 
### The Fits o' the Season

Katherine Lampe

Smashwords Edition

Copyright 2012 Katherine E. Lampe

### Smashwords Edition License Notes

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# By Katherine Lampe

#

## The Caitlin Ross Series

The Unquiet Grave

She Moved Through the Fair

A Maid in Bedlam

The Parting Glass

The Fits o' the Season

## Other

Dragons of the Mind: Seven Fairy Tales
Copyright © 2012 by Katherine E. Lampe. All rights reserved. For reprint information, please contact the author. Cover copyright © 2013 by Michael J. Zimmerle. Sword & poppy motif © 2013 by Michael J. Zimmerle

This is a work of fiction. Any resemblance by the characters depicted herein to any person living or dead is a coincidence. Really. But I'm not responsible for the gods and cats.

Dedicated with respect to

The Association for Renaissance Martial Arts

http://www.thearma.org
"He is noble, wise, judicious, and well he knows

The fits o' the season..."

_\--_ Shakespeare, _MacBeth,_ VI, ii

**TABLE OF CONTENTS**

The Source Of The Sword

Summoning Scáthach

Battle Blessed

Without Holding Back

Afterword
The Source of the Sword

## Portland, Oregon, September 1989

He looks around the nearly-bare apartment and does not feel at home there.

The feeling isn't new to him. He hasn't felt at home anywhere, in more years than he can count on both hands. Not since leaving Skye, with her mists and green mountains, her rocky moors. The blue vault of heaven overhead. There was room for him, on Skye. He could disappear for days at a time, lose himself, let the wild places swallow him up. It seemed like days, anyway. More likely, it had been hours. Mam never would have stood for days.

But since the move, especially since the year of his illness, he has not felt at home. Oregon is all right. It's green enough, at least. There are mountains, if not the right mountains. The overcast and the soft rains of winter are familiar to him. And there are trees. More trees than on Skye, which is one good thing. Portland is a fine city, as far as cities go, which is not far, in his opinion. Better than many places he's been, especially in the last six years.

Still, it isn't home.

"Home is an idea," Mitch, his teacher, a Tlingit shaman, has told him more than once. "You carry it here." Pointing to his head. "And here." Pointing to his heart. "Find it there, and you will never lose it."

And he's tried. All the gods must know he's tried, so hard. Yet he can't seem to reach that place. His center is far, far away. Lost in mist, lost in time. Lost in a vision he does not want to think about. A vision of Skye.

Someday he'll go back there, he knows. He's seen it. Someday when he's older. Twenty years from now, perhaps more. If he lives so long. He does not really expect to live so long. There are still times, more times than he lets anyone know, that he doesn't wish to.

He thinks he should make an attempt at settling in, so he looks around again, taking inventory. Taking stock. His own place. His own walls, his own table. His own dismal chairs. His own ugly sofa that folds out into a bed. Not his own, not really; they came with the apartment. But his own for now, which is all he's ever had. The board and brick bookshelves are not his own; the last tenant left them. An inheritance, of a sort. Perhaps he should start by claiming them, by unpacking his own few books and aligning them in rows.

He wanders over to one of the boxes on the floor and stares at it. Wanting answers, wanting something. Wanting to fill the vast, aching hollow of his heart. If his heart were a box, he could find something to put in it. Something to fit the shape of the emptiness at his core. But there is nothing, ever. Or if there is, he hasn't found it. Sometimes he plays with the possibility that what he wants, what he needs, does exist and waits for him in some future he cannot imagine. That he'll find it. Stumble upon it, perhaps, when he least expects it. And then he'll be whole.

Most days, though, he doesn't believe that. Most days, he believes he'll feel this emptiness, this poverty of soul, forever. Or as long as he can stand to live with it, which amounts to the same thing.

Has he ever, truly, thought things could be better? Perhaps. Three years ago, when Mitch showed up at the abandoned warehouse in LA where he slept those days, when Mitch dragged him out of his narcotic stupor and back to Portland, perhaps he did believe. He'd been young enough, still, to want rescue and naïve enough, in spite of everything, to cling to the idea that someone else could save him. Or perhaps he'd simply run out of room, run out of time, run out of places to hide. Easier, then, to give in, to go along.

If Mitch hadn't shown up, he'd have been dead, perhaps within weeks. From drugs, from hardship, from sorrow, from simply ceasing to care. Three years on the streets, three years of caring had worn him out. Three years of impotent rage at the world he couldn't change. It didn't take him six months, after he left home, after he left his mother's house, to discover that junk helped. Helped calm the storm inside him. Helped him not care.

Three years on junk was a lifetime. Lots of kids didn't make it half that long.

So, he'd gone with Mitch, and Mitch had cleaned him up, and now he is here. Here in this one-room flat that does not fit him. Because Mitch said it was time.

"College!" The idea horrifies him. "I dinna want tae go tae college!"

He's hung around colleges. Kids do, even the ones with homes. There are three in Portland, alone. The Catholic college. His brother started there last year, and he has no intention of ever setting foot in the place. PSU. Reed, which everyone knows is where you go to buy drugs. And he's seen plenty of others. They're good places to panhandle, if you can spot the right mark. Not the ones with perfect teeth and fancy clothes, the poster kids. They'd just as soon kick you. The ones who look a bit harried, a bit different. Art students with restaurant jobs. They consider themselves sensitive, empathetic, and they're always good for spare change, a few bucks, perhaps even a meal if you catch them on the right day. Sometimes more than that. The girls always fall for his charm, for his smile.

But they're all the same, those places. The kids with their bright eyes, their hope. They're too clean. Their outfits look contrived, like costumes, like uniforms, marking this one as a geek, this one as a punk, this one as a cheerleader. And even the older ones, the ones who've been there years, look young to him. They haven't seen the things he's seen.

"You're a smart young man, Timber," says Mitch. "Brilliant, some say."

Brilliant, is it? Although the praise is good to him, he tries hard to keep his face blank. Not to show his pleasure, his curiosity. He wants to know who said such a thing. But he won't be drawn in that way.

"I've kept you almost three years," Mitch goes on when he refuses to take the bait. "You need more, now."

"What more?"

"Your own place. Your own path. Your own life."

He snorts, contemptuous. "I dinna think a college will provide those."

"Many people find things at college that they did not expect," says the old man with infuriating serenity.

"So ye think I need tae find myself, then?" He hates the concept. He's watched people, he's always watched people. He's seen the ones who claim to be "finding themselves." The constant Seekers. Always searching with no wish of finding at all. Flitting from one thing to the next with no more intent than butterflies. Less, for butterflies at least know which flowers will satisfy them. They feed, and then they change. But Seekers never change. And he's seen the way they treat people. Thoughtless. Self-Centered. Hypocrites.

"I did not say so," Mitch replies.

They stare at each other across the table in Mitch's kitchen. The table where they've sat so often. And he knows, he already knows, that he's going to lose this fight. Not only because Mitch is his teacher, and the habit of obedience is strong in him now. But because the old man is right. He's a man, not a child. He needs to leave this temporary safety, to branch out, to grow.

He badly wants a beer. He knows there's beer in the fridge, and he could get up and grab one. He doesn't need to ask permission. But he doesn't get up.

"There are things I cannot teach you," Mitch says.

"Such as?"

"How to be the man you are in the world you live in."

Again, he snorts. "I dinna think college will teach me that, either."

Mitch just looks at him.

"I canna pay for college," he says after a time.

"There is a tribal elder on the board of PSU," Mitch tells him. "She will help, if I ask."

He thinks about it. Not long.

"Ask."

So it was settled, and now he's here, in this badly-fitting student apartment, trying to unpack a box. It gives in to him at last, as things do, and he puts his books on one of the shelves. Not many, not now. But he supposes he'll collect more.

He doesn't own much else. The clothes on his back. A few household goods his mother gave him, delighted for him to be "making something of himself" at last. The drums. The old bodhrán, the new bodhrán, and the spirit drum he made himself. The old bodhrán is beat to shit; he'd had it when he ran away the first time. He's replaced the head twice already, but now the frame is cracked and he doesn't know if he can fix it. He's not sure he wants to. That's the drum he was busking with when the drunks set on him.

He'd been only fourteen, then, hadn't got his full growth. Tall but gawky, still figuring out how to inhabit his body. So, he'd been busking outside a bar in Seattle, in a bad part of town, he'd learned later, although he'd come to know worse. And the drunks had smelt his inexperience and his fear and his fury, got hopped up on it like cocaine. He honestly can't remember the details; he took a few blows to the head that night. Or perhaps he simply doesn't want to remember. Anyway, they'd forced him to play the same song over and over, and it wasn't because they liked it. It was a threat and a torture. And in between, they'd beat him up. Maybe a dozen times before he wasn't fun anymore. And it's too bad, because he did like that song. But now he can't bear to hear it. Except sometimes it pops out of him, when he's in trouble or upset. He can't help it. It just happens.

So he doesn't think he'll fix that drum. Not now. Maybe not ever.

He enrolls in classes. He attends them and enjoys them rather more than he expects to, although he finds the required coursework basic. Funny the things you pick up living on the streets. Not information, so much, but how to process it. How to think. If you don't think, you don't survive.

He's quiet, listening a great deal more than he talks, but when called upon he speaks his mind. The Profs like him. The other students seem to like him. He expected no less from the girls. Girls always like him, whether they know him or not. He sleeps with a few of them because he can, no attachments, no hard feelings. It's all right. They seem pleased. None of them makes a scene. He thinks perhaps he frightens them as much as he attracts them. He thinks perhaps they're relieved when he goes.

The blokes, though. That surprises him. That he can get along with blokes. Since he got his size, it's always been one way or the other with blokes. Some try to make up to him. Some try to take him down. Dogs sniffing around another dog, trying to figure out the order of things. Figure out who's the alpha. He doesn't care whether or not it's him, except inasmuch as being the alpha makes the odds for survival better. For him and for the ones who always seem to be under his wing. It's been years since anyone's been able to take him down.

But the college blokes are different. Not too much different; blokes are blokes, after all. Still, they get on well enough. Sometimes he goes out for a beer, a game of pool. Not often. Enough to keep up the pretense that he's one of them, although he's not. In their way, they respect him. For his GPA, which is a new thing, and seems to him slightly ridiculous. For his size. For his prowess with the pool cue and his success with the girls. Which are not new things at all.

Still, there is no one among them he can really call a friend. He's too different. He's older than the other freshman, not just in years. He's seen too much. Too much none of them will ever, ever see.

And it begins to get to him more and more, as the leaves fall, as autumn passes into winter. This difference. It seems to follow him everywhere, showing him as too old, too big, too knowing. His classmates seem like dwarfs or children. He towers over them, not just in stature; their conversations are meaningless, chatter, less than the calls of migrating birds. The classrooms bind him, even, or perhaps especially, the cavernous lecture hall with the miniscule desks that scarce have room for a sheet of paper, so that he often chooses to stand in the back. Apart and silent. The whole campus cannot contain him. Nothing seems to fit. The weather draws in around the walls of his flat, and the walls of his flat close him in, and his shirts are too tight; he destroys them in tearing them off and has to buy more.

And then he starts to dream. Of Her. Of the girl. The red-haired girl with eyes like the shifting sea of Skye. Of Home.

He never dreamed of her when he was fucked up, when he was on the streets. Only after, when Mitch had brought him back to Portland and cleaned him up. Then she came to him. Mostly when things were bad. When he was at odds with himself, or at loose ends. When there was a space in Mitch's training. She came to fill it, then.

She never comes when he's busy, when his mind is full and active. When he's as close as he can come to content. Only in the dark times. And, although he knows it to be wrong, he sometimes finds himself wishing for the dark, so he might see her.

He's never told Mitch about her. He's never told anyone.

So, he dreams of her now. And she's no longer a girl, but a woman, beautiful and strong. He last saw her in a smallish town, a college town not so different from Portland. She's in a city now, a city with a subway; he sees the fringe on her leather jacket swing as she runs for the train. He hears the patter of her boots on the stairs of a walk-up flat, the click of a key unlocking a bolt, the lifting of a latch.

She turns to him with a smile, dazzling, enchanting, kind. Her kindness fills him. He's no longer lost, unsure, apart. He's no longer strange. When they join, they fit together, he and this red-haired girl, and the feeling is like nothing else he has ever felt, so fine. So right. How can she come from darkness if this is so right?

He wakes, crying out, spilling his seed, shaken. This has not happened in a long time. It's a fever in him, a sickness he cannot throw. He wants the dream woman with a fierce hunger. The sensation of filling and being filled. The longing adds to his restlessness, making it impossible to bear. He needs an escape. Any escape.

He tries fucking a couple of the girls from his Ethnography seminar. It's the first thing that occurs to him, and they've both been eyeing him for weeks. It lasts, with one or the other, until the end of the semester, when both of them head for homes out of state. No heartbreak, nothing serious. It's never serious with him. He can't give a woman a hollow heart. But it's a respite. For a while.

When classes are over, and they go, he finds himself adrift once more. Again, he has too much space to fill. Too much time. He still sees Mitch, of course, but the old man has backed off him, called a halt to his training while he gets established at school. Not that training would be a good idea, with the state he's in. He's put his own drum away.

He takes to walking. Nowhere, anywhere. He has mixed feelings about walking. He enjoys the activity, enjoys letting his long legs eat up the ground. He enjoys the tiredness that comes later, when he's worked his muscles past exhaustion. Yet, after living on the streets, something about it bothers him. It's hard to appreciate being out and about when once you had no choice.

One time, on a whim, his pocket full of bills he won at pool, he gets a tattoo. He doesn't know why. Perhaps he thinks enduring the pain of it will satisfy the pain in his soul. But he can hardly feel it, the processed pain, the oversized mechanism that taps the pigment into his skin. Still, it turns out well. Better than he had any right to expect for a moment's impulse. He feels good about it. Then he decides to spend Christmas with his family, and his mother sees it, and lays into him for marring his flesh. There's a row, and he leaves early, worse than ever, a pariah, alien to his own blood.

He buys a bag and smokes it, which he doesn't like, and which makes him ill, besides. He has never understood where potheads come from; weed does nothing for him. He frequents bars and drinks too much. That helps a little, but it takes a great deal to get him truly drunk, and it doesn't last, and it takes too long. After New Year's he picks a fight with a trio of Bikers and lands all four of them in jail. While he's waiting for Mitch to come bail him out—it's always Mitch who bails him out; if his mother heard, she'd kill him—he wonders if perhaps he's belonged in prison all along. It's funny how, once the doors of the holding tank close, the Bikers treat him with respect, almost fondness. He supposes he's proven his worth to them. Perhaps it's the only worth he has.

Mitch shows up about three in the morning and springs him. After he picks up his personal belongings, he thinks he'll just walk back to his flat, but Mitch makes him get in the truck. They sit in the dark parking lot for almost ten minutes before the old man speaks.

"Anything you want to tell me?"

"No. I dinna think so."

Mitch drives him to his building and lets him go.

A week into January, he can't stand it anymore.

No one has to tell him where to go to score, and he doesn't need to ask. He just knows. You do, after a while. You pick up subliminal messages, read clues other people can't even see. "The Junky Wireless," they used to call it. So he goes downtown, talks to someone at the Hmong grocery, who sends him to someone else, and he comes away with a dime bag of Chinese smack. The rig is no problem. It never is in a new town. Pick a pharmacy, any pharmacy, and tell the nice clerk that your mother needs insulin syringes. She believes you; you look like a college student. Because you _are_ a college student. Remember that. She trusts him; she doesn't ask the name of the medication or the dosage. He doesn't even have to turn on the charm.

Back at the flat, he cooks a dose on automatic, not caring, not thinking. Because when he gets like this, there's only one thing to do. And perhaps this time it will kill him, and perhaps not. Either way, the relief will be worth it.

The rush, when it comes, is two minutes of forever, like the best sex he's ever had, going on and on until he thinks his heart might burst. But it doesn't, and besides, it isn't the rush he craves. It's the nod. And aye, here it is, washing over him like warm milk. The absence of everything. The pain may still be beneath it, waiting. But for now, for now there's peace.

For the first time in a long time, he relaxes completely. Comfortable, safe and at ease, not caring that he knows it's all an illusion. After a while, he sleeps, and there is no red-haired girl in his dreams.

There's nothing at all.

The dime bag lasts a day or two. Then there's another dime bag, and after that a twenty. And then he doesn't know; he loses track. It doesn't take a lot to get him off at first, and then it does, just like he's never been clean at all. Time stops. Life stops. He exists in a state of suspended animation, surfacing from time to time, after minutes, after hours, to fix again or score again or shoot a game of pool to get the cash to score and fix and score. It's a closed loop, a cycle that never ends. Sometimes, in brief moments of clarity, he's awestruck at how fast it got hold of him, like diving into water deeper than he expected. Sometimes he thinks, Where's all that going? Not in my veins, surely. And then he thinks, Aye, well, perhaps it is. And that's all right.

And then, one day, someone dumps a bucket of cold water over his head, and he wakes up.

Mitch is in his flat, still holding the bucket.

"You've missed two weeks of classes," the old man says. "That isn't good."

"Aye, well," he says. His mouth tastes like a toilet bowl that hasn't been scrubbed in a while. "I didna want tae attend college in the first place."

"I didn't pull you out of this hole to have you jump back in it the first time things got too hard for you," Mitch says. "I expected better from you."

"Perhaps ye should learn not tae expect so much, then." Why cannot the old man go away and leave him alone?

"You need to choose, Timber. Choose to die, or choose to live. But not this slow wasting."

For some reason, perhaps because Mitch has spoken his name, or perhaps because he knows the words to be true, this gets to him. He sits up, water dripping from his hair. He feels it, cold on his shoulders. The sofa is drenched.

"Do I have tae decide this instant?" he asks.

"No." Mitch starts to gather things into a plastic grocery sack. Paraphernalia. Leftovers. The open box of syringes, the baggie with the remains of a gram. Aluminum foil, a lighter, a spoon. "You come see me in a day. If you ask, I'll give this back to you and we'll be quits."

