Guy Kay - Ysabel

“One, I heard her say you were to stay up there tonight and that the two guys were to search alone. Any comments?”

The man looked almost comically startled. “You were there? During the rite?”

“Damn straight I was. So, like, I know the book on this.”

“You understand you can be killed for that?”

“Nope. I understand that the woman—Ysabel—laid down the rules. You hurt us here, we go missing, you think Phelan’s not gonna know about it, and tell her? You want to ruin this for Cadell? Think he’ll be happy?”

He heard the bravado in his own voice and wondered where it came from. But he was not going to show fear to this guy. He didn’t seem to be the same person, dealing with these people. Fifteen wasn’t a kid in their world. Maybe that was part of it. And it still seemed to him he was seeing too clearly in the darkness, as if everything was sharper tonight.

The druid was staring, saying nothing. Ned cleared his throat. “He’s your boss, isn’t he? Your chief? Whatever. So what are you doing here, screwing things up for him?”

“You are ignorant, whatever else you are,” the figure in front of him said. His eyes were deep-set under thick eyebrows.

“Maybe, but why do you care which one of them wins her? You’re dead again by morning, aren’t you?”

He didn’t know if that was so, actually. He hoped it was.

Another silence, and then: “She was one of us. The world began to change when she made her choice and left.” The druid lifted his voice. “She belongs among us. Changes can be undone. This is not just about the three of them.”

He looked briefly towards the trees, then back.

Ned had a thought, hearing that raised voice. On impulse, he tried the inward searching he’d used before to find Phelan twice, and his aunt by the tower.

Something registered, a glow within. Not the druid.

Ned smiled thinly. It was really weird, but though he was scared to the point that his hands were trembling, he also felt excited, alive, charged with something, by something, that he couldn’t explain.

The boar had gone now—off the road, back into the dark field or the woods beyond. It had been here to stop them; it had done that, and departed.

Ned said, “I had two questions, remember? Here’s the other one. You say you didn’t know I was up there before. What are you doing here then? Why did you think I’d have a clue about this? How did you know me at all, or how to find me?”

He knew the answers, but wanted to see what the other guy did.

He was aware that Greg was looking at him, a kind of awe in his face. The van’s headlights were illuminating the road and the white-robed figure. Insects darted through the light.

The druid lifted his head. “By what right do you question me?”

“Oh, fine,” Ned said. “That’s cool. I’ll just wait for your friend to climb out of the bushes and ask him.”

He saw the reaction to that. He turned to his right, towards the trees by the road. “There are mosquitoes up here, man, they must be worse in there. You getting bitten?”

He waited. There was a stirring in the trees.

Out of the darkness beyond the twin arcs of the headlight beams a red-gold figure emerged. Ned’s heart started pounding when he saw him.

Cadell had the stag horns growing from his head again. Ned heard Greg swear softly in disbelief.

“Who are you?” the big Celt said, stepping up onto the roadway.

Where the druid had been angry, Cadell sounded almost amused. His voice was as before: deep, carrying. You could follow that voice into battle, Ned thought.

He needed to be careful, though. It was true, the thought he’d had looking through the barred gates by the parking lot: if these guys thought he and Greg were a problem, they would do something about it.

If they could ignore his questions, he decided, he could do the same with theirs. He said, “Tell me, since this guy won’t, you really think Phelan won’t let her know you broke the rules? Like, broke them immediately? I heard you swear an oath.”

Cadell said, “It is Beltaine, she said to release them when the night ended.” The voice was still amused, diverted. It hadn’t been, Ned remembered, when Phelan walked up into the site, after Ysabel had come.

“True,” Ned admitted. Beside him, Greg was breathing hard.

“But I also heard her say you were to stay there, start searching in the morning.”

The big man smiled down at him. His easy manner didn’t feel faked to Ned. “But I’m not looking for her,” he said. “I was looking for you.”

“Cute. You willing to take a chance she’ll buy that? Risk everything on it? Is she the type to be cool with that kind of scam?”

Cadell’s expression did change then, which was kind of satisfying. There was a silence.

Ned nodded his head. “Thought so. And anyhow, why were you looking for me?”

“She called your name—the small woman—when she came up, before she went through the fires.”

Oh. Right, Ned thought.

And Cadell would have known his name, who he was, from by the tower with Aunt Kim. He’d made the connection. If Ned was understanding any of this—which wasn’t a dead certainty—the guy had been alive, on and off, for more than two thousand years. He’d had time to get clever. Learn how to grow stag horns, change into an owl, control wolves and dogs.

Piece a few clues together.

In the middle of the roadway, the druid was muttering to himself, angrily rocking back and forth like some wind-up toy ready to explode. Ned ignored him.

“You saw us come back for the van?” he guessed.

Cadell nodded. “I had someone watching it.”

“Smart of you,” Ned said. “One man against one man, but you get the ghosts?”

“He seems to have you,” Cadell said softly. “Doesn’t he?”

Ned hesitated.

“No one has us,” Greg snapped. He took a step forward. “We have nothing to do with this. We want Melanie back, then you can all go off and screw each other for all we care!”

“An unappealing notion,” Cadell said. He smiled. “What Brys told you is true, the woman you call Melanie doesn’t exist any more. You need to understand that. There is no reason for you not tell us where Ysabel might be, if you know.”

“You bastards!” Greg shouted. His hands were balled into fists.

“By what goddamned right do you—”

“Hold it, Greg,” Ned said. He moved over and put a hand on the other man’s arm. “Hold it.”

Ned took a breath. He was pretty upset himself, trying not to let it show. They couldn’t lose control here, though, they needed to know too much more.

He said, “Why should we have any idea where she is? Why would you even think that?”

The druid said something swiftly in that other language.

Cadell looked at him and shook his head. Replied curtly in the same tongue, then turned back to Ned.

“You can be told this much. But you must believe I am not your enemy, and Phelan is not your friend. Or anyone’s friend.” He paused, as if reaching for words. The druid was still muttering.

That one, Ned thought, wants to kill us.

Cadell said, “Ysabel changes. Each time we return. Each time, she is altered a little by the summoning. She carries something of the woman brought for her.”

“This has happened before, then? Someone else becomes…?”

“Always.”

Ned was getting a headache trying to concentrate, to remember all of this. He was going to have to tell Aunt Kim. Maybe she could make sense of it. If they got out of here. The villa was so close, but it felt years away. He had to keep Greg from exploding. He could feel the other man’s tension beside him.

He said, “She changes? You two don’t?”