The Silver Stone Read online

  Ian unbuttoned the forest green cotton shirt and removed it, revealing a tanned and hairy chest, except for one spot on the right side of the belly, just below the rib cage, where bare skin surrounded a two-inch-long white scar, thicker at the top than the bottom. It reminded Arnie of an exclamation point.

  “Let me guess,” Doc said, “somebody tried to take out your gall bladder, but they figured it would be fun to start low and work their way up.”

  Hosea smiled. “You would likely not believe it if he told you what happened.”

  “I dunno. I’ve seen strange enough things around here. Performed an autopsy on a couple of werewolves not too long ago, as you’ll recall.” Doc grunted again as he poked at the scar with a blunt finger. “This hurt?” he asked, when Ian let out a groan.

  “Yes, and it would hurt if you poked me in the arm that hard.”

  “Don’t talk back, kid. I’m old enough to be your grandfather.” Doc cocked his head to one side. “What happened?”

  “Hosea’s right.” Ian spread his hands. “You wouldn’t believe me.”

  Doc grinned. “Try me.”

  “Okay,” Ian said, “I was in a swordfight with a fire giant who was masquerading as the Duke of the House of Flame, and he managed to get through my defenses, twice.” Ian’s lips whitened. “But I got through his. Once.” He looked up defensively. “So call me a liar.”

  Doc shook his head. “Nah.” His heavy brow furrowed. “Probably got a couple of adhesions in there, but it seems mostly healed up.” He handed Ian’s shirt back. “Any change in your bowel movements? Excess gas? No? Getting better, not worse? Yeah? Then you’re probably okay. If it keeps giving you trouble, be sure to let me know, and we’ll run a quick barium test.”

  “Test? Barium test?” Davy chuckled, again. “He means enema. Doc likes sticking tubes in you, and any damn orifice’ll do in a pinch.”

  Doc grinned. “True enough. So stay out of the way of fire giants. It’s not healthy.”

  Arnie had heard the story, most of it. And he would have thought that all of it was a tall tale, if it hadn’t been for the Night of the Werewolves—which is what that night had come to be called even among the closed-mouthed in Hardwood—or Homecoming Day. Arnie himself had shot three, four of the Sons with deer slugs on the Night, and each one of them had gotten up, one of them finally mauling Arnie in a way that gave him a whole new set of scars to go with the three puckered ones that had gotten him his Purple Heart in a little unnamed village in Uijongbu and the one zipperlike one he had gotten from a grenade during the bugout from Taejon.

  But on Homecoming Day, it had been the other way around. Just Arnie and Orphie—Orphie with a Garand, Arnie with a BAR—had nailed close to a dozen of the Sons, and hadn’t gotten so much as a scratch. Silver bullets made all the difference.

  Arnie’s mouth grew tight at the thought. Fuck with my neighbors, dog?

  Not twice.

  After he’d lived through werewolves popping up out of the ground, Arnie hadn’t had any trouble believing the kid about the Hidden Ways between here and Tir Na Nog, or about the Fire Duke, or even about the Brisingamen.

  Shit, boy, after believing all that, you’d be a good mark for some con man, Arnie thought, grinning.

  That could happen, even here. Somebody pretending to be a bank inspector had once conned old Addie Oppegaard out of her life savings, and would have gotten away with it if Ingrid Orjasaeter hadn’t been such an insufferable busybody, always peering out of her window, and called her brother, John Honistead, about the strange car from out of state parked in front of the Oppegaards’ house.

  But it didn’t hurt to believe, and if that wasn’t so—if Ian and Torrie and that little girl of his and Thorian and Karin Roelke were all lying or crazy—then to hell with it, and to hell with everything.

  You don’t have to believe in everything, but Arnie Selmo believed in his neighbors.

  Karin reappeared with a steaming mug of coffee just as Ian finished buttoning his shirt. It hadn’t taken five minutes for her to pour a cup of coffee, and it would have taken more than five minutes for her to grind the beans and brew a fresh pot. She hadn’t wanted to catch him with his shirt off.

