“There’s someone upriver you might recognize,” I said. “It’s not that far. Keep your eyes open as we go.” I pointed up into the canopy, where several pairs of eyes were already watching us. Pixies and other flying varieties of Fae hovered or perched in the tree above us.
“Right,” Granuaile said, her tone businesslike. She hefted her staff in her hand. At my suggestion, which she accepted readily at the time, she had affixed iron caps to either end. The Fae would see that and know that messing with her came with a certain amount of risk. “Ready.”
We hiked upriver along the bank by ourselves; as Oberon had predicted, Flidais and Perun had not followed us and were no doubt engaged in heated, hirsute carnality in Manannan’s field.
I asked Oberon to take point; Granuaile was next, and I brought up the rear. Oberon had my permission to treat anything that didn’t look human as hostile, provided they wouldn’t get out of our way first.
Give them a warning growl and a commanding bark, at least, before you destroy them, I said.
"Oh, I like how you phrased that, like their destruction is inevitable. Thanks."
Well, it is inevitable. You’re like a Terminator hound.
"Are you sure you want to use that analogy? Because if I’m the Terminator, that would make you Skynet and the enemy of Sarah Connor, and you’ve always had that thing for Linda Hamilton."
Oh. Right. I take it back.
"If you’re going to compare me to a Hollywood badass, then I want to be Jules from Pulp Fiction. He was Super Fly TNT! He was the Guns of the Navarone!"
Whoa, there. You’re forgetting something. Jules didn’t eat pork. That means no bacon or sausage.
"Auggh! Inconceivable! I take it back!"
I think you’re a badass in your own right, buddy.
"Really? You don’t think those hounds of Brighid’s were badder?"
Nah. They were all for show. I bet she never takes them hunting. And they weren’t very bright. Brighid hasn’t taught them to talk the way I taught you. I touched their minds briefly while we were at Court. All they know are a few basic commands and a few random words.
"What words?"
Food. Potty. Bitches.
"Ha-ha! Well, wait. Maybe I shouldn’t laugh. If you think about it, that’s pretty Zen. Or maybe something even more significant. You know, Atticus, that might be like a holy trinity for canines."
Don’t you think that including bitches in the trinity is sexist? You need to think about it from their perspective, too, if you’re trying to come up with some sort of universal canine dogma, heh-heh.
"Me? Dogmatic? Perish the thought! But you have a point: I should probably recast it in terms of general sexual behavior. Humping, perhaps, would be a good catchall phrase to describe our basic needs. And then, you know what? I could make the trinity alliterative. Ham, humping, and the holy hydrant!"
Are you setting yourself up as the prophet of a new religion?
"Why not? I hear there’s money in it."
What do you need money for? I give you everything you need.
"I could refute that easily by pointing out that there is, in fact, no poodle bitch trotting along beside me now, but let’s see if you’ll give me this: Will you type out my holy writ if I dictate it to you?"
Sure. What’s this religion going to be called?
"Poochism."
And the name of the holy writ I will be typing for you?
"The Dead Flea Scrolls: A Sirius Prophecy."
Granuaile’s voice interrupted our plans to revolutionize canine belief systems. “Is that an airplane?” she asked, pointing ahead to a long, narrow strip of an island. A twin-engine metal airplane hung suspended above it, a trail of smoke coming from the left engine, and it appeared to be headed for what might be charitably called a rough landing on the island.
“Yep. That’s a Lockheed Model 10 Electra.”
“No. Wait. There’s a pilot in there?”
“None other than the famous aviatrix herself.”
“Shut up. You’re telling me Amelia Earhart is in that plane? Alive?”
“Until she crashes, yeah. She might survive the crash; we don’t know. Hasn’t happened yet. But generally airplane crashes don’t leave many survivors.”
“You have Amelia Earhart alive and you’re casually speculating on whether she will survive a crash? Atticus, we have to save her!”
