Sunrise Lands

"It was a story worth hearing," he said, and told it.

"What?" she said when he was finished, sitting up and putting her empty glass down, impatiently waving away one of the servants who came up to refill it. When they were alone: "Are you bullshitting me again, Rudi?" Her eyes narrowed. "Because if you are, this is no time for one of your jokes-"

"No, no, I swear it by Brigid and Ogma, may they curse me with stutters all my life if I lie, and that's how we had it from him."

Mathilda's mouth dropped open slightly. "And you all believed it? Juniper believed it?"

"We had reason," he said, going a little grim; and he noted that she thought he was more likely to be credulous than his mother.

Well, fair enough… Juniper had once told him there was nobody more skeptical of charlatans than those who'd been genuinely touched by the Divine. And I've seen a few try to fool her over the years. Anyone stupid enough to try came away sorry and sore; nobody tried twice.

"I'm not all that happy about it, you know, Matti. Things are.. . awkward. Mother went to the nemed."

"The sacred wood? Why, what happened?" Mathilda said, startled and alarmed.

She had never been there except as a spectator for public rites like Juniper's wedding to Sir Nigel at the end of the War of the Eye; even that was pushing the limits of what her faith permitted. She knew what Rudi was talking about, though: a circle-casting and questions asked of the Powers. That was dangerous at the best of times, and when Juniper Mackenzie called, They were all too likely to answer.

I love the Lord and Lady, but They can be dangerous, he thought, remembering her white-faced exhaustion afterwards.

And They show us the Aspect that is in our hearts. Whether the pot hits the kettle or the kettle hits the pot… I think that's why They move so indirectly in this world. They are… too real… for it to be safe for us to meet Them face to-face on this side of the Veil. So we see Them in dream and vision and prophecy, and through Their world itself instead. Even for people like Mom, meeting Them directly isn't something that can be done too often.

He looked up at her. "What is that bit in your Chris tian Bible? About asking for bread, and getting a stone? They told her something about me-have been saying it since I was just born. And it frightens her. Frightens her for me, and also for all of us."

Matti bit her lip, then shook her head as if clearing it. After an instant she burst out: "How can you think They're good, if They do things like that?"

Rudi found himself chuckling ruefully. "You can't tell everything to a two-year-old, can you?" Then he quoted, with malice aforethought: " 'Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me,' eh?"

Mathilda winced and smiled at the same time, started to say something, then decided not to-they'd learned a long time ago that religious arguments were pointless. Particularly when, as she said, arguing doctrine with a witch was like trying to cut fog with an ax. Then she shook her head, as if trying to bring it back to the world of men.

"Well, what happened after he saw this so-called Sword of the Lady? Wait a minute-aren't you supposed to be the Sword of the Lady?"

"Yeah. It's a Mystery."

Mathilda sighed; there was no answer to that. "What happened next?"

Rudi paused for a long moment, staring into the low blue-and crimson flames that danced over the coals in the hearth. He shivered a little, remembering the haunted look in Vogeler's eyes whenever he forced himself to think of what had happened on the island.

"Then he came out of that place on Nantucket…"

Chapter Eight

Nantucket, Massachusetts

September 1, CY21/2019 A.D.

Ingolf Vogeler could hear screaming. After a moment he realized that his own voice was one of the chorus. He staggered backward, and turned his back. His face was slack; before him burned the sword, and the Voice, the Voice…

Travel from sunrise to the sunset, and seek the Son of the Bear Who Rules. The Sword of the Lady waits for him.

He quieted himself, his throat raw. Singh was trem bling and gray; his sister's face was wet with tears, the first time Ingolf had ever seen her weep, even when they'd taken a barbed arrow out of her back with nothing for the pain but a slug of whiskey and a leather strap to clench between her teeth. Kuttner lay on the ground, his wide unseeing eyes staring up into the sky, making little mewing sounds where froth and blood mingled on his lips and bubbles blew to his short panting breaths.

And a fourth, a teenager in the dress of the Sea-Land people. He was visibly the chief's son, but light-ski

Ingolf tried to speak, but it was as if his mouth had forgotten the trick of it. He started to stumble forward, then stopped and grabbed at each of his companions in turn, shoving them towards the forest. Kuttner was the hardest; at first he tried to wiggle on his belly, then crawl forward on all fours like a beast, and in the end Ingolf had to stagger along with one of the smaller man's arms held across his shoulder.

The burden grew less as they walked into the shadow of the gnarled forest, keeping their backs to…

Ingolf felt himself shudder again. I couldn't describe it to save my life. When I try to think about it I hear the Voice again. And the presence of a hundred unlived lives jostled in his head. Who is Ingolf, then?

That pressure faded with every step; the world itself grew more solid around them, and the memories that weren't died away into a jumble of alien images. They were on a narrow trail through oakwood and smooth barked beeches, panting and shuddering and looking at one another.

"Mother," Kaur mumbled. "Father. Kalil. Goolab-"

"Chub'rao!" Singh mumbled; it was the language he'd heard the two using between themselves occasionally, mingled with English. "Be silent! That was lies, lies, they are dead, they are dead these six years! Daghabazi! Treachery!"

The young man in the Sea-Land costume was looking around with growing excitement, but it was tinged with fear. He spoke unexpectedly in halting English:

"Time… time is summer?"

Ingolf nodded.

"I go… Place of Dreams… get man-dream… snow on ground. Winter."

Ingolf grunted, scarcely taking it in. They went farther, and Kuttner could walk on his own, in a shambling sort of way. Ingolf thought of asking what he'd seen, then looked into his eyes and decided not to. His own brain was starting to work again, and he wondered why the tribe weren't still standing there watching. Had there been something that they could see way back there? He found the place they'd stood… and the tracks were old and faded.

It's rained since then, he thought.

He looked at the faint dimpled impressions of bare feet and moccasins among the leaves and litter, and the marks of his own folk's boot heels, and his mind began to whirl again. A beetle walked down into the mark, crumbling a little more sand into it. The outline was soft, not crisp and sharp and recent. Then he looked up at the leaves; they weren't as full and lush as they'd been; in fact, they were starting to look tattered. Sweat prickled him under his armor.

"Let's get going," he said roughly.

They strode down the forest trail. He inhaled deeply to savor the musty scent of leaf mold, the weight of his shete and quiver on his back, anything real. A squirrel ran up the rough bark of a pine and chattered at him. A deer had gone across the trail not too long ago, mark of the cloven hooves still sharp and distinct.

Finally they came across one of the people from the village, a girl about the age of the young man who'd unexpectedly turned up. She was clothed in a deerskin wrap around her waist, with long reddish hair falling past her shoulders, and carried a reed basket full of wild blueberries. She stopped as she saw them, gave a small shriek, dropped the basket and fled with a twinkle of heels, screaming rhythmically as she sprinted. By the time they'd reached the little inlet and the garden fields around the houses, everyone was lined up. They looked frightened…