Becoming P.T. Lyfantod - 64
A serial fantasy novel
What follows is Part 64 of Becoming P.T. Lyfantod
If you missed Part 1, start there:
The impact never came.
Time stretched.
Was I dead? Yes, that must be it. This was oblivion…
Woof—!
Vertigo sent me spinning. I staggered, bewildered to find solid ground beneath my feet. I threw out my hands and opened my eyes. There was no sign of Tom, or anyone else. In fact, the whole world seemed to have vanished, except for a flickering light off to one side. I turned my head and heard…voices.
I shuffled out, blinking. Iain, Merry, and Tom clustered around Lightfoot, conversing in hushed tones. Lightfoot’s candle sat on the ground in a pool of melted wax, markedly shorter than before. “You’ve all changed back.” They turned at my voice, and at the sight of Tom’s face I stumbled. “He—”
“It wasn’t real!” Merry blurted. “Whatever you saw, it wasn’t real.” She gave Tom a warning look. “It was for you. Alone.”
I opened my mouth. Closed it. “Then—none of you…?”
Merry and Iain shook their heads. Tom squinted at me suspiciously.
I looked around. “Where’s Stu?”
“Mister Jenkins is still inside,” said Lightfoot. “I imagine he’ll be along soon enough.”
I nodded. “The noises have stopped. And…I don’t see any animals.” My eyes widened. “Does that mean we failed?”
Lightfoot shook his head. “You wouldn’t be here if you had.”
“Wouldn’t… You never—!” I spun back toward the cave. “Stuart!”
A hand clamped down on my shoulder. “Will be fine,” Lightfoot gently turned me back around. “Have faith in your friend.”
I looked to Iain. His wore an anxious expression, but gave a reluctant nod.
“There’s nothing we could do,” Merry squeezed my arm as Lightfoot released his grip. “Even if we wanted to. Everyone has to figure it out on their own. Stuart too.”
“But what if he—”
“He’ll be fine,” she said firmly. “Like Lightfoot said. We have to have faith.”
Lightfoot, to his credit, did appear sympathetic. I thought back to the wild, inexplicable, dreamlike experience I’d just had. The feeling I’d had when that dog looked me in the eye. Tom, and the man in green. The fall.
Woof.
“I don’t understand. If we succeeded… why don’t any of us have familiars?”
“We do,” Tom answered, in a manner befitting a particularly dimwitted question.
Merry rolled her eyes. “He asked the same thing. Just before you got here.”
Lightfoot held up his hands, palm to palm. “Imagine two worlds. Side by side. Together, but separate.” He parted his hands and held one up. “Ours.” He held up the other. “And theirs.” He put his hands back together and twisted. Suddenly a white linen handkerchief was suspended between them—and when he removed his hands, it hung in the air. “Th—” He stopped and turned his head, just as Stuart stumbled from the cave mouth, glassy-eyed and pale. Iain and Merry rushed to his side.
“Stuart!”
“Stu, are you okay?”
He nodded dumbly, letting them guide him.
Lightfoot smiled. “And that makes five. Welcome back Mr. Jenkins.”
“That was… that was…”
“For you alone,” Lightfoot finished.
Stuart’s eyes drifted to him, slowly comprehending. He nodded again, then took a deep, shuddering breath and let it out, and seemed to recover some. Then his attention fell upon the handkerchief, still floating where Lightfoot had left it. “What’s that?”
“I was just illuminating something of the nature of your new companions. Shall I continue?”
“Sure…”
“Two worlds,” Lightfoot repeated, gesturing for Stuart’s benefit at either side of the cloth. “And a barrier between them. Sometimes, a barrier may appear solid,” he pushed against the kerchief with one hand, and it stretched, but held. “When in fact…” From a fold in his garment he produced a stick of incense, which he bent and lit in the candle flame. He held it beside the cloth and blew. The ember glowed yellow, and a white cloud passed swirling through the cloth and out the other side. “…it is permeable.” He licked his fingers and doused the incense with a hiss before vanishing it away.
“So they’re ghosts,” said Tom.
“They are not. And the metaphor is a reductive one. A stack of handkerchiefs would be more accurate…”
“But how do we bring them over from their realm?” asked Merry.
“The answer to that question is not the same for everyone, but roughly speaking, it is a matter of calling. And seeing as we are bards…”
“A familiar song?” I hazarded.
Lightfoot smiled. “You made a bond in there,” he nodded toward the cave. “An abiding link that will allow them to find you, wherever you are; and you to summon them, and provide them with physical form once here. It will be difficult at first. But in time, it will feel as natural as putting on your pants.”