"And then?"

"You know what then. But don't destroy yourself. Make it clean." Mitch heads for the door, grocery sack rustling like dead leaves. At the threshold, he pauses. "I hope you won't ask."

After his teacher is gone, he cleans up a bit, tries to eat. He's lost a good deal of weight, but it's all right. At least for the moment, his clothes don't chafe. He'll gain it back soon enough. If he chooses to live.

He thinks he has a few hours before the shakes start, so he decides to walk. There's nothing but his word to keep him from looking up his contact and scoring again, but he won't. He won't get back on that wheel. Mitch is right; he needs to make it clean. A clean break or a clean end.

He walks until he can't walk anymore, and then he lies on the floor of his flat and sweats, and shakes, and feels sick. He has more of the same, and worse, to look forward to, if he chooses to live. He supposes he can bear it. It's what comes after that frightens him. It's what comes after that he isn't sure he can bear.

In the evening, he goes over to Mitch's place. The old man is waiting for him at the kitchen table, the plastic grocery sack in front of him. He, Timber, sits down.

"I'll live," he says.

Mitch nods. "Good. You look like Hell. Go to bed."

He does. He knows by the time he's up and about, that grocery sack will have vanished, and nothing will ever be said of it again.

Later, in the spring, Mitch tells him,

"You need a discipline."

"A discipline?"

"Yes. Something to hold onto when night comes in."

"College isna enough?"

"No." The old man pats his knee. "College works your brain. You need something to work your body. And your spirit. Not girls."

He laughs. Sometimes he thinks it a wonder he can still laugh, after everything.

"You find something," Mitch says.

So, he's walking by the river on a Saturday, and the fair is going on. Mostly potters and painters, as usual, but a couple odd vendors as well. One of them is some kind of refugee from a Ren Faire: a tent chock full of cheap knives and such. Kris from India and kukris with brass showing under a thin patina of steel, and potmetal swords. All shite, but he checks it out anyway. Hardly anything there that will take an edge, much less be of any practical use. Except, that far corner of the tent keeps drawing him. He goes over, and there, half buried in flimsy replicas, he finds the single decent thing in the entire collection. A bastard sword, almost four feet long including the hilt. The scabbard's nothing much, just worn brown leather. But he checks the blade and it's good steel. The hilt fits his hand as if it had been made for him. And, to his surprise, the touch of it fills an empty space in him. Not the whole of it. Not even most. But enough.

"Make me an offer," the vendor says. "No one wants that. It's not pretty."

"We'll suit, then," he says, and the vendor gives him a look. But he isn't talking about his face. He's talking about everything else.

He hasn't got much on him, only a fifty he was planning to spend on food. The blade's worth more than that. But he offers it, and the vendor takes it.

A discipline, Mitch said. It's not like he can really study broadsword in this day and age. Not like Japanese technique that you can learn at any reputable dojo. But the notion amuses him. Surely he can find out some things. Talk to this person and that. And it will keep him occupied. A line to hold when night comes in.

Back at the flat, he hangs the sword on the wall. It looks well there.

He can already feel how it's changed him. How it will continue to change him, in time to come.

He still does not feel at home. Perhaps he never will.

But for now, it's all right.

### Summoning Scáthach

## Boulder, Colorado, September 2001

She has gone, and he does not know what to feel.

He's gotten better about that, over the years. Especially in the two years with Her. For a long time, his emotions were a foreign landscape, a storm. A place he couldn't ignore, couldn't leave, but also could never quite grasp or control. Riding the whirlwind. That's improved with practice, with discipline. With learning to order his mind. And in the years with Her, he's learned also to speak. Not always. But more. So when the truth he's unable to ignore presses on him, he can go to Her for peace.

She's good at that. Giving him peace. It's odd, because She is not a peaceful person to be around. More than anyone he's ever known, She has the way of speaking difficult truths. Perhaps it goes with Her being an Oracle. She takes a step sideways, and the horrible things, the things you think you cannot look at and live, become commonplace. He's seen Her do it with others. She's done it with him. Not with everything. He hasn't told Her everything.

Perhaps he never will.

Always, She shines a light into dark places. Turns rocks over to expose the pale, wriggling things beneath. Fearless.

Until now.

And that is why he's so very, very angry with Her. Because a fool could see Her fear. Smell it on Her, taste it in Her sweat. And She would not speak of it. Would not. Would not give him the chance to do for Her what She has done for him. Or, if he could not, at least give Her what he can. A willing ear. The comfort and protection of his body, if nothing else. She's seen him comfort and protect others; why can She not let him do the same for Her?

But, no. No, it was simply, "I'm sorry, I can't do this anymore. Not this business, not magic, not any of it."

And She hadn't been sorry; he could tell that. It was a lie, a social nicety. She's a terrible liar, though She will keep trying. But he thought they were past that.

Nor would She tell him another thing. She just took that sideways step, this time away from Herself and away from him. Leaving him with all his care, all he could offer, all he was, in his hands.

She might as well have slapped his face. In fact, he'd have preferred Her to slap his face. He could have responded to that.

So, he's angry. All right. That's one.

He grabs his sword and storms out the back door, cursing in the Gaelic; he needs to blow off steam. He's already had one workout today, numb and cold, bare chested in the autumn air. After he woke up. After he woke up alone. But his body is something he understands, something he can control.

Not now, it seems. He's good at this, he knows he is. Skill acquired in bits and pieces over the course of ten years made whole. But now, his thrusts are weak; his swings go wild. He might as well be a child playing at swords with a stick. No form, no technique. He finds himself flailing away at a couple of birch saplings at the back of the garden, poor young things that have never done him any harm. They tremble, their last leaves falling, bark and branch splitting under his onslaught. He pretends not to hear their cries.

" _Galla!_ " he shouts, to cover the tree voices. Bitch. Which She isn't. " _Baobh! Luid! Strapaid! Druis!_ " Whore. Which She isn't, either. Sometimes wanton, aye. But never loose. She's never given him reason to doubt. " _Tha thu 'nad fhaighean!_ " And She's not a cunt. " _Aireamh na h-Aoine ort!_ " But he would like to damn Her, just now. Damn Her for leaving him.

And he's on his knees, the sword gone, cast aside, hurled away, and he's sobbing into his hands. Weeping for what he's done to the poor trees. Weeping for himself.

A secret he's kept from Her, is how much stronger than he She is. She is so self-contained. Although he makes a pretense of it, he is not, not in the same way. He has always needed other people to see him, to identify him, to give him a name. She, She'd just as soon be invisible, for all it matters to Her. She finds the gaze of others hard to bear.

It occurs to him that perhaps Her retreat is the ultimate form of invisibility. The final bending of energy, the last trick She has. Making it so no one can see Her. Not even Herself.

Knowing this, knowing She's afraid and in pain, doesn't make it any easier. He needs Her, and that's the plain truth. He's always needed Her, even before they met. It had frightened him, and he'd tried to deny it: the one time in his life he'd ever lied to himself, and a bad job he made of it, too. He needs Her light in his darkness. He needs Her shape in his heart.

His heart, that She's broken by Her leaving.

And doubtless he deserves it. For he's broken Her heart, more than once.

What is it Zee says? "Payback is a bitch." That's it.

That's two.

And now, now there's this business with the Ring of Omicron to settle. The mages who damage innocent children beyond repair. The mages who rip out souls. He will never, ever forgive Her for leaving it to him.

And that's three.

She could not possibly believe him capable of letting it go. Not that horror, not that atrocity. Not anywhere, but especially not here, in this place he has learned to call home. It's vile; it makes him physically ill. But what could She think he might do? He can't heal what's been broken. He can't mend the ruined lives, can't restore the shattered souls. All the gods know he would if he could. If it meant his life, he'd give it gladly for any one of those fractured children. But his life can't buy them back.

Heal the people of the Ring itself? Well, if they cared to be healed, perhaps. He cannot imagine they care. If they cared, they would not be the Ring at all.

He needs Her. His abilities are not like Hers. His magic, if he has any, is to bring together, to protect, to find, to speak, to know. Little things that won't work here. Where true magic is concerned, Caitlin is the one with power. He's muscle, and he knows it. Giving Her energy, if She needs it. Backing Her with his brawn.

But he can't fight the Ring of Omicron, not even with his sword. He discards the notion the moment it occurs to him. As well as magic, they have guns. He's taken a few bullets in his time, and he's not keen to do so, ever again. Besides, it would do no good. He'd die before he could swing the blade once. Pointless. And while he thinks he would not mind death, he'd like it to count for something.

They could use killing, though.

He hasn't thought like that in years.

He's lying on the bed, fully clothed, boots on the duvet, which She hates, thinking it over and trying not to smell Her smell. She left with very little. Some clothes thrown into a duffle bag. And the cat, so he doesn't even have McGuyver to talk to. Threw it all in a rented car and drove off, McGuyver swearing at the top of his lungs. So it's likely She'll be back someday, if only for Her things. Meantime, Her smell is everywhere.

Gods, he wishes She were here. He'd like to hold Her. Make love to Her, if that would help. Anything.

What if he's never to love Her again?

No, stop. He's thinking of the Ring, and what's to be done about them.

But never to taste Her. Never feel Her beside him. Never to stroke Her hair.

He would give anything, if She would be visible to him.

The phone rings, taking him by surprise. At first, he thinks not to answer it. Then he thinks, She probably told Her friends She was leaving. She takes care of details like that. Perhaps She told them even before She told him, which hurts. Or perhaps it doesn't. Perhaps She left him until last because She didn't really want to go.

Anyway, the phone might possibly be for him, so he picks it up.

"Aye," he says.

It's Spruce, asking if he and Caitlin would like to come to dinner, meet her new man. Someone she's serious about, he can tell by the tone of her voice. So Caitlin didn't tell everyone. She left his sister to him.

And Spruce reads his quiet, because she asks what's wrong.

"Caitlin's left me," he tells her. He hopes the blunt trauma won't hurt as much. But the words twist the knife in his gut.

"What?" Spruce squawks in his ear. Then, "What did you do?"

"I didna do anything."

If he'd shouted, if he'd protested, sounded angry, she wouldn't have believed him. But he hears his own voice, tired and numb. So she does.

"What happened?" Spruce whispers.

"I dinna ken, not rightly." True enough. "Something upset Her; She wouldna tell me what. Not about me, I dinna think. Still, She's gone."

"Where?"

He know what she's thinking. If Caitlin's not gone far, if She's perhaps staying with a girlfriend a few days, things might yet sort themselves out.

"Gordarosa." To the house. The house that was supposed to be their place, together. Someday. Their someday house for their someday family, which is another thing he hasn't been able to give Her. Not for want of loving. She never speaks of it, but he knows it grieves Her. And perhaps that's part of it. Perhaps She's tired of being disappointed.

Gods, man, stop doing this to yourself.

"She's told me tae stay here as long as I like. But I think it may be right tae... tae move. Get me ain place."

"When did this happen?"

"A few days ago. Less. I dinna ken."

"Don't move," Spruce commands him. "Give it time."

"I'll try."

There doesn't seem to be anything else to say after that, but Spruce, of course, has to have the last word.

"Timber. Don't do anything stupid."

"I'll try that, too," he says, and rings off.

And it's a good thing he promises. Because, in a little while, he sleeps, and he dreams of Her, of him and Her together. And when he wakes, he does not want to live.

He thinks, You're never done choosing between life and death. Because you can't choose to live just once. You have to keep choosing it, every day, with every breath. It's only when you choose death that you can stop.

He had thought, when Mitch made him choose ten years ago, that he had chosen once and for all. It had seemed so, then. He'd chosen to live, and he'd given it his best. Done what was put before him. Some of it, he'd enjoyed. The sword. The travel, researching his thesis. The random willing woman. But it hadn't been a Life. Not until he met Her, had he begun to have a Life.

He wants it back, he realizes. He wants Her back.

He does not think he's told Her any of that. When they fought, when She'd announced to him that She was leaving, abandoning magic, abandoning him, did he put it so baldly? Did he actually say, "Don't go?" Calling up the memory, he sees he did not. He was too angry, too shocked, too full of words like "duty," and "calling," and "obligation." He put everything in terms of their work and what She must do, never speaking of his need, of his love. Of his heart. Gods, what a mess he made of it. No wonder She left.

He digs up the number of the house in Gordarosa and calls. Gets the machine, which does not surprise him. She's being invisible, and when She's invisible, in pain, threatened, She does not answer the phone. In Boulder, he winds the cord through his fingers, waiting for the beep.

"Caitlin," he says when it finally signals him to speak. "Will ye please pick up if you're there?"

She does not. He imagines Her sitting, knees drawn up, watching the phone as if it's an animal likely to bite.

"I..." Now that it comes to it, he has no idea what to say. Thirty-two years old, with all the women in his past, he's never done anything like this before. Because, of course, it was never a particular woman he wanted. Just a release, a nice fuck. Or a not-so-nice one.

"I'm sorry for everything I said," he goes on at last. "Please call me. I need tae know you're all right."

And then the machine cuts him off, and he hasn't said the right words; he's made a mess of it again.

He hits "redial," tries another time not to get lost in the sound of Her voice telling him She's not home but he can leave a message.

"Caitlin," he begins after the beep. "I..."

He doesn't get any farther. There's a click on the line, and then She's there, sounding so close and so far away.

"Timber. I'm all right. McGuyver's all right. Everything's fine. Please don't call me anymore."

She's speaking very fast, and he knows She is not all right; She has shut down, closed Herself off, and She doesn't want to risk letting anyone in. Him, most of all.

"Don't hang up," he says, and, for a miracle, She doesn't.

"Please come home," he says. "I need ye."

She doesn't answer, but he can hear Her breathing. Perhaps crying.

"Talk to me," he whispers. "Please."

"I can't." Her voice is so soft, he almost can't hear Her. "I'm sorry. I just can't."

"Is it me? Have ye changed toward me?"

"No." He hears the catch in Her throat. Aye, She's crying. Would that he could hold Her, kiss away Her tears. But She won't let him in. "It's me. I told you. I've changed toward me."

It's a line from every failed romance, so he's heard tell. It's never been said to him.

"What can I do?" he asks.

"Nothing. You can't do anything. Timber, I..."

For a moment, he thinks She'll tell him. Tell him She's lost, alone, afraid. But instead, She just says,

"I'm sorry. I have to go. Please don't call again."

And hangs up.

"I love you," he tells the hissing line in the moment before it starts screaming. "Forever."

He is a dead man walking. He thought it was bad before, when his heart felt so aching and empty, and his soul was so full of pain. But now, it's as if both heart and soul have been ripped right out. There's nothing left of him. He's on permanent auto-pilot, doing what needs to be done to keep his body functioning. Because that's all he has, and he has no idea what else to do.

He's never felt so powerless, not even on the streets. On the streets, at least his physical strength counted for something. But he cannot use it to help the woman he loves, or to solve the problems in the town in which he lives.

He needs to become more than he is.

In the Otherworld, he could do it. He can shapeshift there, be whatever he needs to be. He doesn't do it often, only at great need. It's uncomfortable and doesn't come easy; it's still too new. But if this isn't great need, he doesn't know what is.

Can he confront the Ring in the Otherworld? Some of them, perhaps. The mages, if he can find them, if he can get through their protections. The Mundanes, perhaps not. Mundanes don't always have presence in the Otherworld.

And what would that accomplish? Evil or not, they're men. He doubts he can remove them from the Otherworld, as he might a Being of pure Spirit. If he had to. If it were the right thing to do.

He must deal with them on this side. Somehow. And that brings him back to the one tool he has: his body. His fighting skill.

He ponders the sword. In some cultures, among the Hmong in particular, the shamans carry swords. As protection from spirits. As a weapon against evil on the paths. He knows his sword has a presence in the Otherworld; he's had it with him at times.

If the Spirit Sword could merge with the material sword.

If he could merge with his Spirit Self.

Becoming more. Combining the powers he has there with those he has here.

It might be enough.

He meditates on it for a full day before the answer comes to him, falling into his empty mind full-formed. With it, pieces of a vision never fully understood come into sudden, clear focus, as if a camera angle has changed to show him something previously unseen. He'd thought it a metaphor, when he'd thought of it at all. Now he realizes that it is no more than the literal truth.

He promised Spruce he'd try not to do anything stupid. He doesn't believe this is stupid. Reckless, dangerous, foolhardy, rash, all those things, aye. But not stupid.

In the room set aside for magic and for Journeys, he summons the Spirit Horse. It comes, with hoofbeats like drums, like thunder, and he finds himself on its back, sword in hand.

"Take me home," he tells it. "Take me to Skye."

In the Otherworld, the Isle is different. Same colors. Sea blue, grass green. Purple heather, grey stone. The mists. The vast vault of the sky overhead, blue at the apex, fading down to almost white. After the clear, dry, Colorado sky, it disturbs him, just a bit. Still, it's as he remembers.

The place itself it different, though.

He's on a quest, now, so it's all right. And it's good to be moving in a direction, any direction. It makes him feel he has a purpose.

The Journey shapes itself to the hunt, as it does. He sees what he needs to see, finds what he needs to find. Places. People. Beings. He comes across an old woman; she might be his totem wearing a different face, or might not. He asks for knowledge, and she gives it. She gives it for nothing, which means she might well be his totem and bound to help, but it doesn't really matter. The information is all bound up in symbol, but that doesn't matter, either. Not here.

So, he crosses mountains and valleys, and speaks with this one and that one, and at last he comes to the bridge. The bridge which no one can cross, who has not first proved himself a champion.

Well, that's a laugh.

He gets down from the Horse. Except he hasn't, not really, because he's still here, and somewhere, in the back of his head, he can still hear the thunder, the drumming of its hooves. That used to bother him. In the beginning, the dissonance of the idea, riding and not-riding at the same time, would throw him right out. He's learned better, but for a moment everything shifts. He's upset, and well he knows that he shouldn't be attempting this kind of thing at such a time. But he has no choice, not really, and so he firms his mind, takes hold of his purpose, and in a minute the ground steadies.

