Guy Kay - Ysabel

“Where is she?” the druid said doggedly, ignoring the mockery.

“Another question!” Ned said. “Why do you expect an answer from me? Should I just do to you what I did last night to him?”

He had no way of doing it, but maybe they wouldn’t know that. “Grow some horns,” he taunted. “I’ll use them as targets. Or use the wolves, if you prefer.”

“You cannot kill them all before they—”

“You sure of that? Really sure? You have no idea what I am.” That, at least, made sense, since Ned didn’t, either. “Tell me something else: if you’re planning to off me here, why should I give you anything I know? What’s my percentage, eh?”

The druid said nothing.

“I mean, you are really bad at this, dude. You need to offer something to make it worth—”

“If you care for your father’s life, you will tell me what you know. Or he dies.” The words were flat, blunt, hard.

Maybe, Ned thought, the guy wasn’t so bad at this after all.

“I said they could leave,” Brys went on. “But I can alter that. If you know she was here, you know where’s she’s gone.”

“Are you stupid?” Ned said. “If I knew where she was, would I be here?”

That, too, was true, but it might not keep them alive. Did logic work with druids? Inwardly he was wishing he were religious, so he could pray to someone, or something. He was stalling for all he was worth, and had no idea what sort of rescue could come. He didn’t think a bored gendarme arriving at the gates would stop—

He looked at those gates. The others did too, even Brys, because there was a sound from there. Then another. Something landed with a distant clatter on the shaded pathway.

And then, improbably, a really big man could be seen taking a hard, fast run from the edge of the road, propelling himself up the far side of the gate, arms and legs moving, and then—with what had to be exceptional strength—vaulting himself over the sharp, spiked bars at the top, in a gymnast’s move.

Ned saw him in the air, looking like a professional athlete. The illusion of an Olympic gymnast held, briefly, but this man was way too big. He landed, not all that smoothly, fell to one knee (points deducted, Ned thought). He straightened and stood. It could be seen that he was wearing faded blue jeans and a black shirt under a beige travel vest, and that his full beard was mostly grey beneath greying hair.

“Goddamn!” the man said loudly, bending to pick up his stick.

“I am way too old to be doing this.” He was some distance away, but his voice carried.

Coming forward—favouring one knee—he proceeded to add words in that language Ned didn’t understand. His tone was peremptory, and precise.

“Be gone!” the druid snapped by way of reply. “Do you seek an early death?”

The man came right up to the group of them and stopped, on the other side of Brys and the wolves.

“Early death? Not at all. Which is why I can’t leave, if you want the truth. My wife would kill me if I did, you see. Ever meet my wife?” the very big man said.

Then he looked at Ned. A searching, focused gaze. Wide-set, clear blue eyes. He smiled.

“Hello, Nephew,” he said.

Ned felt his mouth fall open. The jaw-drop thing was happening way too often. It was majorly uncool.

“Uncle Dave?” he said.

His voice was up half an octave.

The smile widened. “I like the sound of that, have to say.”

The grey-bearded man looked over at Ned’s father. “Edward Marriner. This would be even more of a pleasure elsewhere. I hope it will be soon.”

Ned glanced at his dad, whose expression would have been hilarious any other time. It made him feel a bit better about his own.

“Dave Martyniuk?”

The other man nodded. “To the rescue, with a really bad landing.”

“I saw that. You okay? I’m afraid the gate was open,” Edward Marriner said. “We picked the lock to get in.”

Ned’s uncle’s face became almost as amusing, hearing that. He swore, concisely.

“It was a dramatic entrance,” Ned’s father said. “Honestly. Bruce Willis would have used a stuntman.”

The two men smiled at each other.

“Your wife’s coming down on Air France 7666 from Paris,” Dave Martyniuk said. “Flight gets her to Marignan around 6 p.m. Then, what…half-an-hour cab ride to your villa?”

“Bit more.” Ned’s father checked his watch. “We might have time to meet her.” Neither of them was even looking at Brys, or the wolves, Ned saw. Edward Marriner hesitated. “How do you know the flight?”

Martyniuk shrugged. “Long story. Mostly to do with computers.”

“I see. I think. You keep an eye on her?”

The other man nodded. He looked awkward, suddenly. “Only when she’s…”

“I know. Kimberly told us. I…I’m very grateful.” He grinned ruefully. “Assuming we get out of here alive, she will try to dismember you, very likely. I’ll do what I can to protect you.”

“I’d appreciate that. Meghan’s formidable.”

“Oh, I know. So’s her sister.”

“Oh, I know.”

“Enough. We can kill four of you as easily as three,” the druid said.

Ned turned to him. So did the others.

Assuming we get out of here alive.

Brys had shifted position so he could look at all of them, left and right.

Aunt Kim’s husband—Ned hadn’t pictured him as being nearly so big—shook his head. “I’m not sure, friend. You don’t know enough about me, and you’re a long day past Beltaine, losing strength. So are the spirits you put in those wolves.”

“How do you know that?” the druid snapped.

“The spirits? Beltaine? Cellphone. Wife. Mentioned her. Knows a lot, trust me.”

Then, abruptly, the exaggeratedly laid-back style altered. When next Dave Martyniuk spoke, it was in that other language again, and the voice was stone-hard. There was authority in it, and anger. Ned understood nothing, except for what sounded like names. He heard Cernunnos and something like Cenwin.

But he saw the impact on the druid. The man actually grew pale, colour leaching from his face. Ned had thought that only happened in stories, but he could see it in Brys.

“Go home,” his uncle added, more gently, speaking French.

“You should have gone last night. This is not the hour or the life for your dreams to be made real. My wife asked me to tell you that.”

Brys was still for a moment, then drew himself up as if shouldering a weight. A small man, standing very straight.

“I do not believe she knows anything for certain. And in any case,” he said, “why hurry back to the dark? I will learn what the boy knows. And he will not interfere any more. I can achieve so much.” He gestured at the branch Ned’s uncle had thrown over the gate and picked up. “You think you can fight eight of us with that?”

Dave Martyniuk, unperturbed, nodded gravely. “I think so, yes. And there is a reason for you to leave. You know there is. Will you risk your soul, and these? If we kill you here you are lost, druid. The three of them can return, but not you.”

“How do you know these things?”

Something anguished in the question.

“Same answer. My wife.”

With a sharp, startling movement, Martyniuk levelled the branch in front of himself and cracked it hard across his good knee, breaking the stick in two.

“Ouch!” he said, and swore again.

Then he threw half of it across the open space.

Ned saw it flying. It was actually beautiful, spinning into light, shadow, light again under the leaves. One of the wolves sprang for it, jaws wide, and missed—it was arced too high.

Ned’s father caught the thrown branch with unexpected competence and then—much more unexpectedly—stepped straight forward and swung it hard, a two-handed grip, sweeping flat. He cracked the leaping wolf in the ribs as it landed. There was an ugly sound. The animal tumbled, to crumple against a grey, tilting stone.