“How? Think about the problem. Once you enter that timestream, you’ll be moving as slowly as she is. You can’t prevent the crash. No one can.”
“But that’s horrible! Prolonging the moment of her death—”
“For her, nothing is prolonged. It’s still the last few seconds before she crashes.”
Granuaile clenched and unclenched her fist several times before she spoke again. “Gah! What’s the point, then? Why is she here? Do the Fae enjoy watching people die in slow motion?”
“No, that’s not it at all,” I said, puzzled that she didn’t see the miracle here. “She’s inspirational, Granuaile. A strong, brave woman like Amelia—well, the world could use a few million more of her.”
Granuaile paused to consider, an angry set to her jaw at first, but after a moment it relaxed into regret and she shed a tear for Amelia. She wiped it away impatiently. “So is that what you have up and down this river? Bits and pieces of history?”
“That’s exactly it. Some of it is accidental—lots of those missing ships from the Bermuda Triangle wind up here—and some of it is purposeful, like Amelia. Here we preserve what otherwise would have disappeared forever.”
“Have you preserved anything here?”
“No, too dangerous for me to keep coming back here when Aenghus Óg was around. Too tricky to retrieve things anyway.”
She frowned. “I thought you said you couldn’t retrieve things. Don’t you slow down when you try to access them?”
“Think of those arcade games you see in restaurants and grocery stores, where a hook comes down and epically fails to snatch the plushie. They use hooks on really long staffs. As long as the majority of the staff remains in this timestream, it won’t slow down. It just moves superfast in the slow stream, which means you need to be careful about touching objects—they’re easily breakable. And that illustrates the point about why we can’t save Amelia: If we tried to yank her out of her plane, we’d break her neck or snap her spine.”
“Okay. I think I’ve seen enough. Can we go?” Her words were clipped, annoyed.
This hadn’t gone the way I’d imagined. When I was first shown the Time Islands by my archdruid, I’d been filled with wonder. So had all my previous apprentices. Granuaile, however, had become upset. Occasionally this happened: Modern values and the ancient ones I grew up with were radically different, and sometimes I misjudged rather badly what was cool and what was repulsive.
“Sure,” I said, walking over to the nearest tree. We needed to talk about this, but there was no need to do it in front of the many faeries in the canopy, who no doubt were eavesdropping on our conversation. Not wanting to take Lord Grundlebeard at his word, I placed my hand on the trunk and attempted to find the tether to one of my favorite spots in Gaul—or, rather, France. It wasn’t there. Nor were any other of my accustomed destinations in Europe. Resigned, I searched all available points to which we could shift and chose a tree in the eastern foothills of Mount Olympus. I pulled us through to that spot and half-crouched, listening and scanning the area, expecting trouble. When nothing like trouble presented itself, I straightened and enjoyed the view below us.
“Well, here we are,” I said, gazing down at a town of seven thousand souls, orange-tiled roofs, and white buildings in a cushion of green; beyond it, the blue flag of Poseidon’s sea stretched to the horizon, where it met a lighter sky. We were underneath the canopy of a pine; most of the trees here were pine, cedar, or fir. Olympus loomed behind us, and the path to the summit was visible nearby.
“Where is here?” Granuaile asked.
"And is it dinnertime?"
“That is Litochoro, Greece. ‘City of the Gods,’ if you want to buy the tourist name. Lots of people come through here. We need to find a place off the beaten path where we can safely get to work on your binding. When we need supplies, we’ll come down to this town to get them.”
“All right,” Granuaile said. “Lead the way.”
I led the way, picking a careful path between trees and staying on the south side of the trail. I was heading for the course of a natural wash in the foothills; there would be some runoff there for water and plenty of deadwood for fuel. Oberon kept pace beside me instead of zipping off through the forest to sniff that tree or mark that bush.
"Atticus?" Oberon said.
Yeah?
"I consider myself a fairly discerning student of human intonation, and, as such, I feel it is my duty to inform you that Granuaile sounds unhappy."