So, he gets down from the horse and looks at the bridge. Thin as a hair, short as an inch, tall as a tree, sharp as a sword. All at once. It swims in his sight; it changes from one thing to another at a touch. It would shake a man off at a single step. The chasm beneath is deep, bottomless. Not a good place to take a fall.

But he has no intention of setting foot on the bridge. There are ways and ways of crossing. He'll use another.

Backing off, he sits on a stone and breathes in the moist air of Skye, this Skye, anyway. It's a balm to his wounds, a tonic in his veins. There's power for him here, if he would claim it. Someday, perhaps. For now, just a taste, just enough. Enough to help him find a clear path to his own center, and shape it. To become something feathered, beaked, taloned, winged.

He rises from the rock an erne, a white-tailed sea eagle. His eight-foot wingspan takes him aloft, spiraling up on the wind from the chasm. With the bird's eyes, he can see the bottom far below: water churning over sharp rocks, cutting its way to the sea. Could be fish down there, in the calmer shallows. Salmon, pike. For a moment, he's tempted. Then he remembers what he is, what he's about. He's not an eagle, but a man. There's danger in forgetting that.

He wheels once above the bridge and alights on the other side. With a wrench, he regains his own shape. This edge of the chasm looks much like the first: grass strewn with rocks and gorse, rising to hills not far off. Nestled among the hills, he can see a house. The house he's seeking. The house with seven doors.

A red-haired woman comes down from the house. His heart wrenches; at first, he thinks it's Her, as he always thinks every red-haired woman is Her. But in a moment, he sees it's not. This woman's hair is coarse fire, not soft, like banked embers. This woman is lean, not gently curved. She walks with a free, swinging stride. She doesn't move as if dancing to music no one else can hear.

She's carrying a sword.

"That was a nice trick," she says, coming up to him.

Her words are the Gaelic of his childhood, only half-remembered except for the curses his uncle taught him. Still, he falls into it as if it never left him.

"It got me across," he says.

"I'm not sure it counts. One is supposed to cross the bridge, you see."

"And did I not? Your bridge is a wily thing. It seems to me a man must use what tricks he has, to reach the other side. One can't solve a riddle by taking it at face value. One needs to look at it sideways."

The way She does. The way he's learned from Her.

The woman laughs. "Good answer. I like you. I think my mother will like you. If you can reach her."

Her sword comes up. He steps back.

"I don't want to fight you."

"Then you may return the way you came."

Another test, another challenge. By all the gods, he's tired of them. But it's the way of things, in the Otherworld and in the World-That-Is as well, to keep testing, keep pushing, keep asking for proof. And when at last you cannot meet the challenge, it's the end.

It wouldn't be a good end, not here. He still has things to do. So he unsheathes his own sword, raises it, takes a stance.

She rushes him before he's ready, almost getting in under his guard, almost ending the fight right there. Only some quick footwork saves him. Recovering, he brings his blade around backhand, with less style than he'd like, but still on the mark. The woman deflects it without trouble; steel rings on steel. She raises an eyebrow at him, as if to say, "Is that all you've got?" Then she's on him again, and this is a real battle, and he stops thinking because he's fighting for his life.

And he feels alive.

The blood sings in his veins; his nerve endings hum. Everything about him, every sense, is sharper. Clearer. Everything is in tune, without any of the false notes he's come to expect. Every part of his body moves together as one, from the small muscles in his wrists, keeping the blade steady, to the large ones in his legs and back, putting him where he needs to go. He has never felt so aware, so familiar with himself, except, perhaps, when making love. And perhaps not then.

It frightens him a little.

There's a savage in him. He's always known it. Sometimes he's used it. More than once, it's helped him survive, even when, especially when, he wasn't sure he wanted to. Mostly, he does his best to keep it in check.

With the realization, he slips a bit, misses a beat, misses a step. The woman catches his mistake, his hesitation. Of course she does. She closes with him, thrusting the targe on her arm at his face. He wants to flinch away, but if he does, he'll open himself to a killing blow and he will have lost.

So he lets the savage take over. He takes her targe on his forehead, the spike of it barely missing his eye. They're too close now for blades, close as lovers. But he has the weight of her, and the height. He grabs her sword wrist in one hand, and trips her up with a leg behind her knee. She goes down hard on her back, the wind knocked out of her. And his sword is at her throat, and it's over.

He feels everything, all at once: the breath in his lungs, the sweat dripping into his face. The nicks and cuts she's given him. His face bleeding from the spike of her targe. Nothing serious.

They stare at each other.

He wants her, he realizes. He wants to fall on her here, now. Take her brutally. Bury himself in her, and bury his anger, his pain. And perhaps she expects it. These things do happen, after battle. In this primal place.

But he cannot. No matter how the savage in him rages, he cannot do such a thing. Not and remain himself, the man he has worked so hard to be, for so long.

Besides, it's not this red-haired woman he wishes to punish.

So he relaxes, removes the threat of his sword. Brushes his hair out of his face. Gives her a hand up.

"I believe my mother will see you," she says. "Wait here."

She goes.

He hunts up his scabbard, sits down on a rock. Checks his sword for blood, for damage. There is none. He gives it a wipe anyway, with a rag that he finds in his pocket. Blood from his cut cheek is running into his beard, so he wipes that, too.

"What is it you want of me?" someone asks.

He looks up at a woman very like the woman he has just fought. Older, tougher, leaner. She's made of seasoned leather and sinew, like the clothes she wears. Her red hair is threaded with grey.

This is the one he has come to see. Scáthach, the Shadow. Warrior and teacher of warriors, demi-goddess of the Isle of Skye.

"I want to become more than I am," he says.

"What you want is of no concern to me."

Before he can blink, she waves her hand, and he's back in the magic room of the house in Boulder, his drum falling from his hand. He curses himself. He answered too quickly, with too little thought. The bridge, the battle, her question all threw him off. Caught him off balance, even though he knew he should expect challenges.

He'll have to try again. Not today.

In the morning, he's back on the Spirit Horse, back on Spirit Skye. Again, he crosses the bridge in his own way. He fights another fight, with a different daughter. It goes a little better. He doesn't do anything too asinine, and defeats her. Again, he wrestles the savage in him, and is told to wait.

When Scáthach appears, again she asks,

"What do you want of me?"

"I need the power to defeat my enemies," he says.

"Power is a double-edged sword," she replies, and waves her hand, and throws him out of the Journey a second time.

The third day, after the third crossing and the third battle, Scáthach asks her question the third time.

"I will grip the double-edged sword in both hands, if that will give me mastery," he says.

"Do that, and you'll cut yourself and master no one," she says. But she laughs before she tosses him back like a fish too small to keep.

Well. He needs to reflect more. He had hoped that the third time would work. It's three, or it's seven, or it's nine, or twenty-one, or however many it takes. Though he does wish it won't go on too long. The battles are getting old.

He goes out for a beer, for some air, surprised to find the world has gone on without him. The Americans are still haunted by some outrage earlier in the month, one he hardly noticed in his concern for the outrage at home. There's a new war. There's always a new war. And, as always, there are those for it and those against it. It tires him, but it also makes him think. About himself, about his position. About what he needs and what he wants to accomplish.

Violence isn't always the answer, he knows. Some would say it's never the answer. "Violence begets violence," goes the old saw. It feeds on itself and is never satisfied. When you've had your revenge, wiped out your enemies, what then? It's a letdown, a disappointment, coming off that energy. Like after sex, when things go dark for a time, and you feel as if there really should have been more to it than that. So you keep after it, keep after that transcendent feeling, until you wear yourself out, and then, at least you can sleep.

He's pretty sure Caitlin would tell him violence isn't the answer at all. She has a soft heart. She feels bad about killing slugs in the garden.

And yet, he's worn himself out on Her. Too many times to count. His trouble crashing on Her like a wave on a rock that never breaks. So there's something in having a soft heart.

But Caitlin never had the experience of the world that he had. She turns inward; he turns outward. Everything he is, he shows to the world, even if the world finds it an affront. She has secrets at Her core that no one can penetrate. She protects Herself from the world, and he flies in its face.

So he's learned that there must be violence, sometimes. After all, the slugs in the garden must be killed. They'd take over, else.

Some people think they have no right to judge. To label this one a slug, and this one not. To make the choice between life and death.

He's not one of them.

The fourth time he returns to Scáthach, she seems surprised to see him.

"You're a persistent fellow," she remarks.

"Aye, I am," he says.

"Well?" She lifts a red eyebrow at him, telling him to get on with it.

"There's a need for justice in the world," he says.

"And you think you're the one to dispense it?"

The turn of the conversation startles him; he expected an "Aye" or a "No," and to be tossed out or not, as Scáthach saw fit. On the other hand, he didn't give her a full answer. And he's been thinking about these things.

"If I'm the one to hand, aye, I do."

"Justice will not wait for you to be to hand," she says, and throws him back.

For a long time, he lies on his back, fuming. He always slips; there's always a catch. He's supposed to be smart. He's supposed to be brilliant, in fact. He should be able to see his way.

The fifth time, Scáthach says,

"You are old to begin this training."

"I learn fast."

"Cú Chulainn started as a youth, and he was born with a sword in his hand."

"Cú Chulainn was god-touched."

One corner of her mouth turns up.

"And you are not?"

And he's back in the World-That-Is.

The sixth time, he rails at her.

"I don't know what you need from me!" he shouts. "I don't have the answer you want!"

"Petulance does not become you," she says with a sniff.

He's angry, frustrated, tired, heedless. The insult undoes him. He goes for his sword.

"Would you fight me for it, then?" Scáthach asks. She sounds curious, and a bit amused.

He pauses to consider. If he thought he had a chance, perhaps. But.

"No," he says.

"You don't want it badly enough," she tells him, and banishes him once more.

The seventh time, he speaks from his heart.

"I'm a man, with a man's needs, a man's desires, a man's flaws. I am doing the best I can, in the only way I know how."

He waits.

"Go on," she says.

"I cannot be everywhere. I cannot see everything. I cannot know all there is to know or address every sorrow, every injustice. What I can do, I will do. I cannot do it without the gifts you have to give."

Again, he waits.

"Go on," says Scáthach a second time.

"You can take me or not. You can instruct me or not. You can choose to give what I ask, or not. Nothing I do or say will change that."

"Go on," the warrior goddess tells him a third time.

"No," he replies. "I'm tired. I'm tired of crossing the bridge and battling your endless daughters. I'm tired of the games and the riddles. You'll do what you do. One way or the other, this is the last time. But one way or the other, I _will_ make an end to the Ring of Omicron. If I must, I'll give my life for it. I'd prefer not to," he can't help himself from adding.

"Preferring to live is always good for a warrior," she says. "So is finding the line that will not be crossed. We cannot always have what we prefer, after all."

"Aye."

"You say you'll give your life. Will you give your death?"

The question takes him aback; he's not sure what she means. Truth to tell, he's never thought much about an afterlife. One time through has been enough. More than enough, he sometimes feels.

"Aye," he says. "I will."

" _Fiodh MacDuibh_ ," she says, musing over him in Gaelic. She's never said his name before. He wasn't sure she knew it. As usual, the naming makes him more solid. He knows she's seen him. He wasn't certain, before. All this time, all these Journeys, these confrontations, and he's never been certain he existed for her.

"I'll ask you for two oaths," Scáthach says.

"What are they?" Not even now, not even for a goddess, is he going to swear any oath unheard.

"After your death, whenever it comes, you'll go not to the Summerland. And you'll not take another life for your own. No other house for your soul. You'll come here, to me. To pay me with your skill for what I've given you."

"Do I have the choice?" he asks. He's been under the impression that, if there is an afterlife, it's out of his control.

"Of course." She smiles. It doesn't comfort him. "Your witch could have told you that."

He sees Her, Caitlin. The beauty of Her. If he could choose, he'd choose to be with Her again. His other half, the One who fills him, heart and soul. If he doesn't swear, and he dies, which he will, perhaps he could merge with Her. Be with Her always, complete.

But perhaps She wouldn't let him in, even then. And that would be too much. It would be the end of everything. Of everything that he sees, now, he has always believed has no end. It's late for him to come to that. If he'd understood before, his life might have been different.

Or it might not.

So again, he must choose. Let his soul, what there is of it, continue here at some future time. Or risk its absolute death, very soon.

He doesn't fear the risk. But he's been taught that destroying souls for any reason is a bad thing. Redeeming souls is why he's here. He's said he'd pay any price. And he doesn't lie.

"I'll swear," he says. "What's the other?"

"You must go back to her. If I have your death, she must have your life. All of it, without holding back."

He blinks. It's all he can do.

"I'm not sure She'll have me," he blurts out. "Gladly, if She will."

Scáthach turns compassionate eyes on him, a soft expression on her hard face.

"You'll have cause not to be glad of it," she says, and he remembers that she's supposed to be Druid-gifted, with insight, and foresight, and all the rest. "Still, you must do it."

He can't imagine being anything but glad of going back to Her.

"I swear."

The goddess nods. "Then give me your hand. You'll need your body where you're going."

He reaches out. Her hand grasps his, callus meeting callus. She pulls; he feels the wrench of passing altogether out of the World-That-Is and into somewhere else. Somewhere solid, where he is also solid, and his skill at Journeying will not help. But he has other skills, and more to gain.

A windswept moor, and standing stone. Far away, on a green hill, the house with the seven doors. The House of Battle. Scáthach's house.

His house, for the time.

He kneels and gives his oath.

### Battle Blessed

## Somewhere, Sometime

He wakes, lying spread-eagled on his back, on the floor of a room. What room, he does not know.

The smell is familiar, yet strange. Not the peat smoke and moist air to which he has become accustomed. Something sharper, dryer. Something from another life.

Cedar and sage. Sweetgrass. Old and faint. They burned a long time ago.

His fingers explore the ground at his sides. A rug of some sort. Braided. Not packed earth. Not stone.

He's in the room, the room set aside for magic and Journeys. The room above the shop. In Her house, Caitlin's house. In Boulder. In the World-That-Is.

He rolls onto his side, feeling as if he's about to be violently ill. But he isn't, and soon he sits, shoving his drum out of the way. The drum he hasn't handled in...

He has no idea how long.

A long time, in Scáthach's place, in the Otherworld, where she took him in his body. Years. It had to be years, for him to learn what he needed to learn. It cannot have been so long, in the World-That-Is. She promised him that. She promised him a chance to remedy things. To do what needed to be done.

It cannot have been years.

He's cold.

He's wearing the same clothes as when he left: jeans, boots, t-shirt. He remembers other clothes. Leather armor. Coarse-woven cloth. Once, ring mail. It was heavy.

The sword, where's the sword?

There, beside the place he lay, near at hand. His fingers close on it, and he sighs.

It's not necessary that he have this particular sword. His skills are learned, part of his body now, part of his flesh. Any sword would serve.

Still, he's glad he hasn't lost this one somewhere between the worlds. It's his.

Part of his body, part of his flesh.

"I'll give you a parting gift," Scáthach tells him.

"Aye? What's that?" he asks.

They are sitting outside the house with seven doors, on a carved stone bench, watching the sunset. His last sunset there, it would be.

"What you asked for."

He cocks an eyebrow at her. "You've given me that already."

She laughs. Her laugh is rare, but always deep and true. She laughed a great deal at him, at first. Less, of late, than she used to.

"How soon they forget."

He waits. He's learned more patience than he had.

"You told me you'd prefer to survive."

"Aye," he says.

"To keep one of your oaths, you need to survive," she points out. "So I will make it possible. Likely, in fact. Unless you are very careless and very stupid."

"I try to be neither," he reminds her.

She looks delighted. As delighted as she can look, at least. He might have handed her a present. A child's present. A pebble, a feather. A pretty shell found on the beach.

"So you do, _Fiodh_ ," she says. "And mostly, you succeed."

She values success, does Scáthach. One of the daughters, Uacthach, or perhaps it was Aoife—he can never keep them straight—told him one night that Scáthach would never have taken him at all, had she not thought he would succeed.

"So what is this gift?" he asks.

"The Battle Blessing."

"Aye? And what might that be?"

Now, sitting on the floor of Caitlin's house, the smell of old incense in his nose and the sword in his hand, he remembers. Resistance to harm, both physical and magical. A kind of armor. He's not invulnerable. He can be damaged. But it will be difficult for anyone to do it.

Or so Scáthach said.

Perhaps he shouldn't doubt the word of a goddess, particularly the goddess of his own place of birth. Still, he's never been one to take a great deal on faith. He likes to experience truth for himself.

He still has his pocket knife on him, he finds. He flips it open, glances down at his left arm. He carries a scar, there, a recent one; he was wounded at one point, in some battle or other. Not badly. "Enough to make you pay attention," one of the daughters had teased, one night.

Perhaps he's about to scar himself again.

This could be a very stupid thing to be contemplating.

But he needs to know. He wouldn't like to go hunting the Ring of Omicron, thinking he's protected when in truth he is not. "Plan according to fact," Scáthach told him. "Never take anything for granted."

As if he would.

This could very well be another one of her tests.

Before he can think about it too much more, he cuts himself across the forearm with the pocket knife. Or, he tries to. The knife doesn't penetrate; it just slides across his skin. He always keeps his knives sharp; a dull knife is no good to anyone. But he can't remember sharpening this one, or even handling it, recently. So it might have dulled. He shaves some hair off his arm to test the edge. The hair falls away, leaving a bare spot just above his wrist. Aye, it's sharp enough.

So he tries again, putting more force behind it. His skin parts, and closes. He doesn't bleed.

He considers making another test. But what's he going to do, fall on his sword? That would, perhaps, be pushing things a bit far. No, it's true. Scáthach has made him resistant to physical harm.

And magical harm, too. He has no way of testing that one, not yet, anyway. But he believes if the first is a fact, the second must be also. A logical fallacy, perhaps. But he can only question the word of a goddess so far.

"When you must trust, trust wholly. You'll find out if you're wrong soon enough."

