C.E. Murphy - Mountain Echoes

I focused on the black streak consuming Aidan, aiming for it. Within seconds, I burst through the surface on the inside of the wights’ casting of magic.

Aidan’s eyes were black and soulless, his mouth contorted with wicked glee. He raised one hand, calling on power. I redoubled my shields, even though he shouldn’t be able to throw any more magic around, and was glad I did. The blow that hit me had the Master’s strength behind it, cold and enraged and viciously satisfied all at once. It was diluted, compared to what he’d thrown at me in Ireland, but there was no mistaking the source of power. I skidded backward but kept my feet, cementing the belief that the Master was weaker than he’d been. In Ireland he’d sliced and diced me for the fun of it, and I hadn’t been able to raise a finger against him, much less shield myself.

Unasked for, a bunch of pieces fell into place. We’d pretty well knocked the Master around the block, in Ireland. We’d slain his dragon, wiped out his banshees, killed the banshee queen, destroyed the Morrígan, and then punched a bunch of holes in him and sent him scurrying back to his realm to lick his wounds. And when I said “we” I mostly meant my mother, Gary and Méabh, the warrior queen of Connacht, because during a lot of that activity I’d been busy taking it in the teeth. Perhaps I could consider myself the sacrificial lamb, hanging out to get everybody’s attention while my allies did the heavy lifting, but really I just thought they’d saved my bacon a lot.

But put it all together, and we had dealt the Master some serious blows. He’d used the banshees for blood rituals and power collection, and we’d cut that source off. He’d barely been fed reli>

So I did not fight back. Not for a lot of reasons, the primary one being I had no wish to risk Aidan any further. But also because any active magic I used could be sucked down and used to power up the wights, whereas if I could keep them pouring out the strength they’d taken from Aidan, they might just burn themselves out. It was a dangerous gamble with Aidan’s life, but I was confident of being able to keep that, at least, together. I did, quietly, say, “C’mon, kid. Let me in.” I was three steps away. If he would invite me into his garden, we could stamp out the stain building in him.

The stain, though, was very dark and strong by now, though it had only been growing a few seconds. I could See glimpses of his spirit animals, torn with agitation as they fought with, and gradually for, the darkness overtaking him. Two of them were familiar: a raven and a walking stick. I said, “Screw this,” considerably more loudly, and then, “Raven?” in a normal tone.

He erupted from my shoulders like flights of angels. In the magic-rich environment, he was less a concept and more of a bird, weight to his wings instead of just the beautiful tendrils of light that he often manifested as. “Go talk to him,” I said, and he chortled and darted toward Aidan.

The wall of magic leapt over me, compressing around Aidan. I snapped back into my body. Raven dove, quick and desperate, and I saw a flash of Aidan’s walking stick leaping like it was trying to connect with my spirit bird.

Instead, it hit the shrinking wall of magic, and time flexed.

Everything turned rubbery, including my legs. The air rippled, starting with Aidan and rushing out at great speed. It felt nothing like my train wreck through time in Ireland, but I was convinced something similar was happening. Maybe the difference was I had Renee along to smooth out the bumps.

Or maybe the difference was that the twelve-year-old epicenter of the quake had his spirit walking stick along, and it had a much clearer idea of how to surf time than I did. Aidan’s eyes were entirely black and his expression was one of unholy delight. I shrieked for Renee and dug my heels in, throwing everything I had at the idea of staying put in time.

The world ripped apart, shock waves redoubling around us, then expanding out in a pulse faster than the eye could see. Almost faster than I could See, for that matter: a leading edge of discoloration showed me where it was headed, and gave the impression that it was picking up speed and intent as it rolled. Whatever the time wave wanted, I did not want it leaving the valley. There was enough sorrow and pain for the wights to feed on in this protected haven. The idea of what they, hooked into Aidan’s magic, might be able to do with the world outside the valley didn’t bear thinking about.

I forgot about rescuing Aidan and threw everything I had at the mountainous borders of the valley. It was too far, just like Aidan had been too far, but I was desperate. Shields flickered in the distance, gunmetal faint against the blue sky. They were weak. Feeble, because raw cosmic power or no, a valley was a lot of territory to cover, and I lacked confidence in being able iance, gunme to do it. I saw the power surge roll toward them like a tsunami, and braced myself.

It hit, wobbled, and passed through. A huge amount of magic rolled back at me, caught by the shields, but some of it kept going. I had no idea what that meant in terms of the world outside this valley. Within it, the trees bent until they snapped, splinters erupting into the air. Birds and animals shrieked. So did I, for that matter, ducking and flinging my arms over my head. Branches and falling trees bounced off my shields, pummeling me. When the destruction finally stopped, I lifted my head, eyes wide.

Aidan was gone. The wights were gone. A village stood around me instead, men and women frozen in their activities and staring at me. Cherokee men and women, wearing traditional leather clothing: pants, tunics. A few women wore woven shirts from some fiber I didn’t recognize. They were all barefoot in the spring weather. I felt overdressed.

And for some reason, that thought reminded me of Morrison.

My first impulse was to run like hell back to the other end of the valley, where I’d left the love of my life just before hauling a chunk of real estate somewhere else in time. My second and third impulses were pretty much the same, but by that time the locals had worked through their first, second and third impulses, too.

Some of them threw down what they were carrying and ran shrieking. Others fell down and pressed their faces to the earth. One decided the only smart thing to do was shoot me.

Despite being on the wrong end of the arrow, I kinda liked him for it. The arrow spanged off my shields, which made several more people fall down. I decided discretion was the better part of valor and started backing away. There was a creek around here somewhere. No doubt if I fell in it I could get myself far enough downstream to not threaten these people, which made me wonder if my vaccinations were recent enough for it to be safe for me to even be breathing near them. I wondered if Aidan’s were, since he probably had at least one more set of them due before adulthood arrived. I would not, God damn it, permit myself, Aidan or Morrison, whose vaccinations I was confident were up-to-date, be the carriers for every disease that smeared across the Americas post-European-contact. Even if I had to single-handedly heal every living soul on the continent, I would not let that happen.

For one crazy heart-lurching moment I wondered if that was even possible. Probably not without killing myself, but it was one of those closed time loops anyway: the Native American population had largely not survived European contact, therefore I had not gone through healing millions of people. I still had another heart-fluttery moment where I held on to the idea, imagining how the world might look on my end of time if I’d managed to somehow effectively vaccinate a continent’s worth of people against the diseases that were coming to wipe them out.