  “Arnie?” Doc cocked his head. “What are you grinning about?”

  Arnie shrugged. “Nothing much, Doc.”

  Karin Thorsen had excused herself to go up to her office to do some work and Ian had finished his second cup of coffee and his third piece of coffee cake when car wheels crunched on the gravel out front

  Ian had wanted to take Karin aside to ask what was going on, but after being caught staring at her—and dammit, it was hard not to stare; Torrie’s mom was spectacularly beautiful, and reminded Ian a bit of Freya, if the truth be known—he hadn’t felt that he could sneak off into the house without drawing some sort of comment.

  “They’re back.” Davy Larsen was already on his feet limping toward the front of the house, and Arnie Selmo, moving easier than a man his age ought to, was right behind him, while Hosea slowly eased himself out of his chair.

  Doc Sherve was suddenly at Hosea’s elbow. “If you please, the others can see to this. I’ll want a moment of your time, Hosea,” he said.

  “As you will,” Hosea said.

  Ian would have liked to have stayed and listened, but he didn’t see a way to do it, not without seeming to be slacking on the unloading.

  What was that all about? Hosea seemed to be a bit tired today, and his slight limp exaggerated, but he was older than most mountain ranges—he couldn’t be aging right in front of Ian, could he?

  The procession made it to the front just as Thorian Thorsen was backing the big blue Bronco up to the front porch, maneuvering it with a speed that Ian wouldn’t have considered, but that Thorsen apparently could manage: he jerked it to a stop with the rear wheels a few scant inches short of the steps, and was out his door before Ivar del Hival had fully extricated himself from his seatbelt.

  When he saw Ian, Thorsen’s face broke into an easy smile that wouldn’t have looked even slightly piratical if it wasn’t for the scar that snaked down his right cheek, as though an acid tear had carved its way down his face before dropping off at the jawline.

  Despite that, and the slight bend in the nose that told of an ancient break, there was something delicate about his face and the long fingers of his hands. Delicate, though, didn’t mean weak; Thorsen’s handshake was firm without being an attempted assault.

  “I thought you weren’t due back for another moon, perhaps,” he said. “Along with Thorian and Maggie.”

  If his wife hadn’t told Thorsen that she had called him back early, Ian wasn’t going to mention it. “I missed this place,” he said, finding that it was truer than he had thought.

  It was kind of funny. Benjamin Silverstein, Ian’s asshole of an excuse for a father, had kicked him out when Ian had stopped letting him beat him, and ever since men Ian had lived in college dorms during the school year—it was more expensive than living off-campus, but Ian couldn’t afford the time commuting back and forth—and rented rooms during the summers.

  And each time he had come back to any of those, it was just coming back to a familiar place, that was all. Just a place he knew.

  But this felt like home, and that felt strange.

  “How strange,” Ivar del Hival said, echoing his thoughts. He was a big man, almost as tall as Ian and easily twice as wide, his smile white against a full, bushy beard that was so black as to be almost blue.

  “Ah, so very strange, young Silverstone, that you should miss this little town,” he said, his voice booming like the blare of a tuba. He looked funny dressed in the local uniform of jeans and a plaid flannel shirt, cut generously for his ample belly: Ian always expected to see him in the black and orange livery of the House of Flame.

  “A place where you are liked and valued and welcome, and you would miss it?” Ivar del Hival laughed as he clapped a hard hand to Ian’s shoulder. “How unusual. Next you’ll be finding th
at when you haven’t eaten for half a day, you’re a trifle hungry, or that you find a soft warm bed not uncomfortable when your eyelids are heavy, or that if you haven’t been properly swived in a twelve-day, your sütinrod gets somewhat hard at the mere sight and smell and touch and taste of a naked, beautiful, willing woman,” he said.

  Thorian Thorsen chuckled as he opened the tailgate, and selected a bag of groceries, handing it to Davy Larsen. “I couldn’t find the plain Eucerine, so I picked up the Eucerine Plus for you,” he said. “I hope that’s acceptable.”

  “Just fine; I appreciate it,” Davy said. He carefully set the bag down on the ground and took a step toward the Bronco, hands out.

  “No need; there are plenty of us to unload,” Thorsen said. “You’ll want to get that hamburger meat in your refrigerator if you’re not going to cook it today, and that ice cream is going to melt. Best to hurry home.”

  “I guess you’re right.” Davy nodded as he picked up the bag. “Thanks for picking the stuff up. Receipt in the bag? Good; I’ll write out a check and drop it off later.”

  Thorsen nodded, dismissing the subject; he was already handing a couple of bags to Ian, who carried them into the kitchen, with Arnie, Ivar del Hival, Doc Sherve, Hosea, and Thorsen following. With each of them carrying two bags—except for Hosea, who settled for one—the Bronco emptied out almost immediately, and with Hosea supervising, the groceries were quickly stowed in cabinets, the huge fridge in the Thorsens’ kitchen, and the coffinlike freezer down in the basement, except for the two repacked bags destined for Arnie’s house.

  Thorsen brought charcoal and lighter fluid out to the backyard and started up the barbecue, while Ian and the rest took to their chairs.

  “So,” Ivar del Hival said, sitting back down in his chair, his fingers laced over his ample belly, “what shall be your pleasure?”

  “Eh?”

  “You’re back early, which I take it means you’re eager to get back to Tir Na Nog, and continue the hunt.” Ivar del Hival stretched out. “Now, if you were to ask me, I’d suggest you spend another half year or so taking fencing lessons from Thorian del Thorian, bowmanship from Orfindel here, and some hand-to-hand from me, but—”

  Ian shrugged. “I’m in no hurry.”

  Closing his affairs here had turned out to be easier than he had thought. Unsurprisingly, D’Arnot had fired him when he hadn’t shown up for work at the fencing studio, and arranging a leave of absence from school when he had already missed some weeks was just a matter of filing some papers. Ian felt bad about the hard feelings—but he could hardly explain the reason he’d been gone, so there was nothing to be done about it.

  There were a few friends, in the loose sense, that he would have wanted to say goodbye to, but he could hardly tell them that he was planning on taking a Hidden Way to Tir Na Nog, to search for another of the jewels of the Brisingamen.

  And, of course, there was that asshole of an excuse of a father, but Ian had nothing to say to him.

  The complicated thing was converting four rucksacks filled with gold coins into cash, but he had simply dumped that on Karin Thorsen, and she had done that before, with her then-future husband’s stolen gold. In the well-ventilated shop in the basement of the Thorsen house, the letters and the seal of the House of Fire disappeared, and the coins became anonymous small ingots that could be carefully, slowly disposed of, over a matter of years if need be.

  Ian wasn’t in a rush to leave. Torrie and Maggie were off knocking about Europe somewhere, while Torrie explained to Maggie that she wasn’t coming along this time.

  Ian frowned. Maggie wouldn’t take that well, but there was no getting around it. Unlike Ian, Maggie had family connections, and simply couldn’t quite literally drop off the face of the Earth without being missed. Unlike Torrie, Maggie didn’t have family and friends who would cover for her.

  Explain it to her family? Yeah, sure. Hey, Daddy, I’m going to go wandering around Tir Na Nog, where what’s left of the Old Gods are in retirement, searching for the jewels of the Brisingamen, in which are hidden the dark matter necessary to restart the universe. Maggie’s father was a clinical psychologist; he’d arrange with a psychiatrist to have her committed.

  And besides, it was dangerous.

  Ian found his hand reaching down to touch the package containing Giantkiller, the way he used to reach down and touch his wallet when at a restaurant, as though if he didn’t compulsively keep track of it, it would disappear—

  “Well, when you’re ready,” Ivar del Hival said, “you can count on me to go with you, at least as far as the Dominions.” He shrugged. “Not a bad place to start. Perhaps there’s some savant somewhere in the Cities with some clue as to where to begin looking.”

  Thorian Thorsen snorted. “If it were easy, if there were clues aplenty out, all of the jewels would likely have been found long ago.”