Some time ago, he has no idea how long in the World-That-Is, he was thinking about the choice between life and death. Thinking that you have to keep choosing life every day.

That's not true for him anymore. His choice has been ripped away.

He starts to laugh; he can't help it. He falls backward to the floor, tears streaming from his eyes, and laughs and laughs and laughs until he cannot breathe.

He goes downstairs.

The house is silent, dusty, dim. The undisturbed displays in the shop stand like monoliths, memories of a previous age. He remembers voices. The rattle of runestones in a cup, the slap of cards. Her laugh. Her singing. Sunlight streaming in. But when She left, Caitlin drew the curtains on the windows and on the past; he's never had cause to open them. When he's come and gone, he's used the back door.

He can't tell, from the amount of dust, how long he's been away. More than a week, perhaps. Less than a year. He hopes it's been less than a year. He thinks of the Ring of Omicron going about their filthy business unchecked, of Caitlin alone in Gordarosa. Or perhaps not alone. Perhaps making a new life, one without him.

He can't tell which thought troubles him more. It's been so long, for him. Almost, the Ring of Omicron seems like a dream. Almost, Caitlin seems like a dream.

A dream of being whole.

He closes his eyes against a sudden surge of grief. It tells him She, at least, was no dream. All the time in Scáthach's house, all the dalliance with Scáthach's daughters, hasn't wiped Her from his heart. He wants desperately to pick up the phone and call Her, although he remembers Her telling him not to. He wants to fire up the truck and drive across the mountains, and not stop until he comes to the place where She is.

Later, he will. He swore an oath he would. Even without the oath, he'd still do it.

But he left for a purpose, and he came back for a purpose. That comes first. It has to.

He has to get oriented. He has to plan.

"The first thing is to know your ground."

He wanders into the kitchen, notices the light on the answering machine flashing. After a moment's consideration, he presses the "playback" button. A dozen messages, all from Spruce, wondering where he is, wondering if he's all right. After so long surrounded by Gaelic, her American speech is doubly strange. Her voice gets more and more shrill, until, at the end of the tape, she's all but shrieking. Worried and angry. She probably thinks he's fallen into his old ways. That he's holed up somewhere, nothing but him and the white horse. And he has to admit, if anything could have driven him back to it after being clean so long, Caitlin's going would have done it. It eases his mind, somewhat, to realize it didn't happen.

He debates calling Spruce back, determines not to. Nothing in any of her messages gives him any idea when he is. And she's better off, at this point, not knowing him. That way, his attending to the Ring of Omicron won't rub off on her.

In the backyard, the air has a bite. The great old maple by the stoop has lost half its leaves; the rest linger halfway between yellow and brown. Late autumn, he decides. It reassures him. Caitlin left him soon after Mabon, the autumn equinox. Scáthach took him a week after that. So perhaps he's not been gone more than a month. He lays a hand on the maple, but it doesn't tell him much. Its thoughts are slow, sleepy. Cold coming, and dark. Time to pull back, time to rest. That's all it knows. It cares nothing for the ways men mark time.

So, he'll have to go out. He'd have to anyway, to get supplies, to collect information. He'll have to do it sooner, is all.

Back upstairs, he checks himself out in the bathroom mirror. In the usual way of things, he's not one to spend much time gazing at his own reflection. Enough to trim his beard when it needs trimming. To make sure his clothes suit him, sometimes. He knows he's good to look at; he doesn't need constant reassurance on that score. But he thinks he'd better make sure his experience hasn't changed him too much, made him unrecognizable.

It hasn't. His face is a bit thinner, his expression a bit more intense. Not something a person would notice, who didn't know him well. He's a scar on his temple he didn't have before, and a new ridge of tissue on the bridge of his nose from breaking it yet again. "Such a fine nose, too," one of the daughters had lamented. "Stop sticking it where it doesn't belong."

His hair has grown past his shoulders; he'll have to get a trim. A good thing the Battle Blessing only seems to keep things from penetrating his skin. If it affected his hair and beard, he'd end by looking like an Old Testament prophet.

He keeps himself from laughing anymore. To distract himself, he rummages in the vanity drawer for an elastic and ties his hair back.

His eyes frighten him. He can see the savage in them, just beneath the surface. Likely no one else will notice that, either.

He's still cold. An extended Journey can do that, and he expects that an extended stay in the Otherworld can do the same. Remembering the bite in the air, he finds a coat, a long, blue thing he picked up at the Surplus store last year, with lieutenant's stripes still on the arms. It's tighter in the shoulders than it was; he's put on muscle. But it will serve.

Out he goes, into the golden light of late afternoon, leaves crunching under his boots. He heads down to the Mall. After the spaces of the Otherworld, the buildings weigh on him. The people look wrong, small and soft, their clothing too well-made. He has to work at understanding the language; English has become a foreign tongue.

He's walking down the block between Broadway and Thirteenth Street, thinking he should probably acquire some money somehow and find some food somewhere, when someone hails him.

"Yo, MacDuff! That you? When did you get back into town?"

He glances around to see a bald, black man in a camo jacket and a Detroit Tigers ball cap waving at him from his seat on the ground outside Peppercorn's. Smaller than he is, but not by much. One of his sources, the man has been. He goes over to him.

"Eddie," he says.

"Where you been?" Eddie asks him.

"Away."

Eddie snorts. "Away, he says. Yeah, I knew that." He looks him over. "Cop a squat, MacDuff. You look like a man with trouble in mind."

So much for no one noticing he's changed. He sits down beside the smaller man, draws his knees up, leans against the shop wall.

Eddie pulls a scarf-wrapped bundle out of his inside pocket and begins to unwrap it.

"I dinna have any cash on me," he says, knowing what's coming.

"You can pay me later. You need this," the black man insists. He spreads out the scarf, a piece of dirty magenta fabric that might be silk or might not. On top of it, he places a deck of cards. He's known as Three Card Eddie, or Eddie the Reader. The game is a three-card Tarot spread for five bucks, anywhere, anytime. At one time, he might have thought it a scam. But Caitlin respected Eddie. And Eddie always seems to know things he shouldn't know. He says a bullet grazed his skull in Afghanistan, gave him special powers. It might be true.

"Shuffle," Eddie tells him.

He picks up the cards. It's one of the smaller decks, Caitlin would know which. The feel of them brings back a memory of being lost, a stranger in a strange town with a task he did not want to do. Caitlin had read for him. He'd still been fighting Her, then, fighting what he felt for Her. That reading changed everything.

"Eddie," he says, cutting the deck in half. "May I ask ye a strange question?"

"Answers are my game, man."

"What day is it?"

The reader glances at him sidelong. "It's Tuesday."

"No, I mean the date."

"October twenty-third."

He waits.

"Two Thousand and One. About five o'clock in the afternoon," Eddie says, and adds, "Shit, man, what you on?"

"Nothing." He starts to shuffle. "I've just been...away."

Away. Absent. Gone. But only for a month. He breathes a little easier.

"Huh. Far away, I guess."

He doesn't reply. The reader watches him for a while.

"You see your lady when she was here?"

His breath catches; his hands pause on the cards. She's been back while he was gone. Perhaps She's been at the house, picking up Her things. He hadn't thought to check. And he'd known nothing of it. He feels that even in the Otherworld, he should have known. Should have sensed Her presence, across worlds, across time.

"No," he says.

"What up with that?" Eddie asks, indignant; something in this unstable world has come loose, something that should have been solid, and he resents it. "You two were like burgers and fries. Then she's gone someplace out west, and you're gone, somewhere, and you don't even know she come back?" He pauses for a minute, then continues, a little softer. "I seen her walking down the Mall. About two weeks ago."

"Aye?" He tries to keep the longing out of his voice. "How did She look?"

"You still got it bad for her, don't you," the reader remarks. "She looked all right. For someone with mojo pretending she ain't got none. Why she doing that?"

He wishes he knew. He wedges the cards together, sets them down on the dirty scarf and cuts the deck in three.

"Deal," he says.

Eddie slaps the cards into a pile and starts his spiel.

"Three cards. Past, present and future." Callused brown hands turn the first. It shows a tower being struck by lightning. People falling. Flames at the windows.

Against his will, his lip twitches. Aye, that would be about right.

"A bolt from the blue done messed up your life in a big way," the reader declares. He turns the second card. An armored man on a horse, sword raised.

The horse is white, and it makes him shudder. He wishes it weren't white.

"So now you're fighting mad and rushing off to kick ass and take names," Eddie says.

"Tell me something I dinna ken," he sighs.

"In a minute." The reader hesitates over the cards he's laid out, taps the first with his finger.

In his mind, he sees Caitlin do the same thing.

"Just 'cause the lid got blowed off your world, that ain't no reason to get dumb," Eddie says. "This guy on the horse, he's all set to save the world. But he can rush off half-cocked, with no back-up, no plan. And so will you, if you let this," he taps the Tower again, "boss you around. You're falling, your lady's falling too, I guess. You got to catch yourself before you can catch her. You got to find a firm place to make a stand."

"Shattered ground is no starting place," Scáthach whispers in his mind.

"You got banged up some while you was gone," Eddie observes, with a pointed glance at his oft-broken nose, at the new scar on his temple.

"Aye."

"Was it worth it?"

He shrugs. "I dinna ken. Not yet."

He wants the reader to turn the last card, so he can be finished with this and on his way. But the man just stares at him for what seems a long time, finally shaking his head and clicking his tongue.

"I know what you up against, MacDuff," he says quietly.

He lifts an eyebrow. "Do ye, then?"

"It don't take much. You and your lady start nosing around those thugs over on Walnut Street. Then she hightails it west and starts pretending she ain't got nothing extra. And you show up with 'search and destroy mission' written in your eyes. No, it don't take much."

He's impressed. Eddie's come very close. It's been there all along, in the back of his mind: the connection. The idea that Caitlin's leaving was due, in some way he doesn't understand, to the Ring. And because of that, his motives might not be strictly pure. He doesn't like it, doesn't like to think it of himself. It's still true.

"Those guys play for keeps, MacDuff," Eddie tells him, as if he didn't know. "You don't take care, you're gonna get yourself killed."

"I dinna think that will happen," he says. "Get on with it, aye?"

The reader turns the last card of the three. An angel with a trumpet, summoning the dead from their graves.

"Cheery," he says.

"No, that's good," Eddie replies. "Means if you live through this, you start a new path in life. Get a second chance."

He doesn't want to ask, especially not Eddie. Eddie talks too much, to everyone. But Eddie's reading the cards for him, and readers have rules. And he can't help himself.

"With Caitlin?"

"With everything. But you got to live through it first." Eddie sighs. "Man, I hope wherever you went, you brought back reinforcements."

"Of a sort," he says, thinking of Scáthach's gift.

Eddie gathers up the cards.

"There's a warehouse on Fifty-Fifth and Valmont. I'd check it out, if I were you."

He nods, gets to his feet. Eddie gets up, too. They clasp wrists, clasp hands.

"Thanks," he says.

"Stay cool, MacDuff," Eddie tells him. "Stay cool."

He thinks about those words over the next few days. About staying cool. It does not come naturally to him; he is not a cool man. His passions burn all the hotter for being difficult to rouse. In the past, this has gotten him into trouble.

"A fire contained is a tool," Scáthach has told him, more than once. "Unchecked, it will consume those who set it."

For the most part, he manages to bank his rage, telling himself he'll have time enough, soon, to let it go. It still smolders deep at his core, fueling him as he walks the streets, visiting this one and that one. Picking up news of the Ring's activity in bits and pieces. No one wants to speak of the organization too much or too directly. It's always, someone saw someone who heard perhaps. Never anything firm, anything that could be traced back to its source. Still, the pieces start to form a picture.

His fury becomes much harder to contain. He thinks of the broken children, and of the men—and women; he must not forget there are also women—who make money off their misery. He's seen too many broken children, and too many of the type who profit off them. Never any who broke children on purpose. With all his experience of the world, he had never imagined such a thing. He wishes he still could not.

And he thinks of Her. Of Caitlin. Of how something about this whole sordid business drove Her away from a life She'd lived for near on a decade. Away from the home She'd made. Away from him.

Away from Herself.

What could have had the power to do that? Even Her family, of whom he's heard just enough to hate them unconditionally, did not have the power to do that.

Perhaps, after he defeats the Ring, She will come back to Herself.

He cannot allow himself to think about it. He swore if he lived he'd dedicate his life to Her, without holding back. No matter what Her choices. In that oath, there is no room for "perhaps."

And it's a distraction. He must keep a clear head, to attend to the Ring. He must not think of what happens after. If there is an after.

"Face your enemy in the present, not in the past, and especially not in the future."

He checks out the warehouse, as Eddie suggested. It's not hard to establish that the same man owns it as owns the Walnut Street import shop, a Christopher Fisher. A clerk at County Records shows him the title for a smile. Fisher, it seems, sees no need to cover his tracks. In the eyes of the Mundane world, Fisher isn't doing anything illegal. The same clerk shows him another title, to a rental property on the Hill. That one could be innocent, but perhaps not. Worth sniffing around, in any case.

He parks in an alley between Broadway and Thirteenth, behind the CU bookstore, grabs a coffee at the Espresso Roma on the corner, and takes a walk up to Pleasant Street. The irony of the location doesn't pass him by: a pleasant street housing an unpleasant business. He wonders if Fisher thought of that. Another reason to kill him, if so.

For a big man with a striking face, he can be inconspicuous when he needs to be. Not like Her, never invisible. But unremarkable. He can blend in, one of those predators who resemble their prey. Up here, he looks like a college student. Well, he's a little old for a college student. He settles for a TA, perhaps a youngish professor. His own graduate studies haven't ended long enough ago, in this-world time, for him altogether to have lost the way of it. He'd never get away with it downtown, but up here it's different.

He puts it on like protective coloring. The shoulder held a touch low, as if from the perpetual weight of a backpack or briefcase. The somewhat hurried walk. The slightly distracted air, the aura of not being quite present in the material world.

It's uncomfortable. It was always uncomfortable.

He strolls by the house, sipping his coffee, thinking of the thesis his adopted character is taking a break from writing in some dim apartment somewhere not far off. He decides it's Sociology. One eye slides toward the property he's casing. A middle-aged woman is deadheading roses, likely for the last time before a hard frost sets in. He sees nothing unusual about her, but he wouldn't. He doesn't have Caitlin's Sight.

He wishes She were here.

A car pulls up in the drive, an older sedan. A middle-aged man gets out, the woman's husband, perhaps. Not that it matters. The man goes to the passenger side, opens the door. Helps out a boy of about twelve. A lost boy, he knows at once; though he's too far away to see the face, he can read it in the slack muscles, the lack of response, the way the man must lead the child by the arm, up to the door.

Not innocent.

How can nobody notice?

For a moment, he almost loses control. He catches himself tightening his hand on the paper cup of coffee and forces his fingers to relax. More than anything, he wants to storm across the street and confront the man. He wants to stab the woman with her own pruning shears.

He can't do anything. He makes himself walk by, up to Tenth Street and around the block, back down to College, back to the truck. Stomach churning, heart pounding, jaw clenched.

His fists slam down on the truck hood. Gods, he wants to kill something.

Soon, he prays. Let it be soon.

Knowing it's a bad idea right now, he drives out to the warehouse address. It's unremarkable, brick and glass like most of the other buildings in the area. It shares a parking lot with a bike shop and a dance studio. He pulls in and parks, not too close, one vehicle among other vehicles. For an hour, he watches. Once, a delivery van comes and goes. Nothing else. He has no excuse to wander over for a closer look, no excuse even to get out of the truck. Not that he needs to. He's mentioned the place to some people, since Eddie put him onto it. The rumor in the magical community is that the warehouse is a bad place where bad things happen. No one knows what.

He doesn't know, but he can make an educated guess.

Tuesday rolls around again, and he's been back in the World-That-Is a week, and he still has no plan. No way to proceed. If he has to, he'll hunt down every one of the Ring of Omicron individually. It's not his first choice. Too uncertain, too hard to keep quiet. But he can't come up with another option. He feels the press of time. Only a week, he tells himself; some of Scáthach's battle plans were months in the making. Patience, he tells himself.

He doesn't have that much patience. He wants it over, finished. He wants no more broken children in this town. And he wants, so badly, to go Home. Home to Her.

He's sitting in the back of a coffee shop on the Mall, brooding, when a lad he doesn't know comes up to him. Not a street kid, he sees in a glance. Boulder doesn't have many real street kids. Though the lad has put on some of the mannerisms, he doesn't have the right brittle gloss. And he's too clean. He has a couple of piercings, one in his eyebrow, one in his lip. They've healed too well. He had money to spend for a pro to do it.

"You MacDuff?" the lad says.

"Aye." He doesn't believe he has anything to fear from this one. Skinny, late teens. A skate punk, perhaps. He doesn't smell suspicious. No furtive air of being a front for something bigger. Likely he'd be unable to hide it, if he were.

The lad sits down without being invited, crosses thin, flannel-clad arms on the table. Leans close.

"Word is you have it in for those Walnut Street thugs," he whispers.

"Aye?" He lifts an eyebrow. He supposes it's true. He hasn't done a proper job of hiding what he's about. In fact, he's not done any job of it at all. Careless, but what could he have done? A man his size with an interest in the comings and goings of certain people isn't invisible. And word gets around. No stopping it.

Scáthach would have flayed him for it, but Scáthach's not here.

The lad leans closer, drops his voice even more.

"Word is you'd like to find them all in one place."

"Aye?" he says again. He doesn't think he's been so specific, but he has no reason to deny it.

"Tomorrow night. At the warehouse. It's their annual meeting."

"Strange place for an annual meeting," he remarks.

"There's a conference room upstairs."

"And ye ken this how?"

"My brother's girlfriend works at the Walnut Street place, as a salesclerk. She overheard the bookkeeper talking."

One of the Mundane employees, she would be. He and Caitlin counted three. Possibly four. He considers it, decides it's not impossible. If the Ring has heard of him, which he must assume they have, and if they're after him, which could be the case, their style is a knife or a bullet in the dark. Not a complicated setup. And not in their own place.

