Truthseeker

Thirty-Five

Magic ripped loose of Lara’s grasp, music drowned beneath the sound of Kelly’s terror. She yanked her blindfold off, tears flooding her eyes at the day’s sudden brilliance, but her feet were already carrying her forward with no care for safety or sight. The ground seemed even more treacherous as her vision returned; Kelly had made light of its difficulty without quite lying about it. Lara scrambled upward, putting weight on the staff despite its look of fragility. She stepped on her dress skirt repeatedly, its fullness proving more impediment than her heeled sandals. In frustration, she seized the fabric and pulled it up gracelessly. No one was there to see, and all that mattered was she reach Kelly.

A vast boulder, deposited on the mountainside by glaciers many millennia past, blocked the way. Lara shot a glance off to the left, wondering how difficult that path had been, if conquering a fifteen-foot rock was the preferable choice. Packed earth made a ridge along it, leading slowly upward and reminding Lara of the pitched stone road that stretched down to the Unseelie city. That was good, she thought: any parallels to the Barrow-lands meant they were closing in on their quarry.

Dissonance thundered through the thought. Lara shouted, a raw sound of frustration as she tried to push the music away. Lies had never been comforting to her, but for once she craved their solace. Parallels with the Barrow-lands were coincidence, nothing more, but she wanted them to have meaning. She drove herself up the ridge, stepping on her skirt again as it escaped her grip. Stitches tore at the waist, making it sag further, and she wished she had the strength to simply rip the whole thing free. Deliberately destroying clothing—that was a thought she’d never imagined having.

The narrow ridge switched back as it reached the boulder’s edge. Softer ground had been cut away, making a skinny V between the mountain and the half-unearthed stone. Kelly couldn’t be too much farther ahead. It had been mere moments between her departure and her screams. Lara ran, staff in one hand and her damnable skirt hitched up in the other, and burst through the end of the switchback.

It opened onto a raw expanse of earth that had once been the site of a river or a landslide, with rocks strewn about it in awkward chunks. Dozens of tall thin stones stood at skewed attention, like bowling pins knocked partially aside, and innumerable round stones the size of beach balls lay among them. Kelly hid behind one of the taller rocks, arms curled over her head. Relief soured the panic in Lara’s stomach and she ran forward, waving. “Kelly! Come on!”

Kelly dropped her hands, face stricken with dismay. “Lara, no! Watch out!”

A round rock as large as those settled among the tall ones came flying down the riverbed. It bounced, shattering smaller stones into shrapnel, and spun on its axis to veer toward Lara. She shrieked and ducked, the rock flying overhead. It bounced once more, then crashed into a ravine a little farther down the mountain. Heart hammering, Lara straightened to gape after it, and Kelly’s warning shout came a second time. “Get down!”

Another rock came smashing down toward her. Lara shrieked again and ran for one of the standing stones. A third rock bashed its top off, sending dust and shards over her, and she stuffed her hand in her mouth to keep from crying out again.

“It’s—” The thunder of another stone rushing toward them drowned Kelly’s words and ended in a shuddering crash that shook the earth. “Fuck,” Kelly bellowed, “that one hit my pin. It’s ninepins, Lara. We’re the pins.”

Bewildering truth shot drumbeat rhythms up Lara’s spine. She stuck her head out from behind her rock regardless, trying to meet Kelly’s eyes. “Who the hell’s throwing the balls?”

“I don’t know! Giants!”

“There’s no such thing as giants!” Half a dozen stones came smashing down toward them, giving the lie to Lara’s assertion, for all that it rang true in her mind. She flinched back, staring as another one flew overhead and bounced into the ravine. “It’s got to be him.”

“He’s a giant?!”

“No! I mean, I don’t think so!” Lara pressed her spine against her standing stone, then dared another glimpse toward Kelly. They were separated by no more than twenty feet, with one of the pin-stones offering shelter between them. “Stay there!”

“Like I was going to go anywhere!”

A giggle rose up and gave Lara the nerve to launch herself into a run, aiming for the nearby standing stone. A hailstorm of smaller rocks exploded down at her, pebbles pelting her arms and ribs as she ran. One, a fist-sized rock, connected solidly with her thigh and she stumbled as bone-deep pain bloomed. The rest of the stones rattled off the ninepin rock as she rolled into its lee. Kelly’s voice broke over the last clattering of stone: “Are you okay?”

The ache in her leg was dull but comprehensive, setting her whole body off-kilter so she wanted to both curl over the injury and to throw up. Lara put her hand against it, gasping, and managed a weak “Yeah” in response.

Kelly’s silence was filled with another rattling of stone, at the end of which she said, “You’re still a terrible liar, Lar.”

“No, I’m okay. I’m just …” Lara exhaled like the ache would rush out on her breath, then inhaled again deeply. “That hurt.”

“I’ll come the rest of the way to you.” Before Lara had a chance to protest, Kelly burst out from behind her rock, running pell-mell across scattered stones. She slid behind the ninepin rock seconds before another round stone came rolling down the hill to batter their protective wall. “You shouldn’t’ve come after me, you idiot. But thank you.”