“Do we have to use the same song every time?” asked Iain.
“No, no. Any song will do, if you know it well enough. It is the intent that matters.”
“Did you have a familiar?” Stuart asked.
Lightfoot sighed. “Eimear followed me fearlessly into a hundred battles. She was never far from my side. A truer companion a man has never had.”
“What was she?” asked Merry.
“A beautiful white mare.” He gazed into the cave. “It seems yesterday I found her here, wandering the hilltops of Sí an Bhrú… But that is a tale for another day.” He cleared his throat, and shook off his doleful look. “Twice now you have proven yourselves worthy. But you’ve still much to learn before you are ready to face even the lowest Fomorian. I will await you at the stone the Daghda threw. Find the vanishing lake, where the strong smiter fell. The site of the first betrayal. Light will show you the way.”
“Vanishing lake?” said Tom. “Strong smiter? How are we supposed t—”
“Tom!” hissed Merry.
Lightfoot’s face darkened. The light around him seemed to shift. His normally jovial features acquired a skull-like cast. I found myself inching backwards. “Our fiendish foe is fiercer, more ferocious, more frightening than you can fathom.” Lightfoot’s voice rumbled like crashing waves, and he moved toward us, head low and projecting outward. “The tides themselves will turn against you.” He regarded each of us in turn, fire in his eyes. “The bowels of the sea will empty upon the land. One by one, the kingdoms of men will fall in the face of an onslaught the likes of which you’ve never seen. Death. Despair. Destruction await. And none shall see it coming. All that stands between mankind and certain doom is the Order of the Brazen Horn. And we cannot stand alone.
“A bard is no mere soldier. He is not an entertainer, nor a simple singer of songs. He is not a chronicler of histories, or teller of tales. He—she—” with a nod at Merry, “is the very font of inspiration. The right words, from the right lips, at the right time can move armies. And it is armies we’ll need. We are fragile, and few. We are the glint at the tip of the spear, not the spear itself. The instruments we play are the hearts of men. And to do that you need a sharp mind, a quick wit, and knowledge of what came before. History is full of warnings, for those with ears to hear them. And shining beacons—” The light changed again, blossoming from nowhere, sheathing Lightfoot in a golden glow as he spread his hands wide. “Exemplars of humanity. Arthur. Illtud. You must fill your cups to overflowing with their stories. Their heroic hearts, their doughty deeds, their selfless sacrifices will be the seeds of greatness sown in the fertile soil of new minds. Those seeds will grow, into ash, oak, elder and yew. And against this mighty forest of humanity, the waves of the Fomor will break, to be driven once and for all back into the depths from whence they came, never to return.”
“But I don’t know who—”
“Then you will learn!” Lightfoot boomed. “And when you do, you will be ready for the next stage of your journey.”
Tom flinched. This was a side of Lightfoot we’d never seen. Intense. Frightening. It shouldn’t have come as a surprise. He was a warrior, after all. An ancient hero. His charm, his avuncular disposition—if anything, they were the real marvel.
“Ava-what?” Rudy’s expression was flat.
“Avuncular. It means kind, like an uncle.”
“All my uncles are dead.”
“I’m… sorry to hear that.”
I was struck then by how little we actually knew about the bard. It amounted to what I’d gleaned from Willoughby’s Book, and what we’d discovered over the course of three brief meetings. I couldn’t help but wonder if we were making a terrible mistake, trusting him. The picture he painted was grim. The world overrun. Civilization in shambles… But hadn’t he just told us his very art was persuasion? The glint at the tip of the spear. What if he was playing us as well? Of course, I couldn’t very well ask…
“Now, you must go.” Lightfoot said, suddenly impatient. “There’s no time to waste. We’ve so much to accomplish, and every moment the hour of doom draws closer…” He reached for the horn hanging at his hip, and blew a ringing note out into the dark. One of his knots materialized on the floor nearby. “I’ll be waiting,” he ushered us forward, “at the stone the Daghda threw. At the vanishing lake, where the Strong Smiter fell. It is crucial that your familiars are with you. Hurr—”
My foot kissed the knot, and everything—Lightfoot, the cave, the echoing chamber—was gone. A moment later, I was pitching sideways in a snow-dusted field. The air was chill, the sky above crystal clear and infinite. I’d never seen so many stars. After the dark of Lightfoot’s cavern, even the night sky seemed dazzling. The road beyond the gate was empty and silent, but cars raced by periodically along the motorway at my back, with a sound that reminded me of the sea.
Iain appeared, then Merry after him. He stumbled, but caught himself. His head tilted upward, and he took in the night sky. The night sky.
“…Shit.”