Still.

"Why d'ye care?" he asks outright.

"My girlfriend disappeared," the lad says, equally blunt. "You saw her in August. You tried to heal her. You couldn't. She's dead, now."

"Ah." He leans back, stares at the lad for a long moment. It's the exact thing someone might say, to be sure of his reaction. And, remembering that girl, he does react. She began this whole nightmare; he couldn't do otherwise. But he keeps his reaction inside. He knows better than to show it.

He can't see a lie on the lad's face, though. It would be a difficult thing to lie about, too.

"No one's done anything!" the lad declares bitterly, and that sounds like the truth, as well.

He chooses his next words with care.

"Your...common sort of person would have no idea what to do." He needs the lad's credentials, now. How did this one make the connection when so many others didn't? He lifts the eyebrow again, asking. And waits.

"I don't run in common circles all the time," says the lad. "Less, since the thing with Julie went down."

He waits some more.

"I hear stuff."

And waits some more.

"I poked around, okay?" The lad, he's glad to see, is angry with him, now. Angry at being questioned, angry at not being believed. That kind of anger is hard to fake. "I asked questions. When Dave, my brother, started dating Lucy, I asked more. I found out things I didn't want to know."

He doesn't think the lad notices that he's named names. His story could be checked, now.

"Eddie knows me," the lad claims. "You can ask him."

"Perhaps I will." He gets up. "Ye've done something dangerous stupid, lad. Most people would take better care of their own skins."

"I loved Julie."

"Aye." The lad seems young for it, but it's been known to happen. He has no cause to judge, just because he came late to love himself. "I suppose ye did. In the future, though, dinna ask questions when ye canna be sure ye'll like the answers."

"Like you?" It's a challenge.

"No," he admits. "But ye dinna want to be like me."

~~~

He visits Eddie. The lad's story checks out.

So, now he has a time and a place. It doesn't leave him much room to plan, but simple is best. Get in, deal with what he finds, get out if possible.

Late at night, he goes up to the warehouse to view the ground.

The full moon is close, and that's bad. So is the proximity to the dance studio and the bike shop. "Tomorrow night" could be any time after sunset, and the sun sets early these days. The Mundane businesses could still have customers.

He scouts around back, finding a few parking spaces, a loading dock and an employee entrance. That's better. Almost no cover, though. A couple big cottonwoods and a few new plantings. It doesn't present too much problem, not for him. He finds a juvenile red maple with a view of the back door and wakes it up. It's cranky, but also a little excited, like any young thing given permission to ignore bedtime. It will remember him, and give him what protection it can.

The floods over the employee lot will have to go. He spots a couple security cameras; those will have to go, too. He'll need to cut the power once everyone's inside. No, that won't work; it'll disable him, as well. Shite. Very well, he'll cut the camera cables and forget the floods. He traces both camera leads back to a single box on the building's south wall, the wall closest to his vantage point. It looks well out of camera range, too. Poor planning on the Ring's part, but it makes things easier for him. Once he cuts the cables, any security goons monitoring from inside will come to him. That will even the odds.

But if there are any cameras in the building itself, he can't get to them. And if security is handled off site, he'll have about five minutes. No more than ten.

Shite. He's not cut out for this. He's done his share of breaking and entering, but never with killing at the end of it. Perhaps he's popped a person or two, when he couldn't help it. When he was threatened. In the heat of the moment. When he didn't care. Aye, all right, he served in Scáthach's wars, but that was another place, another time. Not the World-That-Is. For fuck's sake, he's a healer, not an assassin.

"And are you so squeamish about healing?" Scáthach had asked him. "How can you heal if you're unwilling to wield the knife?"

She had a pithy aphorism for everything, did Scáthach. He's sick of hearing them in his mind.

In time, he decides he's seen all there is to see and made all the plan he can make. This is the best chance he's going to get, and minimizing the risks is out of his control. He's tired. He wants an end. If he ends up on the wrong side of the law, it's no place he's not been before. And perhaps they'll let him plead insanity. Gods know, it could be the truth.

He goes back to the house to grab a few hours of sleep.

He lies for a long time, staring into the dark.

When he wakes Wednesday, the Thirty-First of October, his first thought is, it's Her birthday.

A year ago, he was doing finish carpentry on a house project in the Canyon. She showed up at the job site in Zee's cab, wearing nothing but a few scraps of black lace that turned Her skin to ivory and Her hair to flame. She kidnapped him to a hotel. He asked Her, if it's your birthday, why am I getting the present? She said, You only turn thirty once, and he said Aye, and I got the same present when I turned thirty, though not in a hotel. I'm an old woman now, She said.

They ordered room service, but when it came they were too busy to answer the door.

He wonders how She's spending this birthday. What She's doing now. He wonders if She honestly believes Herself old. At the time, he thought it a joke. Now, he's not so sure. She feels things one would not expect, and She knows how to keep Her feelings to Herself. How to turn questions aside. The eternal mystery of Her.

She will never be old to him, though. Forever the same, forever beautiful. She doesn't believe that either, of course. It seems a crime to him, how women, all those lovely women, always find reasons to fault themselves. And for Her, it's more than a crime; it's a sin. He's never known such a radiant soul, and Her body has no peer in his eyes. Her hair, Her skin, so soft. The sweet curve of Her hip, of Her breast. The light in Her face.

He needs to stop thinking of Her. If he keeps thinking of Her, he will never leave this bed. And he has work to do. A glance at the clock tells him he's slept very late; it's gone noon. He has about five hours to kill.

He spends the first of them meditating while sharpening his sword and a couple knives, one for his boot and one for a forearm rig. He doubts he'll need the knives unless things go very badly, but it's best to have a fallback position.

Scáthach tries to interrupt his meditation with something apt. He hushes her.

Later, he goes down to the Mall to be seen. Since he's been back, he's been on the Mall every day; it wouldn't be good to break his routine at this point. In case anyone's watching him. He hasn't spotted a tail. It's possible the Ring is too complacent and does not consider him a threat. Their mistake. They can have no idea of what he's capable. Of his rage.

At five in the evening, as the sun sets, he drives up to the battleground. He leaves the truck at the Valmont Dog Park and walks the rest of the way, sword in hand, not caring at this point whether anyone notices him. It's Samhain, All Hallows, after all. If there is a witness, likely they'll think the sword is part of a costume.

The thought makes him smile. He does not have to see himself to know it's not a nice smile.

He remembers how Caitlin has told him that he's a bad man. She was teasing, of course. But She was more right than She knew. Than he has ever let Her know.

The juvenile maple receives him with glee; it doesn't get many sentient visitors. Only the odd raven, and ravens don't tend to gossip. Knowing he's as safe as he can be with the tree's aura surrounding him, he indulges it for a while, always with one eye on the warehouse parking lot. In time, the maple gets bored, gets tired. He lets it sleep. The evening grows very quiet.

The moon rises, one day from full, bathing the landscape in silver. He falls into a predator's trance, aware of everything, involved in nothing. There is only the night, the darkness without and the darkness within merging into one thing. He is the goal and the goal is him. Nothing is separate. Nothing exists outside everything.

In a time that means nothing to him, a van pulls into the lot. Two large people get out; he identifies them with a piece of his mind that surfaces for the purpose. Men, likely the security goons, come to set up. They'll be armed, both with magic and with hardware.

The goons unlock the building and go in. He waits. More time passes.

A sedan arrives, followed by a compact. They disgorge four suits, two of them women. That's six, half the members of the Ring he and Caitlin have been able to spot. They gather around one of the cars to chat, perhaps exchanging the small news of the day. One of them is carrying a travel mug.

Why do they have to look so normal?

He has only the word of the lad from the coffee shop that this is the Ring at all. That, and the location. He's never laid eyes on any of the principals close up, only the trawlers who hunt the Mall, and without Caitlin he couldn't be sure of them. He knows Christopher Fisher's name, but not his face.

What if this is some innocent meeting?

For a minute, he considers calling the whole thing off.

Then the gods, for reasons of their own, decide to smile on him. Two more cars pull up and a suit gets out of each. He recognizes one of them; he's marked the man talking to the bookkeeper from the Walnut Street shop, and speaking with a couple of the Mall Trawlers, too. What's more, Caitlin had identified him as a mage before She left.

Good enough. That's eight. There should be four more.

He waits, but no more cars arrive. His trance slips; he begins to feel the press of time. Agitation creeps up on him like a slow infection, making his heart jitter and his face break out in a sweat. If he hesitates too long, this chance will be lost.

It has to be now. He'll deal with the other four in another way, if he can.

Picking up his sword, he makes his way to the box with the camera leads, silent as the shadow the moon casts behind him. He cuts the leads with the knife from his boot. If the security goons are monitoring inside, they'll know now there's some problem. One, perhaps both, will be coming to check.

And any off-site security will be on its way as soon as they can determine the issue's at the warehouse, not with their reception.

Awareness of time is a bell tolling through his head.

He edges around the corner of the building, goes to the entrance. Draws his sword and drops the sheath on the stoop. Checks the door. They've left it unlocked. Good.

He slips inside.

The room is some kind of storage area, the kind of place one might expect to find in a warehouse. Large, relatively open, with ranks of box-covered metal shelves. It's dim, almost dark, lit only by a slash of gold coming from an open door at the far side. He starts across, and has covered half the distance when a big shape appears in the door, backlit, faceless. One of the goons, on schedule. And he's standing in that gold slash as if in a spotlight.

For a second, they just stare at each other and he realizes, despite his intent, despite his planning, he's as shocked to see the goon as the goon is to see him. He's reached the point where plans become actuality, and nothing ever quite makes one ready for that.

Then the goon is reaching into his jacket in slow motion, and he's moving much faster, almost too fast. The sword comes up and flashes down, through the notch of the goon's neck, halfway to the opposite armpit. Good, he thinks, missed the collarbone; that can be trouble. The goon sags, clearing the blade with his own weight, and he rips it free the rest of the way, ignoring the sudden hot jet of blood that comes in its wake.

One. He steps over the body and into the hall, leaving bloody footprints in his wake.

The hall stretches out in two directions. He could tell from the angle of the first goon's approach that he came from the right, so that's the way he goes. Some doors up ahead, closed. Industrial-style office doors with panes of glass set into the tops. Only one shows light, and he guesses that's the security station. On the way to it, he checks the doors he passes and finds them locked. That's fortunate, no distractions from that quarter. Perhaps the gods are still smiling on him.

He halts just short of the lighted door, peers through the window sidelong. Aye, it's security, as he thought. Eight flickering monitors on the far wall, set so you have to be sitting with your back to the door to watch them. Again, careless. Bad placement, bad planning. It tells him the Ring never expected something as bald as his attack.

The remaining goon is watching the monitors. He has his jacket off. It's slung over the back of his chair, and the slump of his shoulders marks him as bored. Not for long.

He cracks the door open, almost wishing it would make a sound. It doesn't, and he slides past it, closing it silently behind him. Three steps bring him up behind the goon in the chair. The goon senses him, catches a flicker of his reflection in one of the monitors, perhaps, for he swivels his chair around.

"So what was it?" the goon is saying. "Animal, right?"

"No," he replies, and the goon dies with a sword in his throat.

Two, and neither of them had time to react.

He pauses to wipe his sword on the dead goon and glances at the monitor bank. Two show static; those would be the cameras whose cables he cut. Two more show images of the front parking lot and the front door. The rest are interior. A room with a reception desk. A hallway, not the one he's just come down. A cellar, empty of people but set up with chairs and cots. What he can see of the furniture is equipped with restraints. That, in street parlance, would be where the bad shit goes down. The sight makes his blood boil.

All those areas, he can ignore. Not the last. It's a conference room, a Mundane conference room, and the remaining mages, the ones he spotted outside, are sitting around the table.

He'd half-expected a group of mages of this sort meeting on Samhain to be conducting a ritual. Paying tribute to whatever evil force they worship, if they worship anything but their own profit. Seeing them at a business meeting, even if their business is vile, is somewhat disappointing. But then, perhaps it's a form of paying tribute, at that.

The table could cause problems, get in the way. Then again, it could cause problems for his targets, as well.

He leaves the security station. The lad from the coffee shop said the conference room was on the second floor, so he hunts for a stair. It's back the way he has already come, past the first goon's corpse. He starts up as quietly as he can, taking the steps by twos. He doesn't think he has much time left, if someone on the outside has been alerted.

At the top of the stair, he halts. The second floor is smaller than the first, only a short hallway with doors to either side. On the right, three doors, probably offices. On the left, only one. Much of the left wall is glass, from waist level to a foot below the ceiling. Windows with shades drawn and lights behind them. He can hear the murmur of voices from within. That's where he's going, where his business lies.

A door on the right, close to him, opens and a man comes out, adjusting his belt. Restroom, apparently. He could deal with this one now, save himself trouble later. But the man heads back to the conference room without a glance toward the stairwell, and he cannot bring himself to take the fellow from behind, with no warning at all. So he lets him go, for the moment.

The man goes into the conference room. He gives it a beat, then follows.

He opens the door. Doesn't throw it open, no dramatic gesture. Just opens it, as if he's expected, as if he has every right to be there. Enters the room, and closes the door behind him.

Six faces turn toward him.

"Look in every face," he remembers Scáthach telling him. "See your enemies. See what you're removing from the world."

He tries, but the features don't register. Extraneous details keep getting in the way: a pen in someone's hand, a shade of lipstick. The shape of the table, oval. Its position across the center of the room.

The positions of his targets. A man at either end of the table, one in the prime of middle-age, one verging on old. A man and a woman on either side, two quite close. Then one of them, he doesn't know which, throws a spell at him. He feels it hit him, and break, and dissolve into nothing. Like an egg, like a snowball. Harmless. So that works, then.

He smiles, revealing teeth.

"We are so fucked," says one of the mages, the young man closest to him, the one with brown hair. Perhaps it was he that threw the spell.

"Aye," he answers. "That ye are."

A couple more spells hit, dissolve. He wonders for an instant what they're throwing at him, some kind of compulsion, most likely. An order to back off, stand down, let himself be taken. Compulsion is the Ring's specialty, after all. One of them.

Then one of the mages moves. It's the man on the far side of the table, a fair man about his own age. Under his suit, he has the body of someone who works out. Lifts weights, probably. Does sport, likely football, the American kind. He's quick enough, but ungainly; his muscles fight each other. He slams shut the briefcase that has been resting open on the table in front of him, hurls it, flings himself over the table after it in a flying tackle.

Brave, but suicidal. He brushes the briefcase aside. It pops open again, scattering papers. He steps left in its wake, sword coming over in a double-handed sweep as the fair man plummets into the space where he had been standing. The blade takes the fair man through the spine, severing it with a blow. The body continues to fall; the sword comes free and he lets the follow through return him to his original position.

Three.

Someone—one of the women, he thinks, but can't be sure—screams. Until that moment, they have not actually believed in him. He doesn't blame them, not really. In the twenty-first century, it's much easier to believe in magic than in the power of the sword.

Most of the mages are on their feet, now. Everything speeds up and slows down, both at the same time, the way it happens in battle, and his blood begins to sing. The woman on the near side of the table, a plump, middle-aged woman like someone's grandmother, makes a run for the door, straight at him. It startles him a bit, this panic move. Reason should have told her to stay out of range, but, of course, reason is no longer operating here. He brings the sword up at an angle. Some bizarre instinct makes her try to fend it off with her hand. The hand goes flying across the room; he reverses his strike and the blade comes down across her neck. She crumples at his feet as he jerks the weapon free, stepping over her.

Four.

His feet have brought him close to the older man at the foot of the table. The fellow is simply standing there, shaking like a leaf. He looks as though he might have shit himself in terror and perhaps he has; it wouldn't be the first time someone has. An unsteady hand comes up in a warding gesture; a spell bounces off of him. He thrusts, and the older man falls backward, clutching his throat.

Five.

He's left the door unguarded behind him. As he spins back toward it, the brown-haired man on the near side of the table stumbles out of the place where events have frozen him, seeking escape. He falls to his knees, picks himself back up, tries to run the few steps to freedom.

He's not fast enough. He, Timber—for in this fierce moment, he knows his own name—leaps the corpse of the middle-aged woman and whirls, putting his back to the door once more. The sword flashes, but in his panicked rush for freedom, the brown-haired man does not seem to notice. He impales himself on the blade.

Six.

He hears shrieking, a series of continuous, high-pitched squeals like a whistle blowing, like a rabbit in a trap. The remaining woman, a young blonde no more than twenty-five or –six, is running back and forth on the far side of the table, unable to make up her mind where to go. Right or left, it won't matter in the end. But the noise pierces his brain like a knife; he wants it to stop. He springs for a vacant chair, uses it to launch himself over the table, comes down on the other side. The woman's on his left, still screaming, tears pouring down her face. A straight thrust to the heart puts her out of her misery.

Seven.

And now only one remains, the middle-aged man at the head of the table. The man with authority written on his face. Through everything, this one hasn't moved. He just sits there, hands steepled in front of him, as if he's watching a mildly entertaining program on the television.

"You're MacDuff, aren't you?" he says. Cultured accent. Wealthy. Educated.

He has to remind himself that this man is evil.

"Aye. And I guess ye'd be Fisher."

"And you'd be right." Fisher extends a hand. "I'm pleased to meet you at last."

The man has balls, no doubt of that. He glances at the hand without bothering to hide his loathing for it, for everything it represents.

"I canna say the same."

Fisher shrugs, withdraws his hand. He says, "We could use a man of your talents, you know."

The breath goes out of him. He feels like he's taken a punch to the gut. His gorge rises, just as if he had.

"Ye canna be serious."

It's hard not to be drawn into conversation, hard to remember he can't spare the time. And Fisher may be counting on that. Contriving a distraction, hoping for rescue.

"I'm very serious. The pay's extremely good."

His mouth fills with bile; he's forced to turn his head and spit.

"Nothing in this world or any other can ever, ever persuade me to condone what ye do."

Fisher looks at him for what seems a long time, then sighs. He sounds genuinely disappointed.

"Ah, well. It was worth a try. By the way, this isn't over. You know that, don't you?"

"It's over for you," he says, and takes off Fisher's head. The body slumps forward over the table, neck stump spouting gore.

Eight. And it's done. He comes to himself, standing in the room with the six new corpses he has made, splattered with their blood, and begins to shake. Reaction, he's experienced that before. But never in his life has he felt so sickened with himself. He wants to vomit until there's nothing left in him. He wants to crawl under the table and go to sleep until the horror passes.

He can't do either. His time is up, or it will be soon. He has to leave.

On his way out of the killing ground, he spots the security camera over the door, its red light blinking like an eye. A sweep of his sword brings it down and another destroys it. It won't make any difference, because there's bound to be a tape somewhere of what just passed in the conference room. But he can't do anything about that. And trashing the camera makes him feel better, a little.

Down the stairs, down the hall. Step over the corpse of the first goon, cold now, blood congealing like jelly. Through the storeroom and out the door. Pick up the scabbard he left on the stoop. Sheath the sword. His hands are trembling, and he's dripping blood everywhere; it's in his mouth, in his eyes. He tears his shirt off and uses it to mop away the worst, but it's soaked and doesn't help much.

There's a mat before the door. He takes a moment to wipe his feet, so his boots don't leave tracks, show which direction he's gone.

Then a van comes around the south side of the building, and he doesn't wait to see who it is. He's running across the parking lot, through a vacant field, and down Valmont, back to the dog park where he left the truck. He rips the door open, throws the sword in and himself after. The tires squeal as he heaves the wheel around, and then he's speeding down the highway, putting the Ring, and the slaughter, and his sickness as far behind him as he can.

Back at the house, he pulls the truck into the alley instead of leaving it out front as he usually does. The cab stinks with the blood that's come off him; he's left smears on the wheel, on the seat, on the door. All Hallows or not, he doesn't want any passing stranger to notice that, get ideas, start asking questions. He'll deal with it later, tomorrow; he can't do it now. Despite the full moon, the darkness is too thick. Or perhaps it's the darkness inside his soul.

Inside, he rips off the rest of his clothes, kicks off his boots, leaves them on the kitchen floor. The t-shirt, the jeans, there will be no cleaning them; they'll have to be burned. He can't afford to lose the boots, though. Not yet, not until he can replace them. He hasn't got another pair. He hopes they won't mark him too badly. Most people don't pay attention to boots, won't identify the stains. But his stomach heaves at the idea of forcing his feet back in those things; he doesn't think he can do it. Dump the boots, then. He's got running shoes. They'll work.

He cleans the sword. He tries to clean himself, standing under the shower until the water turns to ice. But though the runoff turns clear, though he scrubs and scrubs until he nearly scrubs through his skin, he still feels dirty. Tainted. Irredeemably stained, like his boots, like his clothes. And there's nothing he can do, to get rid of himself. To erase what he's done.

He keeps seeing them. The faces. At the time, they hadn't registered. Now they're stark snapshots plastered on his eyes. Even the goons, whom he'd hardly remarked. One succeeds another, like movie stills, like cards being shuffled. He remembers every one.

And he always will.

"You'll live with it," Scáthach had said. "Or you won't."

But he must. The Battle Blessing assures he must. He supposes he'll die someday, somehow. His first oath to Scáthach implies as much. But he can't make it happen. He can't throw himself on an enemy sword. He doubts even a bullet would do much more than slow him down.

Right now, this blessing seems more of a curse.

"You'll live with it. Or you won't."

He supposes he'll become accustomed. Perhaps with morning, the faces will fade. Perhaps with the coming of light, the horror of himself, of what he's done, won't cut so deep. But in this moment, he's alone in the dark, and his light is far, far away.

And it comes to him, then: the reason for his second oath. The promise to return to Her. Caitlin is his light, the beacon shining on his dark road. Without Her, he is lost. And perhaps this bitter blessing has been given him for more than a single purpose. Perhaps there's work yet to do.

He sleeps, and wakes, and knows where he is.

He is on his way to Her.

### Without Holding Back

## Boulder, Colorado, November 2001

It takes him a couple weeks to wrap up the loose ends.

The Ring of Omicron, it seems, has vanished. The day after the warehouse slaughter, there are no trawlers to be seen on the Mall. No more appear in the days that follow.

The shop on Walnut Street has been closed. He talks to one of the employees, a college woman; he wonders if she's the one called Lucy. She tells him that when she showed up for work on the first of the month, she found a sign on the door. "Out of Business," the sign said. No other news, no other word. No phone call. No last paycheck.

It's his fault, and he asks her if she needs money. She looks at him as if he's suggested they spend time doing something obscene, and hurries away.

He goes up to the Hill and discovers the house on Pleasant Street vacant, a sign from some real estate agency in the yard. The neighbors have no clue what happened. They simply woke up one morning to find the place deserted.

The Ring has vanished, or gone far underground, where he can't follow.

"This isn't over," Fisher had said.

He keeps an eye on the headlines. There's no account of a mass murder at a warehouse on Valmont. Police are not seeking suspects, calling anyone in for questioning. Just as well, since he believes if they were he would turn himself in, his sword hilt-first over his arm. But the massacre might never have happened at all.

He remembers the van pulling around the side of the building as he fled the scene. Someone came. Someone saw. Someone, like as not, knows him for the one responsible. And for reasons of their own, they have cleaned up the mess he left and are keeping silent.

It makes him very uncomfortable. He waits for the bullet, for the knife in the dark.

Not that those would do much damage.

It takes a few days for the magical community to notice the change. When they do, the relief is palpable, sweeping in like a tide that washes the beach clean. But, although he's spoken with many and everyone knew he was asking for information, no one seems to grasp his real involvement. A few who see him look at him with veiled questions in their eyes. He lets them wonder.

He visits Eddie.

"You all right, MacDuff?" the reader asks.

"I'll do," he says.

"Shop on Walnut's closed," Eddie remarks after a time.

"Aye," he replies. "I saw that."

The reader reaches into his coat for his deck, unwraps it and pulls a card at random. It's the Knight of Swords. He puts it back.

"So, you going after your lady soon?"

"Aye," he says. "I expect I am."

"Think you'll be back?"

He shrugs. "I dinna ken. Someday, perhaps."

"We'll miss you around here," the reader tells him. "Both of you. You're leaving some big shoes to fill."

He glances at his new boots, at his old boots on Eddie's feet. They cleaned up better than he expected. He grins.

"Aye. I expect so."

They clasp wrists, clasp hands.

"Stay cool, MacDuff," Eddie says.

"I'll do my best," he replies, and leaves.

It takes him two days to get up the nerve to make the phone call. She told him not to call again, and he respects Her wishes without question. But he needs to go to Her, and he doesn't wish to start on the wrong foot by showing up unexpected. He supposes he has the right. The house deed is in his name as well as Hers, a fact that never ceases to strike him as some kind of perverse joke. All the same, it would be a mistake.