“You sounded like you were dying! Why didn’t you just turn around and come back?”

“Look.” Kelly nodded toward the switchback and Lara pushed herself up to peer at it.

The mountainside had closed, no hint of the passageway visible. Lara, incredulous, said, “That’s not even possible, is it?” and Kelly laughed.

“Lara, hon, we’re well on our way to six impossible things before breakfast. We—eep!” Rock shattered over their heads, the top of their standing stone exploding under the impact of another thrown stone. “We can’t stay here.”

“No, I mean, it’s really not possible.” Lara scowled at the blank mountainside, searching for a way to see through what she was certain must be illusion. Truthseeker was better suited to words, she thought, to hearing and speaking the truth. Seeing it was too complicated, the human mind poorly constructed for truth’s visual tricks. She clutched the staff, frantic to call its power to help herself see through the impossible, but it remained cold and quiet in her hands. Like it resented the limitations she’d put on it and was punishing her for it. The thought was absurd, but there was no hint of mistruth to it, and Lara found herself staring at the staff in bewildered distrust.

Kelly caught her arm, shaking her from half-formed thoughts. “I know it’s not possible, but that’s not stopping it from happening! That rock that hit you … can you run?”

Lara rubbed her thigh again, residually aware of the ache there. “Yeah, I’m fine. It’s a bone bruise. A week from now after I’ve forgotten what happened it’ll turn purple.”

“If you can manage to forget what’s happening I want your therapist’s phone number. Come on, maybe we can get over the edge of the ravine and it’ll protect us.”

“No, we need to go up.” Lara peeked around the edge of their rock, then yelped and flinched back as another barrage came rolling down the mountain. “It feels right, and besides, that’s where the stones are coming from. I’m going to get this guy even if I have to fight giants.”

“With what?”

Lara pushed herself up. “With the truth.”

“Oh, good. You’ve got a truth shield, then? One that’s going to keep enormous rocks from flattening us?”

“Sort of.” Lara closed her eyes, listening not for the next rumble of stone, but for the music that was a part of her. The nightwings had strained at that tune, making it ugly, though she hadn’t recognized that until the third encounter. But it meant something; it had to.

It meant that, like the breach between worlds that had let them through, they weren’t a true thing. They undoubtedly existed, but like a flaw in cloth, a woven bit gone wrong. It pulled at everything else, warping it the same way an out-of-tune piano warped a song.

There were no giants. Not in this world, not now, if there ever had been. Lara clung to that as a truth she could be certain of, and it hummed comforting agreement. “There aren’t any giants, but giants are throwing the stones.”

“What?” Kelly half-swallowed the question, letting Lara ignore her. Music trembled, unable to fuse there aren’t any giants and giants are throwing the stones into a cohesive whole. One couldn’t be true without the other, and the first part carried more weight.

“There aren’t any giants to throw the stones. I want the stones to stop.”

Shocking silence surrounded them, as alarming, in its way, as the rockfall had been. Lara crowed triumph and swung around the edge of their standing stone to glare defiance up the mountain. “They’re an illusion. That must be his talent.”

“An illusion?” Kelly surged to her feet, gesturing at herself. Scrapes lined her hands, her shoes were dusty, and a bruise was forming on one cheekbone. “That’s a hell of an illusion, Lara. Packs a lot of punch. And the nightwings sure as hell weren’t illusions! How’d he make them if he does illusions?”

“The nightwings were something else. I mean, Dafydd knew what they were, so it’s got to be a spell the Seelie can work as a general rule, cutting away pieces of the night sky to make an attack beast. And anything can hit hard, Kelly. Air can hit hard.” Lara began picking her way up the riverbed, gaining speed as her certainty grew. “That’s got to be it. You can’t see the air, but it’s got presence. His talent must be giving it form, making it real.”

“Air’s one thing, but those were rocks!”

“No.” Lara turned around, catching Kelly’s hand and nodding toward the passage they’d just climbed. “Look.”

The ninepins stones still stood, rickety and tall in the ancient sluiceway. But they grew up out of flattened stones, grass working its way between the cracks. There were no lumps of round stones to be seen, though dust still settled where they’d crashed into the earth. “Look,” Lara said again, softly. “He stopped holding his concentration, so they disappeared.”

“That’s not possible. They almost killed us.”

Lara let go a quick laugh. “Maybe it’s not possible, but it’s true. It’s just like the military trying to use compressed air for nonlethal weapons.” She started back up the mountain, hearing Kelly follow close behind. “The only difference is this guy can add a visible component to the attack. I’m sure of it.” She felt like she was floating on the music, confidence shoring her up.

“The military can’t turn compressed air into visible rocks,” Kelly muttered, but the argument had run out of her. “Lara, what do we do against somebody who can turn illusion against us? I mean, he could be hiding in plain sight.”

“I don’t think it’ll work on me now that I’m looking for it. Dafydd’s glamour wouldn’t, anyway. I knew he was using it, but I still saw him as he really is.”

“Good,” Kelly whispered. “In that case, can you please tell me that I’m not seeing the Headless Horseman riding down on me?”

