Gallen stared down the road. The sunlight still shone on the road, birds were hopping in the brush. A light morning breeze sifted through the trees, and Gallen shook his bandaged head, then stood with his mouth open as if he could not believe what he’d just seen.
Maggie stepped forward from the brush and whispered, “Gallen?” Orick followed.
Gallen saw her, then looked back up the road where the ogre had gone. He began jumping up and down and pointing. “Ah, Christ, you missed it!” Gallen said. “I just saw the most incredible giant! Come here! Hurry! I’ll show you its tracks! I swear to God, it had green skin and teeth as big as shingles!”
“I know,” Maggie said. “We saw it, too. Gallen, there’s a bunch of those things in the wood. They came through town and murdered Father Heany. It was terrible!”
Maggie was on the road by now, shaking her head and grabbing Gallen’s arm as if to make sure he was alive. Up here on the road, Orick could smell the strangers more strongly-Everynne and her guard-but he didn’t want to say anything, afraid that somehow perhaps one of the giants might hear.
“Father Heany is dead?” Gallen stepped back in shock. “But …” He searched for something to say.
“Father Heany tried to drive the monsters out of town. And they burned him up. Then they went to the inn, looking for those travelers. They knew John Mahoney had let them stay in his inn. They killed him for it.”
“But, he’s an innkeeper, for Christ’s sake!” Gallen shouted, looking angrily back up the road. “That’s what he does for a living! Ah, hell, where is Everynne and her guard now?”
“They ran off into the forest before dawn,” Orick said. “I’ve been trying to track them.”
“You wouldn’t turn them in, would you?” Maggie asked. “That beast may sound like he’s offering some grand reward, but those creatures are devils! Beelzebub himself walked at the head of their procession!”
Gallen looked sober. “Even if I didn’t know that they’d killed a priest, I wouldn’t turn anyone over to that thing. I have my honor to think about. I promised to take Everynne to Geata na Chruinne, and I’ll do it, even if the woods are full of sidhe. Orick, can you still follow their trail?”
Orick shivered. He had not thought about it, but here they were in Coille Sidhe. The humans told stories of the sidhe-strange and brutal beings from the otherworld. Orick had always thought them to be only tales for children, but suddenly the otherworlders were walking about in the daylight, looking for an enchantress with a key. “I can sniff them out.”
“Wait!” Maggie said. “Gallen, we’ve no cause to get involved in the affairs of the sidhe. Let the devils squabble among themselves. If this woman has stolen something, maybe she deserves to be punished!”
Gallen half-closed his eyes in thought, and his long golden hair shone in the sunlight, the bandage holding it like a bloody headband. Orick wondered why his head was bandaged. Gallen looked down at Maggie and Orick, the sun catching his powder-blue eyes. “I don’t believe this Everynne is a thief. Her guard was loyal to her. Thieves are never so devoted to their own. Greed wrings all the devotion right out of them.”
“Perhaps he was under a spell-” Orick said, “as the ogre warned.”
“Perhaps,” Gallen agreed. “But only an hour ago, I swore to Father Brian that if my heart was ever hot to give someone aid, I would do it. And this morning my heart is hot to give aid to Lady Everynne.”
“Well spoken,” a gravelly voice said from the knoll above them. As one, Gallen, Maggie and Orick glanced up. The hill was covered with pines near the top, but the voice had come from close by, from the fern beds not twenty yards away. Suddenly there was movement, and Orick saw a man standing in the ferns, wearing a deep-hooded robe painted in greens and browns. Images of ferns were painted on it so precisely that if the man had remained still, Orick would never have seen him. Yet as the stranger walked downhill toward them, the robe shimmered and turned a soft brown. The man wore two swords at his hip.
The stranger halted in front of Gallen, and his scent was muted-hard to catch even at ten feet. Of all the wondrous things that had happened today, to Orick this was the most wondrous, the man’s lack of scent.
The stranger pulled back his hood. He appeared to be in his late forties, but he was well-muscled, and his skin was ruddy tan. His hair had once been a golden brown, but now was turning silver. “I am Veriasse Dussogge,” he said, “Everynne’s counselor and protector. Will you guide us to the gate now? We are in great need. It will not take long for the vanquishers to discover your ruse and return in greater numbers.”
“I can take you,” Gallen said, “but we have not yet agreed to a price.”
The stranger licked his lips. “You said only a moment ago that your heart was hot to give aid to the Lady Everynne.”
“True,” Gallen admitted, “but I didn’t say that my heart was hot to give it to her for free!”
Orick looked from Gallen to Veriasse. Veriasse seemed to be weighing his options. Obviously, he could not afford to spend hours searching for either the gate or a new guide.
“You have me at a disadvantage,” Veriasse said. “What is your price?”
“Well, that depends,” Gallen answered. “Finding the gate is easy enough, but I’m not eager to tangle with one of those ogres. I assume you knew they were following you? That’s why you wanted a man-at-arms?”
Veriasse nodded. “The vanquishers are very dangerous. I should warn you that they carry weapons more powerful than any on your world. The vanquishers can easily kill you at a hundred yards.”
“Hmmm.…Then my price needs to reflect the risk I’ll be taking. How about eternal life?” Gallen raised a brow.
“It is not in the Lady Everynne’s power to grant that to you now,” Veriasse said, “but if she reaches her destination …”
“Then she can give it to me if she reaches Geata na Chruinne?” Gallen asked.
“She has other gates to pass through,” Veriasse answered. “She must face many dangers. But if she wins through, then, yes, she would return and pay your fee.”
Uphill, a whippoorwill called. “Quickly!” Veriasse hissed, urging them off the road. “Vanquishers!”
He grabbed Gallen’s arm and leapt downhill into the brush. Orick plunged after them, and Veriasse led them a few hundred feet off the road, into the shadows under a pine.
“Don’t stir,” Veriasse warned. Orick waited motionless for a moment. A trio of ogres passed on the road, marching quietly, heads swiveling as they searched the forest. Maggie was breathing so heavily, Orick feared the ogres would hear her. But they passed quickly.
After another two minutes, Veriasse whistled once like a thrush. Lady Everynne bounded downhill over the edge of the road, wearing her blue robes and a headdress made of triangular silver bangles fastened with a metal mesh. She bore her rosewood harp case under one arm; a pack was strapped to her shoulder.
Veriasse stood, and Orick saw that his robes were taking on the colors of the wood-deep grays and greens with splashes of yellow sunlight. Veriasse pulled his hood low over his eyes. “Everynne,” he said, “this young man asks eternal life as his reward for leading you to the gate. Will you accept his price?”
Everynne looked at Gallen. “He doesn’t know what he is asking. How could he? He doesn’t know who I am, nor can he understand the limits of our power.” She looked into Gallen’s eyes. “When you ask for ‘eternal life,’ it is not what you think. I could change you-make you so that you will not grow old, cure you of all ills and injuries. Perhaps by doing this, I could extend your life-for a thousand or ten thousand years. I can give you new bodies, keep you so that you are reborn at each death. But you could still be killed. Your life will still end, someday.”
“You can do this?” Gallen asked. Maggie was looking at Everynne in astonishment, and the young girl backed away as if afraid.