Finally, on a Saturday morning in the middle of November, he picks up the phone. Gets the machine. Prays this will not be a horrible repeat of the last time. Prays it won't be something worse.

"Caitlin," he says after the beep. "It's me. Timber. I know ye told me not to call again, and I'm sorry. But I miss ye so much. I'd like to see ye. I'll not ask any questions or make any demands. I give ye my word. Please tell me I can come to ye."

He hangs up. The phone rings almost at once; his hand is still on the receiver. It's Her. One word.

"Come."

He's on the road in under an hour, pushing his battered truck up into the mountains, through passes where snow has already fallen. Down the other side. Through Glenwood, with its steaming springs, and past Carbondale. Halfway to Aspen, pedal to the floor, and then a sharp right onto a state highway leading into more mountains, through another pass. In the golden light of afternoon, he descends, following the twists and turns of the road past a toy town of peak-roofed houses, past a reservoir, and into the valley beyond. "Now Entering Cottonwood County," a sign tells him. Coal mines scattering black dust to the highway's verge. Bare orchards, fallow fields, hillsides terraced with vines.

He misses the first entrance to the town, the one that would have taken him straight to the house. It still confuses him that towns should have entrances, like buildings. He picks up the second entrance, past the High School. Crosses the river, crosses the railroad tracks. Slows the truck and rolls through downtown, all three blocks of it. Buildings like something from a movie set standing cheek by jowl, brick and stucco, stone and brightly-painted wood. It's a fine day, and people are out; every space along the wide street boasts a car, a truck, a van. Still, after Boulder, it seems underpopulated, a ghost town.

At the third street, he hangs a left, his heart beating very fast; he's getting close. In under a mile, he recrosses the railroad tracks, follows the road as it curves to the left. Stops the truck before a row of tall poplars, bare except for a few scraps of withered yellow. He gets out, walks under an arbor and through the front gate. At the end of the walk, he pauses, stares up at the house. Her house.

Their house. Although She paid for it with money Her grandmother left Her, She's always insisted it's theirs, even to having his name on the deed. He's known it since the deal went through six months ago, and he's been here before, several times. He's worked on the place. Still, in this moment it hits him as it never has before. He's a property owner. It wreaks havoc with his self-definition.

It's an old place, perhaps a hundred years for the original structure, added to over the intervening years with no discernible plan. Two thousand square feet in all, perhaps a little more. Weathered clapboard siding of no appreciable color rises to an almost-new roof of white metal. A window in a high gable looks out over the covered front porch.

He finds himself thinking that the window is too small and will need to be replaced.

She's there. He could go up to the front door and walk inside.

Instead, he walks around to the north side, where a driveway leads past the house to a carport in back. He could have pulled the truck in there, rather than leave it in the street. But it seemed too much presumption, too soon.

Behind the carport, someone poured a concrete slab once, perhaps intending to build a shed or something like it. Beyond that, a field of tall, dry grass slopes down to a wire fence with a pine wood on its other side. The place sits on five acres, he remembers. It seems like more space than any two people could need.

He heads right, behind the house. An old apple tree dozes at the corner, a black shape in its branches.

_About time you got here, MacDuff,_ McGuyver informs him.

_She didna want me here_ , he tells the cat.

They don't speak in words, not precisely. Impressions, images, emotions convey meaning, passed from one mind to the next, tinted with body language. Cats are an eloquent species, though, and McGuyver is unusually articulate, even for a cat.

McGuyver jumps down from his perch in the tree, winds around his legs.

She doesn't want a great many things that are good for her, these days.

And how is Herself?

The cat sits, winding his tail about his forepaws, and blinks. Once. Twice.

_She is_ not _Herself_.

He sighs and brushes his hair back from his face. He already knew it. But hearing it makes it worse.

Where is She?

_In the kitchen_ , the cat tells him. _Go._

The walk leads between the house and the sleeping garden; he follows it to the back porch, goes in. The kitchen door stands open a crack, doubtless for the cat's convenience. He opens it further, making no sound. He steps over the threshold.

In the moment before She notices, he sees everything.

She's standing at the chopping block, slicing onions; on the stove behind Her, something sizzles in a cast iron kettle. She's wearing jeans and a turquoise top with three-quarter length sleeves, and socks striped in purple and blue. Because Her feet get cold, he knows, and She hates wearing shoes. Her gorgeous hair is loose down Her back.

But She's pale and drawn. Not with a sickness of the body, he recognizes. With one of the soul. She's drawn a curtain over Her light, as She drew them across the windows back in Boulder. Her fire is banked. He can feel the strength of will it takes for Her to keep it so. All that strength turned inward. Bent on hiding Her from Herself.

It breaks his heart all over again.

And the silence. If things were as they should be, She'd be singing. At the very least, She'd have music playing. But there's nothing. Just the chunk of the cleaver on the block, the crunch of the onions, the hiss of whatever's in the pot. Like being stuck in a nightmare from which She cannot wake.

Then She looks up, and sees him, and Her smile is the sun rising. A shaft of light breaking free of clouds.

"Timber."

The cleaver falls from Her hand, and She's in his arms, and, ah gods, the feel of Her. Her hair beneath his hand, Her breasts pressing against his chest, Her hands on his back.

"Gods, lass," he says. "I've missed ye so. Dinna do that to me, ever again."

"Timber," She says again, and his name on Her lips is an invocation, summoning him out of the dark. "I thought, I thought..."

And he doesn't care, not anymore. Not for explanations, not for anything. The sight of Her open mouth inflames him. He wants only to taste Her. So he does, and Her sweetness fills him.

She urges Her body closer, tangling Her hands in his hair.

"It's so long," she murmurs when they part.

"D'ye not like it?"

She doesn't answer, only takes his face in Her hands to kiss him again. He's hot all over; he shrugs off his coat and it falls in a puddle on the floor behind him. Then he's touching Her, Her strong back, Her perfect waist. Under Her shirt, Her skin, so warm, so smooth. He cups Her ass in both hands, pulling Her against him, wanting Her to feel how hard he is for Her.

"I need ye," he whispers. It's never been truer. He feels as though he might burst.

"I'm making chili," She says. "The meat will burn."

Another man, with another woman, might be put off. But he knows Her by now, Her way of stating obvious things that don't mean aye or no, but only what She says.

"Turn it off," he tells Her.

She does, and there's more kissing and more fondling and more exploration of flesh. And it's almost like the first time, when they wanted each other so keenly that neither one of them could see straight, and they trashed Her shop, only here there's no furniture to get in the way. Her breasts, Her lips, Her hands on him, his hands on Her. They trail clothes to the living room, and that's as far as they make it before neither one of them can stand it any longer, and they come together on the floor.

When they join, it's so sweet, he groans and comes almost at once, which he wouldn't have preferred, but he can't hold back, not this time. She grinds Her hips against him, clasping him so hard it's as if She wants to pull him all the way inside, and She comes too. She cries out, Her eyes squeezed tight shut, Her head thrown back, that same expression of shocked pleasure on Her face that She always gets. He collapses on Her, boneless, burying his face in the exquisite hollow of Her neck, and he feels Her fingers drift over his back, down to his ass, the way they always do.

"Never again," he murmurs into Her skin. "Dinna do that to me ever again."

"No," She agrees, stroking him. "I won't."

And he's Home.

But She's not all right. It's in Her scent, in Her sweat, in the way She moves, in the way She breathes. It's a taste, some spice he misses from the feast that is Her.

He gave his word he would not ask, and he doesn't. But sometimes, sometimes he slips. He hasn't yet learned to avoid the hazards that bar the road to Her. Something he says touches on their old life, on magic, and She closes off, shunts him aside. Her eyes cloud. Her shoulders tense. No one else would be able to tell, he thinks. To him it's like a slap, like training a dog with a rolled up newspaper. Don't do this. Don't go there.

He gave his word, and so he will not ask. But he wishes with all his heart that She would tell him.

She doesn't. Nor does She ask him anything about Boulder, about the Ring, about what happened there. Why he stayed away so long, and why he's come to Her now. And that's all right, because he'd rather not tell Her. It's another secret about his life that he'd just as soon take to his grave.

Still, Her disinterest pains him. It's one more thing wrong, because She's always been so curious. She's never been able to keep from digging for answers.

The only time She seems Herself is when they make love. Then, the curtains around Her soul fall away. She's naked to him, and Her light shines the way it should.

He makes love to Her a great deal.

They talk about what to do, where to go from here. She wants to stay in Gordarosa. And although he knows it's at least in part because in Gordarosa She's not known for a witch and magic is easier to avoid, he agrees. Because it's what She wants.

She's taken a part-time job at an art gallery. It suits Her ill, working for someone else. Sitting by someone else's counter, ringing up someone else's sales. Talking to people about things that mean nothing. Still, three times a week, She plasters on a smile and goes.

He puts out word, talks to a man who knows a man who knows another who's heard of him, and lands a job on a custom home project on one of the hills outside town. One of the mesas. He dusts off the word and puts it back into daily use. In LA, on the streets, he picked up a bit of Spanish. It begins to return to him.

His days start early, as they have always done. And though he knows She likes to sleep late, for a week or two She gets up with him, to keep him company, fix his breakfast. It's a shock, the first time. She does it badly, and She rarely does anything badly. Her temper is short and She burns the eggs, and that makes Her temper worse.

He realizes that She's doing it because it's what She thinks other women do. Ordinary women. Her attempts to be Mundane make him want to laugh. Or cry. After a while, he tells Her that he appreciates the thought, but he'd rather make his own breakfast and have Her sane.

She gives him an odd look at that, as if the notion of Her being sane has some peculiar significance. But She leaves off, and they're both happier. For a time.

She decides to sell the place in Boulder. She has no intention of ever living there again, She says. She's finished with running a shop, and it's no good simply to leave everything there, gathering dust. He's not so sure it's a good idea, but it's Her place, and he has no say, not really. So he doesn't argue. She makes most of the arrangements over the phone, but they still have to go back and pack up. She left almost everything behind, and, for that matter, so did he.

So, one weekend halfway through December, they go. It's not a good time.

They get in late on Friday, and go straight to bed. He sleeps right away; he's been up since five and spent the day hauling lumber around in the cold because the unskilled labor didn't show up. In the middle of the night, he wakes, and She's not there.

For a disorienting moment, he wonders if She's ever been there. Perhaps he never went to Gordarosa at all, and the last few weeks have been part of his dream. Then he comes to a little more, and remembers the truth. So, perhaps She's gone for a pee and will be back soon.

But She doesn't come back, and without Her, he can't seem to settle. She's having trouble sleeping. That's happened sometimes before, when She was worrying over a problem. Now She lies awake almost every night. He knows it for another sign of a soul in distress, and it disturbs him deeply. But She never tells him Her trouble. And he's promised not to ask.

After a while, he gets up, pads down the stair. A single, shaded lamp helps him find Her in what was once Her showroom, sitting on the floor, surrounded by what was once Her life. Looking lost.

He crouches beside Her. "What is it, lass?"

"All this stuff." Her eyes flicker over the dusty shelves with something like fear. "I don't know if I can deal with it. Maybe I should just put it all out on the curb."

The easiest thing to do, of course, would be to open the shop for a week or two and have a massive sale. She'd do well out of it; Christmas is close. He knows better than to propose it.

"We'll work on it together," he says. And won't that be a treat, packing up the detritus of a magical life, and being unable to speak of it. But She's brought him peace, and he'll do whatever it takes to bring some to Her. "D'ye have any ideas for it?"

She shrugs. "Take it home and put it in the attic, I guess. I hadn't got that far."

They sit for a while.

"Come back to bed," he says. "This will all still be here in the morning."

"I don't think I can sleep yet. You go on."

"Shall I make ye some tea?" Please let me do something, he pleads in his mind. Let me comfort you. Let me help you out of this darkness you've chosen.

"No, thanks," she says. "I'll be up in a bit."

He catches himself before he can brush his hair out of his eyes. She knows it signals frustration, helplessness, discomfort. And he's feeling all those things, aye, but he doesn't want to put them on Her. So he just nods and goes back to bed, leaving Her alone. Sometime later, he wakes again, and She's there, lying with Her back to him. He curls his body around Hers; She sighs and nestles against him. It's the only ease She'll take, and he wishes it could be more.

In the morning, he suggests they go out to breakfast. He says they'll need the fuel for the job ahead, but really he wants to get Her outside, into the air. Into the light. She'll have nothing of it. She says they have too much work to do, and the holiday crowds will make everything downtown twice as busy as usual. He knows She doesn't want to walk the places they once walked, go the places they once went, because of the memories. She doesn't want to risk running into anyone She knows from before. This half-shape, this alien Mundane, couldn't stand up to Her friend Sage. Likely enough, it couldn't even stand up to Zee. She couldn't stand up to him for long, had he not given his word not to pry. Half the reason She fled before was to escape his prying, he thinks, and he will not risk Her fleeing again. She's far enough away as it is.

He goes out for supplies. While he's at it, he swings by Liquor Mart for empty boxes; they'll need them.

Later, he's down in the kitchen wrapping dishes in newspaper and stowing them away. He's thinking about Her darkness, about Her choice. He knows darkness well, no one better. But he never chose it. He simply faced what came to him. And he can't understand why anyone would choose to go such a place, especially not Her. He knows She hasn't told him everything about Her life, just as he hasn't told Her everything about his. Two years isn't enough time for everything, and besides, some things are better not shared. But surely fear isn't one of them. In the past, She's made him face his fears, and he's had the good of it.

What she's doing to Herself is a horror. It's like Stonefeather cutting out his Shadow, an abomination. She, at least, hasn't tried to remove the half of Her soul She'd prefer, now, not to acknowledge. But shutting it out, pretending it doesn't exist, is very nearly as bad.

If only She'd let him help Her! He's trained for just this; She knows it. That She refuses his skill is almost more than he can bear.

"Timber?" She calls to him from the second floor. "Can you come up here a minute?"

She sounds almost panicked. He runs up the stairs, down the hall, dodging half-packed boxes of clothes, of artwork. She's standing in an open door at the end, the door to the room reserved for magic and for Journeys. Her face is pale.

"What d'ye need?" he asks.

"This room," She says. "I can't do this room. I'm sorry; I just can't. Can you do it, please?"

He leans in the door, glances over Her shoulder. It's all Her stuff in there; he brought his own things with him when he left the first time. His drums. His shaman's kit. His sword. Because they're important. Because they're part of him, not to be left behind. Not as She wishes to leave this part of Her behind, trash for someone else to pick up when She's gone.

His hand clenches on the door frame; suddenly, he's furious with Her.

"No," he tells her. He doesn't remember ever before having refused Her anything at all. But there's a limit to everything. "No, I canna do that for ye. I told ye I'd help with the shop, and I will. But these things are yours, Caitlin. Yours to deal with, one way or another. If ye dinna want them nae more, throw them away. But ye've made a choice and ye must face the consequences. No one else can do it for ye. Not me, not anyone."

He turns his back on Her and goes downstairs to his own task. In a little while, She comes down.

"Do we have any rock salt?" She asks.

He pretends not to notice She's been crying.

"Out back, I think," he says. "There was some left last winter."

She goes out the door, returns clutching the half-full bag, and goes back upstairs without saying anything more. His heart is full of pain at Her pain, and at speaking harshly to Her when all he wants is Her happiness. But he can't swallow the surge of grim satisfaction he feels at the knowledge that She's chosen to pack up Her magical things. To keep them, not throw them out like garbage.

There's still hope.

Packing the magic room—the Workroom, She calls it—is the worst of it for Her. It takes Her a long time, and he can hear Her crashing about up there, going in and out. Sometimes he can hear Her sobbing. He hates Her grief, but he relishes it, too, because it's a sign that Her soul isn't giving up without a struggle. Try as She might to deny it, the magic is part of Her. Still, he has to steel himself not to go to Her when the sound of Her weeping drifts down the stairs. He tells himself all healing begins in pain, in feeling what there is to feel. It doesn't help much.

After the Workroom, She seems calmer. Not even the Tarot room gives Her as much trouble, and he isn't sure whether or not that's a good thing. They work late into the night, go to bed too tired for love, and get up to work more. Sunday afternoon, they've done all they can do. They load up the truck with as much as they can and head back to Gordarosa. Caitlin says She'll arrange for movers to bring the rest.

For him, the worst part is the hope. He keeps waiting for Her to realize She's made a horrible mistake, watching for some sign that She's changed Her mind. But day succeeds day, and there's nothing. She goes on pretending to Her Mundane life, as if there's never been more to Her. As if the bright, magical woman he loved never existed.

It grieves him. It infuriates him. He spends long hours in the field behind the house with his sword, going through the forms over and over again, trying to work things through. He only gets more and more upset. More and more confused.

_It's withdrawal, MacDuff_ , McGuyver tells him. _You're an addict, and she's your drug of choice. Now the quality has fallen off and you can't get your fix. It makes you twitchy._

They're in the kitchen one morning in January. He's just finished working out before going up to the job, and he's making coffee.

_That's a cynical way to look at it,_ he says.

McGuyver plops himself down on the rug in front of the sink, lifts a leg, and begins washing his ass.

It's the truth. You should think less about what you need from her and more about what she needs from you.

He rummages in the fridge for some eggs, breaks them into a pan.

Aye? And what's that?

The cat jumps up onto the counter to inspect the coffee maker.

_She's put away half her soul, MacDuff. You're the other half. She can't live without you, now_.

He stirs up his eggs, brooding.

Perhaps it would be better to let Her go, then.

McGuyver swats his arm.

Do you believe that?

"No," he says aloud. "I dinna."

_Good,_ the cat replies. _Feed me._

In February, the place in Boulder sells for an exorbitant amount of money, and they go out to celebrate. After dinner, they visit a bar downtown, the Long Wall. It's not much of a place, but they have a pool table, and he fancies a game. The bar offers a decent Scotch, a blend, not a single malt, but respectable all the same. He and Caitlin each have a double, and then he's winning at pool and feeling fine, so he has another, and a beer to wash it down. And that turns out to be not such a good idea, for his mood takes a turn, and before he quite knows what's come over him, he's scratched an easy shot. The miner he's playing makes an asinine joke about not knowing how to handle a cue and trounces him, which hasn't happened in a while. He's down fifty bucks and wants a rematch, but the miner tells him to leave men's games to real men. There's a red haze in his eyes and the next thing he knows, the bouncer is telling him to take it outside.

All the while, it's like he's standing outside himself, watching the bad shit go down. Like he's not in control. It's the place, he knows. The place is rotten, and he should take the bouncer's advice and get the hell out of there. Get some air, get some space. But instead, he orders another whisky. Part of him hopes the bartender won't give it to him, because if he doesn't have a drink perhaps he can get away. But the bartender pours the drink, and he orders one for Caitlin, too, and takes it over to the table where She's sitting, staring out into the street.

"I don't want another," She says. "Timber, I think we should go home. I don't like this place."

It's no more than he's been thinking, but hearing Her say it riles him, and he snarls at Her without thinking.

"I got ye a drink, aye? Drink it."

Her eyes flash, and he knows inside that it's a bad thing, because She doesn't get angry much and when She does, She likes to work through things on Her own. But it's also good to see the spark of life in Her.

"You're in a foul mood," She says. "I had no idea losing at pool threatened your manhood so much."

"I dinna feel any threat tae my manhood." He slams his drink and, since She's not showing any interest in the one he bought Her, reaches for it, too.

"I don't think you should have any more."

She snatches at the glass, and he grabs Her wrist to stop Her, feeling the little bones grate against one another.

"You're hurting me," She says, very quietly, and he lets up a bit, but doesn't let go. Their eyes lock, and, very deliberately, he picks up Her drink and downs it.

"What's got into you?" She asks.

"Not so long ago, ye'd know as well as I," he says. And, ignoring the anguish that crosses Her face, he says, "But ye canna be bothered with such things nae more, can ye?"

She's gone, closed to him like a steel door.

"I have no idea what you're talking about. Let go of me."

"Ye ken right well what I'm talking about," he counters. "Where's your magic, Caitlin? Where's your Sight? Tell me what's got intae me. If you're no afraid."

"You promised," She hisses, from anger, or the pain where he's latched on to Her wrist, he neither knows nor cares. "No questions. No demands. I took you for a man of your word."

"Aye, well, perhaps that was a mistake."

"Maybe we're the mistake." Despite his hand on Her wrist, She tries to rise. He jerks Her back.

"Dinna walk out on me. Walk out on yourself, if ye must, but not on me."

"You have no idea..." She begins.

"Aye, you're right!" he snaps. "I've no idea, because ye wilna tell me anything! Every time I come close tae ye, ye run away! Ye ran from me in Boulder, and you're running still."

"I'm not running!"

"Aye, ye are! I've seen running; I ken well the shape of it. Lie tae yourself, if ye must. Ye canna lie tae me."

She says nothing.

"And ye wilna let me help ye." That's the core of it, the root of his misery and rage. Something, somewhere, tastes it and finds it sweet. "If anything threatens my manhood, it's that."

"I don't want your help. I don't need your help," She spits.

"You're a daft fool, then," he tells Her. "Ye've a sickness in your soul, and that's my business. Dinna destroy yourself out of pride."

"Pride!" She sounds outraged.

"Aye, pride! Ye canna see your way, and you're too proud to ask for a light from one who may."

"I don't have to listen to this." She wrenches her wrist from his grasp.

"I dinna have tae stay and watch ye murder the woman I love, either," he says.

"Then don't!" She's up from the table and out the door.

Swearing, he lurches to his feet and rushes after Her. It's snowing, and icy needles strike his face, clearing his head. She's left the truck behind; he spots Her turning the corner, hair streaming behind Her, head into the wind.

"Caitlin!" he shouts. "Dinna be an idiot. Come back and get in the truck."

"No!" She sobs without turning around.

Her pace quickens as She rounds the corner. He chases Her down, boots slipping a little in the fresh snow. By the time he catches Her, She's almost to the alley. He grabs her shoulder, whips Her around. She struggles.

And he's on fire. All at once, he wants nothing more than to fuck Her. Fuck away Her resistance, fuck away Her denial, even though punishing Her with his body would be rape. For one instant, he actually considers pushing Her up against the wall of the bar and taking Her, right there. Then he jerks control of himself away from whatever has him in its grasp, and lets Her go. He takes a step back, raising his hands in surrender.

She looks at him as if he's become vile to Her. Then She slips away and disappears into the snow. Into the dark.

He goes back to the truck and sits awhile, giving himself time to cool off, giving Her time to get home. When he finally arrives back at the house, She's already gone to bed and the door is shut. He could go in; there's no lock. It's not a good idea. He takes off his boots and stretches out on the sofa downstairs.

_Things not going well, MacDuff?_ McGuyver remarks from the top of the bookshelf.

"Shut your gob, cat," he says.

He doesn't like what he's becoming, what She's becoming. What they're becoming. The unspoken things between them, like a minefield. A false step could blow them both to bits. And although he gave an oath to be there for Her, to give Her his life, he no longer knows if he can.

He's still lying there, staring at nothing, when She comes downstairs. She hesitates at the foot of the steps, silver in the moonlight spilling through the window. She's wearing a flannel nightgown and Her hair is down Her back. She looks like a child.

"Timber? Are you awake?" She whispers.

He thinks about not answering. But he can't do that. Not to Her. Not to himself.

"Aye, I am."

"I'm sorry," She says. "For tonight."

"Ye've nothing to be sorry for," he replies, although he believes She does.

"May I come over there?"

"Aye."

She pads across the room, kneels beside the sofa. She looks so lonely. He wants to touch Her, stroke Her hair. But he remembers the way she looked at him, back on the street outside the bar, and so he doesn't.

"I know you don't like what I've decided," She says after a time. "But it's the best thing for me. You have to trust me."

He thinks he has to do no such thing. But he doesn't say so. He says,

"It would help if ye'd tell me about it."

"Someday, maybe," She says. "Not now."

Aye, he thinks, because now you're not quite settled in your own mind. And if you put it out in the open, you'll see how foolish you're being, and your own good sense will tell you that the best thing is to stop indulging your fear and get on with life. I won't have to say a thing.

"I thought," She begins, and stops. Starts again. "When I left Boulder, I thought I could do without you. I can't. I can do without everything else. Not without you."

_Told you,_ McGuyver puts in from the end of the sofa. He sounds smug.

_Shut up_.

"So, please. Please don't give up on me. It's hard right now, but it will get better. I just need more time."

He sighs. "All right. I'll try."

"Will you come upstairs? I'm cold."

He goes with Her, and they go to bed. He gives Her the comfort of his body because that's all She'll allow him to give. He doesn't know if it's enough. And for the first time with Her, he isn't certain he cares.

He goes to see Scáthach. He should have done it long since; when you claim a goddess for a teacher, it's best not to ignore her. But first he was finishing up the Boulder business, and then he was too glad to be back with Caitlin to go, and then he didn't want to Journey because the sound of the drum might disturb Caitlin's peace. Now it's past time. And perhaps he thinks Caitlin's peace could use a little disturbing.

The Workroom in the new house is a dismal place. Unfinished, half-painted, the way She left it when She made up her mind to renounce the magical life. He remembers finding the house on a weekend excursion over a year ago, and how delighted She was with the place. How She talked of making it a retreat when the cares of Boulder became too much, and of making it a home in time. And of course there had to be a Workroom, then. She'd chosen it out particularly, loving it at first sight. Loving the shape of it, the way the ceiling sloped down to the eaves. The strange little nook behind the stairwell.

But now She refuses to set foot in it, and it languishes like an abandoned pet. Missing Her presence, Her touch. Not understanding what it did wrong.

It's cluttered, full of boxes and furniture from the old place, with the rug from the old Workroom rolled up in a corner like a bundle that hides a corpse. He's made a niche for himself behind the place where the altar should go, arranged the scraps of his calling, of his skill, on a couple of bookshelves. He crams himself in among them; there's scarcely room for him to stretch out his legs. Uncomfortable, as everything has become uncomfortable.

He had thought, once he found Her, that he would never feel this discomfort again. This sense that he's too big for his surroundings, that he does not fit. The last time he felt this badly, he went back on the junk. He doesn't believe he wants to do that now, not really. That consoles him, a bit.

Likely, now, he couldn't get a needle through his Battle Blessed skin even if he did want to.

The drum takes him to the other Skye, to the standing stone. The goddess is waiting for him.

" _Fiodh_ ," she says, her Gaelic soothing to his ears. He hadn't realized how much he'd missed it. "I did tell you, you would have cause not to be glad."

He wonders if she's mocking him. But her gaze shows only compassion.

"I didn't understand," he replies, his own Gaelic returning in an instant, as though he's never spoken anything else.

"It's the nature of foresight, not to be understood before time."

"What use is it, then?"

He meant it for sarcasm. She takes him seriously.

"It's a sign along the road. And, like any sign, it can only warn of the dangers. You have to experience them for yourself."

His shoulders slump. "I don't know how much more experience I can take," he confesses. It costs him. Admitting failure always costs him.

The goddess arches an eyebrow. "So soon? I thought you stronger, _Fiodh_."

"Aye, well. Perhaps you were mistaken about me." He remembers saying almost the same words to Caitlin, the night in the bar, and his heart twists. He doesn't like it, the idea that both these red-haired women could have misjudged him so. That perhaps everyone has misjudged him, put their trust where it didn't belong. But he's tired of living up to impossible standards.

"Are you asking to be released from your oath?" Scáthach inquires.

"Could you do that?" It appeals to him, although he wishes it didn't.

"I could. There would be a price."

"What?"

"Death."

It doesn't surprise him. "Whose?"

"Yours. Hers." The goddess shrugs; he can't tell whether or not it matters to her. "More."

The idea of his own death doesn't disturb him. It hasn't disturbed him for a long while. Caitlin's though... For a second he allows himself to wonder if it might not be better for Her, than the half-life She's chosen. But no. He has no right to decide for Her.

And then, "more." More deaths on his head. He can't accept that, either. He already has too many deaths to his credit.

"I didn't think it would be so hard," he says.

"An oath is meaningless when keeping it is easy," Scáthach replies.

"Och." His mouth fills with bitterness; he has to spit it out. "Spare me your cant. I've need of counsel, not proverbs."

"And proverbs can't counsel?" She raises one corner of her mouth, teasing.

He glares at her. Cursed Otherworldly beings. They never give straight answers. He should have known better than to hope for one.

"You vowed to give your life to her without holding back," the goddess remarks. "You've been holding back, _Fiodh MacDuibh_."

The reproof makes him stiffen; he can't help it.

"I have not!" he insists. "I'd give Her anything, everything. But She throws it back in my face. It's of no worth to Her."

Scáthach gazes at him for a long minute. "You will have to offer more."

"More," he snorts. "It's always more with you people. I have no more."

She keeps on looking at him, expression bland. When he turns his face aside, she sighs.

"Will you have my advice, _Fiodh_?" she asks. "Then here it is. Grow."

"Grow?" He blinks. "That's it? That's all?"

"All?" she repeats, and laughs that deep, true laugh of hers. "Isn't it enough?"

"I don't suppose you'd care to clarify," he says. He doesn't expect she will. Some lessons can't be taught. Some you have to learn for yourself.

"Become more than you are. And stop seeing her as less than she is."

_Become more than you are_. He scowls; he's heard it before. Teachers never get tired of it; they care nothing for a man's limits. But the other puzzles him.

"Stop seeing Her as less...?"

"You might try it," Scáthach tells him.

Then he's back in the Workroom, drum and beater falling from lax fingers. And, although the goddess's advice doesn't seem much advice at all, he feels calmer than he has in a long, long while.

As February slips toward March and the days lengthen, he mulls it over. Becoming more.

It angers him, at first. As if he isn't big enough, as if he doesn't take up enough space as he is! But teachers have no interest in boundaries, except to urge you to stretch them. More and more and more, until you no longer know where and what you are.

He wonders if it's a problem, knowing where and what he is. In the Otherworld, being too certain of your position can hold you back. There, you set your own limits and if you never look outside them, you never discover what lies beyond the frontier of self.

Come to think of it, battle is like that, too.

In his mind, he hears Scáthach laughing.

_Put a sock in it, ye old hag_ , he mutters to himself, and reflects again.

So what does he know of himself? Or, more to the point, what does he believe of himself? For beliefs can be changed. They can become other than what they are. They can grow.

Start with the basics. He's big, aye. Big of body. Big of soul, perhaps. For some reason, that notion troubles him, and he lays it aside for the time.

He's a healer. _Which She will not accept,_ his mind whispers, and he hushes it; those doubts will not serve him. He's a warrior. He's always been a fighter; he's already become more in that respect. A craftsman. A scholar of a sort, although he would not have chosen it, and it's not the first thing that comes to mind. He's a musician. A tree-speaker. One who converses with animals. One who respects life, all life, sentient or not.

This is getting him nowhere.

He's a lover. More to the point, he's _Her_ lover. He hasn't been doing so well at it of late, but it's still true.

He thinks of what it means, to be a lover, to love. To devote oneself without condition, without holding back. Aye, he has been holding back; he sees it now. Out of pain, out of fear, out of sheer bewilderment at the change in Her.

The cat told him, _Think less of what you need from her and more of what she needs from you_.

What does She need from him? Strength; he has that in abundance. Physical strength, at least. What of the rest? He's always believed Her to be stronger. In Her emotions, in Her spirit. In Her soul.

She has carried him, he realizes. She has never needed him to carry Her. To support Her, as She needs him to now. She needs him to accept Her.

Can he do that? He did accept the woman She was. He loved the woman She was without reservation. But he doesn't know if he loves the woman She is.

_Stop thinking of her as less than she is,_ McGuyver reminds him.

_She_ is _less than She is_ , he retorts. _Ye said it yourself. She's not Herself_.

They're in the back yard. It's the first Saturday in March, and in the garden, the daffodils are already blooming. The tulips are thrusting green spears of leaves up from the soil, and the peonies are showing leafy fronds. He's building a bench for a corner of the flowerbed, putting just enough attention to the task to keep from cutting his fingers off with the circular saw. He's pretty sure that could still happen, if he lets his mind wander too much.

The cat jumps up on the sawhorse he's using to prop up the boards for cutting.

"Och, keep your big nose away from the blade, ye twit," he says, brushing the furry face aside. But McGuyver ignores him.

_She's less than she_ was, the cat replies, licking a paw. _But she still is who she_ is.

From the house, where the windows are open to catch the first warmth of spring, comes the sound of singing. Her singing. He's missed it, in the past months. It tells him She's come to better terms with Her choice for Her life; She can risk drawing back the curtains around Her soul. Risk letting out a bit of light.

If only he could come to terms.

He puts down the saw, goes into the house. Finds Her in the dining room. She's got a wicker box of fabric open beside Her, and She's sorting through bright scraps, testing them out together. Piecing a quilt, perhaps. She's spoken of wanting to try that. The sun from the window makes Her hair glow like flame.

She is who she is.

This, also, is who She is. The creativity that has nothing at all to do with magic. The way She always has some project in hand. The way She makes things where nothing was before.

"Have I told ye lately that you're beautiful?" he asks.

She looks up, startled, a little wary. It troubles him that She should mistrust him. That night at the bar was not so long ago.

"Not recently, no," She says.

In the past, he's said it to so many women. Women of a night, or of a week. It's been true of all of them. But never so true as of this woman sitting before him. Of Her. And he can't recall the last time he told Her, or how it slipped his mind.

"You're beautiful," he says.

"Did you come in here just to tell me that?" She asks.

"Aye," he replies. "I did."

She smiles and a flush rises to Her cheeks. And something opens in him. He begins to see who She is, not simply who She was.

Independent. Sunday, He watches Her hauling stones from one side of the property to the other, making a border for the garden. She struggles with some of them; they're too heavy for Her, but She keeps at it with the same dogged determination She puts into everything.

He lays his own work aside. Runs downtown, finds the Farm Supply open because, even in this town full of churches, farmers know no weekends. He buys Her a wheelbarrow. When he gets back to the house with it, She's wrestling with a rock nearly the size of Her chest. Her face is sweaty and Her hair is coming down. He takes the rock from Her and plops it down in the wheelbarrow's bed. She looks surprised for a moment, as if She has never considered such things as wheelbarrows existed. Then Her stunning smile breaks free.

"Thank you," She says.

"You're welcome," he tells Her, and goes back to building the bench, his heart lighter than it has been.

Resourceful. Monday evening, She's back in the dining room, playing with fabric, Her face creased in thought. In Her hands, bits and pieces other people might throw away become other, become more than they were.

"What are ye making?" he asks.

She shakes her head, preoccupied. "I don't know yet. I thought a quilt, but I've never done it before."

Brave. She has no fear of a challenge, no fear of the unknown.

"It's missing something, though," She says. "I don't know what."

He goes upstairs and hunts up a couple old flannels with the elbows ripped out of the sleeves. They're soft with washing, but the colors are still bright. After a moment's reflection, he adds his one good thing, a blue silk blend he bought for a memorial service in Boulder, soon after they first met.

"Will these help?" he asks.

She hesitates at the silk. "Timber, this is almost new. I'm just going to cut it up."

"I want ye to have it."

Again, She rewards him with Her smile. It seems to come more easily.

"Then it's perfect."

She's funny. She introduces him to the Marx Brothers, and they laugh until they fall off the sofa, tears streaming from their eyes. For days after, the mention of a hard-boiled egg or an apple dumpling can send either of them into convulsions.

Her wit is merciless. She tells him tales of Her life before they met and brutally mimics strange vagrants, rich socialites, horrible bosses. She makes even dreadful experiences seem like something from a farce.

"Gods, woman, how can ye laugh about that?" he asks after She relates the time She beat off a stalker in New York who cornered her by a phone booth. She was so mad, She says, that She threw the man into a wall and knocked him out. "Ye might have been hurt. Killed, even."

"He looked really pitiful with his dick hanging out," She informs him with a shrug. "And everyone in the subway station applauded."

"You're terrible," he tells Her, unable to keep his lip from twitching, unable to keep the admiration from his voice.

Beautiful. She's astride him, Her hair falling free over her shoulders, Her skin ivory and rose in candlelight. Abandoned, committed to pleasing Herself, to pleasing both of them. Her face goes slack and Her eyes roll up when She comes, gasping in astonishment, and the sight of Her pushes him over the edge, so that he spills over, groaning. She collapses on him, spent, loose-limbed with completion, and the heat of Her, the silk of Her flesh, is everything he's ever wanted.

"I love you," he says.

She opens one eye. "It's the afterglow. You'll get over it."

"No," he says. "I wilna."

He loves Her. And he always will. Her decision means nothing to him. The shock of it threw him into fear and regret, but those were his. His to indulge or to put behind him. They do not diminish Her or what She means to him. Not at all.

He has grown. Become more.

Toward the middle of March, he makes a choice.

He calls Spruce to run it by her. After several minutes' worth of laying into him because he's been out of touch so long, she says,

"It's about time, you huge shite."

"Ye think I should, then?" It won't make any difference; he's made up his mind. But after everything he's put her through, his sister deserves a chance to give her opinion.

"Do I really need to dignify that with a response?" she sniffs. "Of course, Timber. Of course you should."

"Dinna tell anyone," he warns her.

"Oh, I think I'll allow you the pleasure of breaking it to Mom on your own."

He cringes at that. But even the thought of his mother can't change him. Not now.

He remembers that once before he told Her that he had made a choice and nothing could change him. His love for Her then was nothing to his love for Her now.

On Ostara, the first day of spring, or the middle of it, depending on your persuasion, he takes the day off work. Caitlin asks him why, and he shrugs.

"I'd like to spend the holiday with ye, aye? I've a mind to take ye somewhere."

"Oh? Where?" She asks, but he just smiles.

"Get your boots on."

"Far be it from me to pry when you're being mysterious," She mutters, going to the closet. "Will I need a coat?"

He drinks Her in. The shape of Her hips in her low-cut jeans. The shape of Her body in the purple shirt with the deep V neck that shows a hint of breast. The shape of Her. The shape that fills him. He can't imagine life without Her. He can't believe he ever considered it.

"You're fine as ye are," he says. He's never said anything so true.

They get into the truck, and he drives them to Scotch Flats, which strikes him as amusing and appropriate. There's an ancient volcano chimney, a pillar of red rock rising up out of the BLM lands. They've joked about it, calling it "The Phallus," or, in coarser moments, simply, "The Dick."

"You're taking me to The Dick on Ostara?" She glances at him sidelong. "I hope you brought a blanket. The ground's probably wet up there."

He pulls the truck into the lot at the base of the trail head. "It'll be dry enough for what I have in mind."

She looks skeptical. She knows him very well but not, he thinks, well enough to guess.

"Aren't you a holiday early? Beltane is more the time for this kind of thing."

"I can't wait until Beltane," he tells Her, and that makes Her laugh.

"If waiting's so hard," another sideways glance in the direction of his crotch, "we could have stayed in bed."

"Outside is better."

He takes Her hand, and they walk up the trail. The air is a bit cool. Not too bad, though, and the sun is strong. Winter was harsh, but spring is making up for lost time. Wildflowers already dot the hillside: mariposa tulip and Indian paintbrush and sego lily in white and red and gold. He leads Her under the shadow of the rock, and sits Her down on a stone under a clump of aspens just coming into bud.

"Timber, what are you up to? This rock is cold. And sharp. It hurts my butt," She protests.

He goes to one knee in front of Her, and takes Her by the hand. And She goes very still, and very quiet.

"Caitlin," he says. "I love ye more than my life. I ken that things haven't always been easy between us these past months. Still, I'm wondering." He reaches into his watch pocket. "I'm wondering if ye'd do me the very great honor of being my wife."

He shows her the ring. It's a narrow silver band of Hebridean open work with tiny diamond chips set in the spaces between the knots. It was his grandmother's, and it's a good thing she didn't pass on until he was in college, or likely he'd have sold it to buy drugs.

_You're an addict_ , McGuyver says in his mind. _And she's your drug of choice._

Perhaps it's true. Perhaps not. He no longer cares.

She gapes at him.

"What?"

"I'm asking ye to marry me," he tells Her.

Her hand goes to Her lips. She can't seem to catch Her breath.

"You know," She says after a time. "You know how I am. Now."

"Caitlin Ross, I'd rather have ye without magic than any other woman with all the magic in the world," he says. His whole heart is in the words. Nothing held back. "Please say yes."

"Yes," She whispers, tears streaming down Her face. "Oh, yes."

He slides the ring on Her finger. It fits as if made for Her. He takes Her face in his hands, kisses Her. Tastes Her sweetness. All that She is. And, for a while, time stops.

When they walk back down to the truck, the sun is high. The shadows have lifted, and behind them the aspen trees are green, green, green.

### Afterword

Timber began as a joke.

My husband and I were talking about the weird names that people adopt, or are given by parents of a certain generation or disposition. Names like "Moonchild," and "Song" and "Leaf" and "Cloud."

"Tree," said my husband. "Lumber."

"Timber," I said.

I remember we laughed.

Not long after, my then-band played at a performer's showcase at a local festival. The Paonia Mountain Harvest Festival is now in its twelfth year, and is really well-organized and fun, with lots of cool activities as well as music. But that was its first year, and, like anything of the sort in its first year, it had some glitches. My husband and I were bitching about it afterward, on the way up to the corner store. I invented an obnoxious festival organizer, whom I then gruesomely murdered. For anyone who wants to know where writers get their ideas, this is how. We exercise our right to fantasize on paper.

This conversation went on to become the first incarnation of the first part of _She Moved through the Fair,_ and Caitlin Ross was born. And so was her husband, Timber MacDuff.

I knew very little about either of them at the time, except that they were musicians. Timber had been born in Scotland and his family had emigrated when he was nine. But that's all I knew. I didn't even know either of them had any magical capabilities.

That story didn't go anywhere for a long time, probably because I didn't know about the magic. In the first incarnation of SMttF, in fact, Vic Huston got his head bashed in with a microphone stand.

Maybe a year later, the radio station downtown purchased a building that had a reputation of being haunted. The building had housed a string of bars, all of which had closed after bad luck, which got attributed to the hauntings. And there had, in fact, been a murder in the street outside the last one.

I thought the radio station would do much better to blow up the building than to try and convert it to new premises. And so _The Unquiet Grave_ came into being, and Caitlin and Timber reappeared to deal with the problem. And they must have, because the radio station is doing very well in its new location.

By that point, I knew Caitlin pretty well. But Timber remained something of a mystery. I discovered that he was a drummer and a shaman, and that he could pick a lock and identify human bones. He could be charming, and he had a violent side. I didn't learn a whole lot else.

I finished TUQG and went back to SMttF, and the elusive Mr. MacDuff gained more prominence. He liked sex a good deal, and was rather good at it. He had a degree in Cultural Anthropology—okay, that explained the bones. He could talk to trees and animals. I had actually learned of this talent when I started playing with an idea that would become _The Parting Glass_ , the story of Caitlin and Timber's first meeting. He had a past that he didn't talk about much.

I was perhaps about halfway through SMttF when, one day, I said to my husband,

"I think Timber has some kind of battle magic."

"Interesting idea," my husband said.

That's how I discovered the whole thing about Timber being Battle Blessed, a gift which he had from the warrior goddess, Scáthach, after Caitlin renounced magic and left him to clean up a mess.

Well and good. It made sense, but I still didn't know the details.

I got close to the end of SMttF. I realized that for two books in a row, Timber had been instrumental in rescuing Caitlin from some difficulty. I didn't want Caitlin to become the kind of female protagonist who gets rescued all the time, and I determined that in the next book she'd rescue Timber.

The next morning, I woke up with the entire plot of _A Maid in Bedlam_ in my head. All of it at once. And I knew that a great part of it would involve Timber confronting and accepting his past.

I still didn't know the details of that past, however. I did know he'd run away from home and lived on the streets as a teenager, although I had no idea why. I imagined him coming from a large, boisterous, loving family. He maintained ties with them. He hadn't left from abuse, as Caitlin had. Still, he didn't quite fit in. Something refused to let him fit in. I didn't know what.

The thing was, Timber didn't talk to me, not directly. I spend a lot of time with my characters. I listen to their stories in their own words. But I only saw Timber through other characters' eyes, mostly Caitlin's. And he hadn't told her everything, not in eight years.

I didn't discover Timber had been a heroin addict until Caitlin saw it in the mirror room. It horrified me every bit as much as it did her. I couldn't get it through my head. I wondered if, as an author, I had inserted it for gratuitous shock value. I tried to get rid of it. I couldn't. It was true.

After I finished _A Maid in Bedlam_ , I stopped writing for a while. My characters were on holiday; I had very little idea what happened next. It took me two years, the increasing popularity of e books, and some prodding from several friends who had read the manuscripts before I was able to go back to it.

I started with finishing _The Parting Glass_ , which I had left at the beginning of Chapter Five for a couple of years. In all that time, I knew what happened. I just hadn't been able to get into it. Like I said, my characters were on holiday. I couldn't talk to them.

Then they came back, and away we went.

The main problem of _The Parting Glass_ , as those who have read it will already know, is the disappearance of a Native American medicine man. I already knew Tiber had studied Native American shamanism; I'd known that almost since he first appeared. But that's not my personal forte so, in order not to sound like a complete ass, I did some research. Part of the research was reading _Black Elk Speaks_. And as I read it, a lot of details about Timber MacDuff fell into place. I'd known all along that people who become shamans often suffer a serious childhood illness along with a power vision. I'd assumed it had happened to Timber. But it had never really come to the front of my mind until I read Black Elk's account of his own power vision, and how, afterward, he'd felt alienated from his family and his people. And I understood, finally, why Timber had done the things he had done.

In case you're curious, I still do not know the details of Timber's power vision. I'm hoping he'll tell me about it at some point.

Because he's talking to me now. It started in the middle of _The Parting Glass_. As I relate in the author's note to that book, one morning I woke up way too early with his voice in my head. I went to my desk and wrote out his account of his experience of the morning after the first Summer Solstice he spent with Caitlin Ross. He talks fast, once he gets going; it took a couple hours.

A few weeks later, he woke me up again, this time with the account of how he fell off the wagon and, as a result, took up the practice of broadsword, which you will find in this volume.

And now that he's started talking, the bastard won't shut up.

These stories do more than fill in holes in the continuity of Caitlin and Timber. They fill in holes in Timber's personality and in his life. I think he's a fascinating character, and I enjoy listening to him. I hope you will, too.

## Katherine Lampe, October 2012

### About the Author

Katherine Lampe lives in Colorado with her husband and four cats. She is currently working on the fifth and sixth books in the Caitlin Ross series, and she favors a man with a really big sword. The cats keep their opinions to themselves.

### A Final Word

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