Lara twisted around in time to watch blood splatter from Kelly’s face.

She saw nothing: no horse, no cloaked figure, no sword; nothing but Kelly spinning with the hit she’d taken. There was no sound, not even of Kelly hitting the earth, much less hoofbeats against the stone. Two, she thought clearly: two upstate New York legends so far, and though she didn’t like fairy tales, Lara knew these things usually happened in threes. She said “Two is enough” under her breath, and slipped down yards of grass-riddled rock to Kelly’s side.

Her friend’s eyes were wide but glazed, and the cut along her cheek scored hideously deep. It had caught the bone, narrowly missing her eye; narrowly missing the fleshy cheek, where it might well have severed her face. The strength Lara had wished for earlier roared through her and she savaged the skirt of her dress, tearing off a strip to ball it against Kelly’s face.

Kelly gave a thin gaspy shriek that turned to a real scream as she saw something over Lara’s shoulder. Lara risked a glance as she folded herself over Kelly. There was nothing there, a promise she shouted into Kelly’s screams. The truth was a shield and Lara its manifestation; no new scores opened in Kelly’s flesh, though she whimpered again with fear.

“It isn’t there, Kel. It isn’t there.” Truth pounded through the words, but not enough: even if Kelly wanted to believe her, the monsters were too real. Lara, shaking with determination, bent her head over Kelly’s until their foreheads touched. “I’m going to show you. I have to show you, so you’re not afraid. So it won’t be able to hurt you. This will work,” she promised. “It has to work.”

The music had always been internal, even when it had opened a path from one place to another. Even when she’d sung aloud to focus it, the power had come from within, bound by her flesh.

It wasn’t enough. Not this time, not now. She reached for the staff where it lay to the side, abandoned when she’d collapsed at Kelly’s side, but it remained sullenly quiet, unwilling to offer her any of the strength it had shown when she’d struck it against the earth and broken open a path to another world. Frustrated, she wished for an instrument, for some talent to share music directly with others through something other than her voice. A lifetime of hearing truth’s song, and she’d never thought to learn to play anything. She would, she promised herself. She would do that, when she was free of the complicated world Dafydd had introduced her to.

The words woke a snatch of music in her mind, a phrase of gospel song. Eyes closed, she whispered the lyrics, then struggled to strengthen her voice. “Great God Almighty, I am free, I am free at last.”

She whispered the will to be free toward Kelly; freedom from the illusions of the world, from the comforting lies, from the terrible things hidden by falsehood. Freedom, most especially, from the magic that convinced her of the Horseman’s presence. Such a conviction could hurt her, even kill her, if she believed hard enough.

Song and strength poured out of her in a rush, leaving her temporarily bereft and in sudden silence. Kelly, though, screamed again and surged upright, fingers clawing at something Lara couldn’t see. “Oh my God, oh my God, no, make it stop!”

“Kelly! Kel, it’s me! You’re okay, I’ve got you!” Lara caught her, holding on hard, and for long seconds Kelly struggled, her gaze still panicked and distant. Then she collapsed, hands over her ears as she twisted away from Lara.

A mad orchestra, every instrument playing its own tune, crashed back over Lara as Kelly broke away. She put her own hands to her head, agog at the noise. It drowned out the sound of her heartbeat, of her breathing; of every normal thing that told her she was alive. The world was abruptly too much to take in, filled with cluttered, unorganized truth that no one person could possibly bear.

But she’d borne it all her life. Lara shook her head hard, trying to sort out the cacophony, and pieces of it fell away so quickly she had the impression the very world was abashed at its behavior. Notes came clearer, different instruments coming in to tune with one another, so that when a sour flute sounded she sensed it as wrong, and tried to tug it into alignment. It resisted and she pulled harder, then let herself forget it as Kelly half sat up, staring at her in horror.

“Is that what it’s always like? So loud, all that music everywhere, all that pain, all that awful truth?” She crumpled and Lara pulled her close again, breath coming hard and short.

“I’m sorry. I didn’t know what else to do.”

“I don’t ever, ever want to see things the way you do again.”

“I promise,” Lara whispered. “I promise, Kel. I’m sorry. I know you weren’t meant to see things like that. Only I am.” The world was calmer now, cymbals of discontent settling into more regular chimes. Distortions still rippled through it, tunelessness striking again, and this time she recognized it as the same dissonant warning the nightwings carried with them. It was closer, reluctantly closer, and she remembered how she’d pulled at that off-tone, trying to make it match the rest.

“Well done,” said a bitter male voice. “Well done indeed, Truthseeker. I had never meant to come this far.”

Bewildered, bloody, angry, Lara lifted her gaze to see a young man—as all the people of the Barrow-lands were—standing before her, his dark hair shadowing equally dark eyes. He had his people’s beauty, but it was marred with a glimmer of madness. “Ah,” he said, mocking. “But you don’t know who I am, do you.”

“You’re wrong. I do.” Lara, full of calm certainty, got to her feet. “You’re Merrick ap Annwn, and this is all your doing.”