Roger Zelazny - Donnerjack

“I’m going down into the tunnels, Dack.”

“The generators have activated, Jay. Are you certain it will be safe?”

The bracelet said, “He should be as safe there as anywhere, Dack.”

“Very well, sir,” the robot responded.

Jay noticed that Dack never argued with the bracelet. He wondered if it was programming, or some deference the robot accorded to John Senior but not to his son.

In the kitchen, Jay paused long enough to stuff three rolls, a wedge of cheese, a handful of cookies, and a couple of bananas into a bag. He didn’t know how long he would be hiding, but he wasn’t about to starve to death while he was doing it.

Then, down the long steps, unhook the key from a nail by the door, grab the flashlight he kept stashed in the top bin of a wine rack, and open the heavy door. It squeaked. It always squeaked—even after he oiled the hinges. Jay had resolved that the squeak was built into the design.

“Come on, Dubhe,” he called to where Dubhe trembled on the stair. “Death is coming in behind you. He’s not going to look for you here.”

“I know… Monkeys aren’t tunnel creatures. I’m fighting my base programming.”

“Try activating the self-preservation routine,” Jay said dryly. “I’m heading in.”

Jay shone the flashlight down the tunnel. Behind him, he heard Dubhe muttering something remarkably like, “Oh, my fuzzy ears and whiskers.” He bent, set the monkey on his shoulder, and closed the door. As an afterthought, he shot the dead bolt.

“Where’s our mystic guide?” Dubhe said after they had walked a few paces.

“She’ll show,” Jay answered with more confidence than he felt.

They walked on, following in a general sense the paths that would lead them to the underground lake. A blue glow from a side passage intercepted them. Jay turned, hoping to find the caoineag and seeing instead the crusader ghost, chain in hand as always.

“Och, lad, you’re well out of your way. Cum w’ me an’ I’ll bring you to where you should be goin’.”

Jay followed. “How do you know where we’re going?”

“Your… guide told me to find you. She’s clearin’ the way of its guardian.”

“Way? Guardian? Where are you taking me?”

“To the Eldritch Lands, lad, the places of the sidhe. The banshee knows the way from days before.”

“Have you been there?”

“Aye, time and again. ‘Tis a fine change from the dreamin’.”

“And we’ll be safe there?”

“Dinna ken, that, lad, but will you be safe anywhere? The Grim Reaper wants to settle a bargain made, a bargain sealed. Can you outrun your fate?”

He jerked on his chain as he said this. Jay frowned.

“I can certainly try.”

“Aye, lad, like the old laird and lady, stubborn to the core. Fine good it did them, in the end.”

“I’m still alive,” Jay reminded him defiantly.

“Aye.”

Their conversation had brought them to a dead-end passage. It was brighter than the rest by the addition of another glowing blue wraith, this the caoineag . Behind her was a circle darker than the rest of the wall. At first, Jay took it for a shadow and glanced around to see what had cast it. Then he realized that this must be the portal.

“The guardian gone?” the crusader asked.

“Yes.” The caoineag sounded weary. “The incantation had its effect.”

“Can you be teaching it to the lad?”

“We will speak of that. Come along now, John. I will go first so that you will know that you have nothing to fear.”

Jay kept all his distrust to himself. Dubhe squeezed his ear, but otherwise the monkey held his peace. A duck of the head, a sense of cold, then he was through; a clank of chain told him that the crusader ghost had come after.

The place where he found himself was a rocky hillside overlooking a distant sea. It could have been on Eilean a’Tempull Dubh but for the standing stones that stood ranked and unmovable.

The caoineag leaned against one of these, her head bent, her hand braced against the stone as if she was drained of strength. Jay noticed that both the crusader ghost and the caoineag appeared more solid in this place. Through the minute rips in the crusader’s tunic he could see oily skin tanned dark by exposure to Arabian desert sunlight. The caoineag’s veil, however, was more opaque and all his searching gaze could find of her features was a sense of mournful dark eyes.

“Where is this place?” he asked.

“Och, lad, to be so ignorant of your heritage! I’ll gi’ you th’ word while herself gathers strength.”

“Shouldn’t we move? Take cover?”

“That we hae doon, laddy. That we hae doon. If th’ crossing through th’ portal dinna tae ye’t’ safety, then hidin’ behind a rock or in a cave will nae do more.”

“I understand. I think… Where are we? Is this Virtu?”

Dubhe whimpered. The crusader ghost shrugged.

“That is a question I dinna care to deal w’. Ask herself. What I do ken is that this place is older than Virtu, old as the legends of the folk of Scotland, and for all I ken, older than that.”

“I still don’t get it.”

So the ghost crusader told him about the shadowlands, the Lands Under the Hills, Behind the Mist, Beyond the Setting Sun. He gave him the ballad of Thomas the Rhymer and the story of Ossian. As he spoke, the caoineag regained her strength and the proud lift of her walk, and joined them.

“I brought you here, John, in the hope that—as in the legends—this is a land beyond Death. In the tales, those who cross into the faerie realms do not age, do not die unless slain by the creatures of the place. If this is the case, you are safe. If not, at least your enemy will need to search for you.”

She paused, raised her head. Jay saw more clearly the paleness of her skin, the darkness of her eyes. She was beautiful, he realized, far more beautiful than Lydia Hazzard—or than Alice—but it was curiosity, rather than desire, that made him wish to see that shadow-guarded face.

“John, I must be honest with you. Although I have every reason to believe that this realm existed long before Virtu, I also know that it is a Virtuan wild land—accessible from the mapped sites, though only with great difficulty.”

Jay considered. “Still, that doesn’t mean it isn’t a refuge. Perhaps the program has been written to exclude Death.”

“I hope so.”

“Who are you, lady? Why are you helping me?”

“I am the caoineag of Castle Donnerjack. You are that castle’s lord. Although the old castle is gone, the new one on its ruins has its old haunts, and those old haunts their ancient duties.”

“A banshee warns,” this, unexpectedly, from Dubhe. “That’s all. The boss kept a few on the fringes of Deep Fields. You don’t need to get involved.”

“Their imperatives are not mine.”

“Why?”

“Please.”

Reluctantly, Jay changed the subject. “The crusader said that you had a charm you could teach me, one that would protect me from the guardian of this place.”

“I know one. It has a cost, John. You saw how weary I was left, and my flesh is not mortal flesh, nor my soul a mortal soul.”

“Still, what good is it to bring me here if the guardian can kill me? Didn’t you say that was the only way that Death could access the program?”

“I said that I hoped that this was the case. Very well. Promise me on whatever you hold holy that you will not use this charm unless your life is in danger.”

“I swear on my mother’s grave.”

The caoineag shuddered. “Very well.”

And so she recited: