So we’re not only entertainment, we’re a method by which someone gets to pursue a personal grudge?
<It is a role you’ve played before. The Æsir were on the receiving end, if you recall. A small matter involving Thor.>
I recalled. It was not my finest hour.
I suppose you won’t be helping us, then.
<On the contrary. As I said, we will do our best to take care of the dark elves. And I also told you to run, which was outstanding advice.>
The link broke and the ravens’ wings blatted into the morning sky like fat motorcycle engines.
The Morrigan’s assertion that we had to run the whole way made a bit more sense now. The gods had decided Europe was their Colosseum and we were the gladiators.
“No rest for the Druids,” I said. “Come on, let’s go.”
Chapter 8
So much for my theory about faery tails. We were being watched constantly through divination, and Granuaile was the antenna. What Odin could do, others could do just as well, so Odin’s point that there were other interested parties was well taken. The reason we had a vampire and dark elves waiting for us near the Slovakian border was because someone in Tír na nÓg was coolly divining Granuaile’s location, quite correctly assuming I’d be nearby, and then dispatching assorted evil minions to slay us. They’d done this repeatedly in Greece while we were trying to get Granuaile bound to the earth; we’d shaken them for a while in the French Pyrenees, perhaps because we were spending nights inside a mountain and the scryer could not figure out where we were, but eventually they must have zeroed in on us. We’d left just ahead of an oncoming horde of vampires, if Oberon’s nose could be trusted, and it usually could.
After we raided Hel and killed Fenris, Granuaile and I had been left alone in Mexico for a couple of blissful weeks—why was that? I’m sure her presence there would have been as easy to divine as anywhere else, and I was most certainly very close to her during that time. It must have been because the puppet master, whoever it was, couldn’t get minions out to us in Mexico. If that was correct, then that told me quite a bit.
I had bound Mexico to Tír na nÓg long ago, back when the Maya were still running around and building future tourist sites. The Fae could have shifted and found us in short order if they wished. And Mexico certainly had its share of vampires; if they had wanted to find us, there would be no reason for it to take two days to locate us, much less two weeks. So this mysterious person was not using local vampires and wasn’t shifting minions around using tethered trees. Instead, he or she was using a specific set of vampires—perhaps a specific set of Fae and dark elves too—and shifting them around using the Old Ways in Europe. That meant Mexico was safe territory. The whole New World was safe territory. And now that I knew that, Faunus had made sure that safe territory was unreachable.
It also meant that there was something important about the Old Ways that I was missing.
<Hey, Oberon.>
<Hey, Atticus.>
<Ask Granuaile if she’s willing to investigate one of the Old Ways in Germany and see if we can escape through one.>
<Escaping would be good.> A few moments passed and then Oberon said, <Clever Girl reminds you the Morrigan said they were all collapsed or guarded.>
<Most likely that’s true. I’m actually more interested in finding out who’s guarding them. This is recon more than a genuine attempt to escape.>
<I’ve been meaning to tell you that when I chew on things it’s recon more than a genuine attempt to destroy your stuff.>
<Just tell her, please?>
<Okay, she says let’s do it.>
<Follow me.>
Eastern Germany had an Old Way to Tír na nÓg—several, in fact, hidden among the river valleys of the Ore Mountains, which divided Saxony from Bohemia. But the nearest was a wee bit southwest of the city of Hoyerswerda in Dubringer Moor, a wetland populated around the edges with birch, pine, and alder, spreading their roots in its marshy soil. Unlike the vast majority of the Old Ways, it wasn’t in a cave. A few, like this one, were open-air mazes without walls. Walk through the birches in a certain pattern, end at a particular alder tree and circle it thrice, and you’d be in Tír na nÓg. It wasn’t the sort of Old Way that you could collapse with an earthquake. You could clear-cut the trees or set fire to the landscape, and perhaps we would find something like that had happened, but it was more likely to be guarded.
Or not. How do you guard a place that’s open to the air—and open to the public—without generating some attention? With caves you can hide the guardians inside.
We had to turn due south to get to Dubringer Moor, skirting a huge lignite strip mine at Kausche but otherwise enjoying the mixed evergreen and deciduous forests that surrounded wee hamlets until we arrived at the moor. Trees grew out of some juicy ground around the edges of it, but near the center it was a swampy marshland. I stopped at a birch tree that had three knots reminiscent of a triskele on one side. After looking around to make sure we were unobserved, I shifted to human and drew Fragarach from its scabbard.
“Ready?” I asked.
Granuaile shape-shifted and held Scáthmhaide at the ready. “Yep. Go.”
In the magical spectrum the Old Way was plain to see, but Oberon couldn’t see it at all and I didn’t want him to step off. “We’ll go slow. Look and listen for guardians. Don’t forget the treetops. And, Oberon, if you smell anything weird, let us know.”
<Okay.>
“And stay close to us. Single file. No chasing squirrels or anything else.”
<Aww!>
We advanced ten paces to another birch, directly south of the first one. “Walk around this counterclockwise,” I said, demonstrating, “and then we go west.” They followed me to the tree next door and then we turned south.
Oberon asked, <Can I go smell that bush over there?>
“No, you can’t, buddy, I’m sorry. The path itself is the tether to Tír na nÓg. It can be walked both ways. If a tree dies, then the path gets adjusted a tiny bit, but it essentially remains the same. The alder tree at the end of this must be the twentieth different tree anchoring this Old Way since I learned about it. And the same goes for the birch where we began. But if you step off the path, you have to start over.”
We crept through the birches, following a sinuous trail and stopping periodically to listen and watch for trouble. Nothing alarmed us, aside from the paranoia that every step brought. We kept expecting faeries or some sort of monster from Greco–Roman myth to jump on us, but we had this portion of the moor to ourselves. When we reached the alder tree, I grew super-cautious, peering up into the canopy.
“There has to be something here,” I said. “It can’t be that easy.”
“What’s easy?”
“This is it right here. We walk around that tree three times and we’re in Tír na nÓg. Boom. Escaped. We shift to the New World and send all these ass bananas a postcard that says, suck it, you’ll never trap us again. But it doesn’t make sense.”
“Maybe they forgot about this one?” Granuaile ventured.
“Maybe. Maybe they’re just being clever with their ambushes. Maybe someone’s invisible?”
“Let’s check the magical spectrum.”
“Already there, but go ahead, you might see something I didn’t.”
Granuaile scanned the tree and noted it had a whisper of color about it as a tether, but there wasn’t anything else to be seen. Nothing glowing in the canopy. Nothing glowing on the ground.
“Oberon, what do you smell?” Granuaile asked.
His nose twitched for a few moments before he gave a mental shrug. <You guys. Swampy birchy grassy stuff. Nothing to eat.>