy ring must be related to the Taint. If the Seelie Court can understand what happened that opened the portals, they might be able to control access to all of them. They need you and Meryl to cooperate.”

I hopped off the stone. “What the hell, Dylan? Is that why you asked me here? Make me feel all guilty about the past and get me to spill my guts about Forest Hills?”

“No. You’re misinterpreting my intention,” he said.

“Really? The Guild didn’t figure Connor Grey’s old pal would persuade him to help Maeve find a weapon she can use against the Elven King?”

He rocked forward and grabbed the edge of the seat. “Back off, Connor. I’m trying to manage a mess you helped create.”

I threw my hands out. “I didn’t create any mess. I didn’t make that control spell. Meryl and I told you guys everything. She almost died, and I can’t remember a damned thing.”

He shook his head. “That’s not good enough. You have to remember something. I’m not supposed to tell you all this, you know. Ceridwen would blow a fit if she knew the secrecy I’m breaching here. She’s been speculating that you are involved. Your feelings about the Seelie Court are hardly a secret. There are bigger issues here than you and me.”

I wanted to hit him. “That’s what Ceridwen said to me. You’re not helping your case.”

He set his jaw. “We need to know what you and Meryl know.”

An angry surge of adrenaline reached out to my abilities. The black mass in my mind was having none of it. Daggers of pain blocked the connection before it could form. “Go to hell, Dylan.”

I stalked away. In my anger, I didn’t pay attention to where I was walking. I stepped through the circle of mushrooms and entered the fairy ring. Red pain flashed across my eyes as the darkness in my mind convulsed. The essence of the ring resonated with a strange sensation of otherness, something slick and clinging as it touched my skin. My vision blurred, and the ground shifted beneath my feet. Everything went dark, and I had the impression of huge towering stones. In a flash, the familiar Victorian buildings around the Common reasserted themselves as I stumbled out of the ring. People lingering nearby stared at me like I was some kind of ghost.

Dylan stood to my left, far from the stone block I had left him sitting on. Panicked, he rushed to my side. “Are you all right?”

I shook my head to clear it. “I saw…” I stopped. I wasn’t sure what it was.

He held my arm. “What happened? You froze and then fell forward.”

I pushed him away. “Nothing. Get away from me.”

He reached for me again. “Con, let’s go somewhere and talk…”

I didn’t answer. I made my way down the hill toward the Downtown Crossing retail district. Dylan called my name a few times but didn’t follow me. I mingled in among shoppers, envious of their obliviousness. No one paid me any attention. People went about their business, catching a store still open or rushing home late from work. They didn’t look like they knew or cared about fairy rings or Faerie queens or strange essence portals. Good for them. They didn’t know how lucky they were.

I was tired. Tired of the unknown. Tired of the suspicions. Tired of getting sucked into Guild politics. I didn’t care about the fairy ring or Maeve or Donor Elfenkonig. I just wanted my life back. But every day it seemed the more I tried to heal myself, the more things changed for the worse. My mind was damaged. My abilities gone, my memory screwed. The constant pain in my head. I didn’t know if my memories were buried or just not there at all. And now I was hearing strange whispering voices and seeing people no one else saw. It was starting to scare me. After everything that had happened, maybe I was losing it. The worst part was trying to figure out if I would know I was losing it or if I would become too demented to know the difference.

Dylan was right about one thing. I might not like the Teutonic Consortium, but that didn’t mean I was willing to hand Maeve the means to stomp all over Europe through mysterious fairy portals, even if I could. As far as I was concerned, the Seelie Court was only slightly less dangerous. Playing mind games with me by using my friends was a strange way to treat someone Maeve wanted for an ally. She had never done anything to make me think she cared about me, or even that she knew I existed. Why should I care about her? If that was how they all wanted to play, they deserved whatever Bergin Vize and Donor Elfenkonig threw at them, and it wasn’t my problem. I had my own hell to deal with.