I know she is, buddy. I’m not sure why, but I’m going to find out tonight once we make camp. Now is not the time to press her. She might not know precisely why. The hike will give her time to mull things over.
"You are wise."
Not really. A wise man wouldn’t have irritated her in the first place. Do us a favor?
"Sure."
Scout ahead a little bit, but not too far—make sure you can hear us. We’re looking for a good place to make camp, but it has to have little to no evidence of human traffic, and we need a thornbush.
"Aren’t the good places to camp usually the ones without thornbushes?"
Usually. This is a special case, however.
"Okay. You’re the one with the snacks, I guess." Oberon trotted ahead, his nose low to the ground, searching for spoor. Granuaile and I hiked behind him in silence, keeping our meager human senses alert for any sign that we might not be bushwhacking alone.
Normally I am not the sort to indiscriminately whack bushes. The undergrowth grew thicker, however, as we climbed the slope and strayed ever farther from the path, until there was no space between the brambles. We had to push our way through what turned out to be rather thorny bushes indeed. I could almost feel Granuaile’s mood worsening behind me as scratches appeared on our arms, and occasional punctures through our jeans made us curse. My own mood was beginning to sour as well.
“Can’t you ask the earth to clear a path for us through this stuff?” Granuaile finally asked.
“I could,” I admitted, “but that sort of thing might draw the wrong kind of attention here.”
“Whose attention?”
“The Olympians. Both sets. We’re in their territory now, and it’s not just them we need to worry about—it’s all those nymphs and dryads and the entire mythological zoo that the Greeks dreamed up and the Romans ripped off. If I take off my sandals and start drawing on the elemental here, it’s a fair bet the Greco–Romans will be tipped off that someone’s using magic in their backyard. I haven’t completely given up on my paranoia yet. I want us stationary and isolated if possible before I take any risks.”
The two of us silently fumed as we waded and picked our way through a sea of uncomfortable thorns and woody branches. After a half hour of this, Oberon’s voice in my head was a welcome relief.
"Hey, Atticus. Look up. See that vulture?"
A broad black wingspan sailed overhead, moving from my right to left, angling toward a steep hillside.
I see it.
"Watch where it goes."
Normally, vultures alight in trees or they alight on the ground next to something dead; they are not cave dwellers. But this vulture sailed right into a sizable cave entrance up on the hillside, and I could plainly see that there were thornbushes nearby.
How’d you spot this?
"I saw him fly out earlier. At first I thought it was a bat, because that’s what flies out of caves, but he’s weird. He circled around once and went right back in. So there you go. Kind of high up, but it’s a cave."
Yeah. And probably up for grabs too. Either that’s a nest or there’s something dead in there. We can probably use it either way.
I pointed the cave out to Granuaile and said we should go check it out. She merely nodded in reply and followed me in grim silence.
It’s funny how when someone is Not Talking to You their every movement speaks volumes. Granuaile had little holsters on either hip, each with three flat, leaf-bladed throwing knives nestled on top of one another. She could throw them accurately with either hand to finish off opponents or take them out to begin with; her staff was more of a defensive weapon, meant to disarm or trip rather than deliver lethal blows to someone in heavy armor. Her knives made a soft clinking sound with every step she took, though I hadn’t heard them before. Perhaps I simply hadn’t noticed. Now, however, they communicated her burning desire to draw one and toss it between my shoulder blades.
Negotiating the hill was tiresome, and the clinking of the knives soon tapped out a different message: This had better be worth it.
We were joined by Oberon, who was panting happily, his tongue lolling out. The forest was full of wonderful smells to him.
“Hi, Oberon!” Granuaile said, stopping to pet him. “Are you having a good time?”
"Tell Clever Girl I said it’s a beautiful day," he replied, using his nickname for Granuaile. He called her that about half the time, having developed a fine appreciation for her habit of sparring with me verbally as much as physically. "And just about everything in the forest is terrified of me, so I feel like quite the apex predator right now."