  As it was, it was Torrie, not Ian, who had stumbled on the hidden safe-within-a-safe that contained the ruby. Torrie, having grown up with Hosea, had a better feel for the way of hidden things than Ian did.

  But to hell with it. “You’re saying I shouldn’t go?”

  Thorsen shook his head. “Not at all.” His smile was faint, but it was there. “But I think that too much eagerness is… unwise.”

  “I agree, Thorian.” Ivar del Hival nodded. “I wouldn’t think of telling you what you should do, Ian Silverstein, even if I thought I knew, which I don’t. You’re a stiff-necked fellow, and I’d not want to match stubbornness with you.” He bent over, unlaced his heavy workboots, and removed them and his thick socks, which he carefully folded before setting them aside. His feet were short, no more than a size 7, but very wide. He was missing the little toe of his right foot. There was probably a story in that; for Ivar del Hival, there was probably a story in damn near everything.

  Ivar del Hival rose to his feet with a grunt. “But if you’re going to continue your education, let us continue it now, while you have a chirurgeon in attendance, as you may soon have need of his services.”

  “Enjoy yourselves.” Doc raised his cup of coffee in a toast. “Just remember, I’m a plain old country doctor, and if you yank his heart out of his chest or something, I won’t be able to put it back.”

  Arnie Selmo grinned. “Aw, I bet you could put it back, Doc. Don’t think it’d work, mind you, but I bet you could put it back.”

  Ian took his shoes off, rolled up his sleeves, and stood. “Light touches, only?”

  “I think not.” Ivar del Hival cracked his knuckles. “Nothing killing, nothing permanently debilitating, but I’ve been bruised before, and don’t mind bruising my knuckles again.” He dropped into a half-crouch as they sidled away from the circle of lawn chairs.

  “Let us see if your vacation has softened you, shall we?”

  Thorian Thorsen was a duelist, and a wizard with a sword, but Ivar del Hival had spent his life in the service of the House of Flame, and that meant years of training as a soldier and warrior. The Middle Dominions were not what they had been in ages past, but an ordinary of the House of Flame was still expected to be able to lead a troop of peasant spearmen or archers in defense of the Dominions, and that meant that he had to be able to prove himself, if necessary, by fighting, peasant-style, either hand-to-hand or with weapons derived from farm implements. And in addition to the skill, Ivar del Hival was close to twice as heavy as Ian as well.

  Ian dropped into a crouch and circled to the left, careful of his footing. One slip, and it was all over. His only advantages were youth and speed; reach was about a draw. If he could keep Ivar del Hival running around long enough, the old man would tire sufficiently for Ian to move in and score, but if Ian let those large hands fasten on him, even once, the match would be quickly over. Ian had lost to Ivar del Hival before, and didn’t much like it.

  Ian faked a lunge, ducked low under an outstretched arm, and came up around behind Ivar del Hival. The temptation was to move in and go for the choke, but Ian played it conservativel
y: he kicked at the back of Ivar del Hival’s knee, and tried for a backhanded blow just above the kidney when Ivar del Hival stumbled.

  He more felt than saw a thick arm sweeping toward him, and dove forward as Ivar del Hival fell behind him. An outstretched arm slapped hard against the ground to kill his fall, and Ian quickly skittered away on fingers and toes until he could get his feet under him.

  “Nicely done, boy.” Ivar del Hival rose again to a crouch, grinning crookedly. “Now it’s my turn.” This time, he closed in a rush that Ian was able to backpedal away from—

  —until Ivar del Hival accelerated, faster than Ian had seen the fat man move before, and one huge hand fastened on Ian’s right wrist.

  It would have been pointless to pull back against Ivar del Hival; Ian had tried that before. So he went along with the pull, jerking his wrist up, working against the thumb of Ivar del Hival’s gripping hand, smashing the edge of both hands down, hard, against the bigger man’s biceps.

  Ivar del Hival grunted, and his arms dropped, but as they collided, he managed a leg sweep, knocking both of Ian’s legs out from underneath him, and landing on top of Ian as they both fell to the ground.

  A hamlike fist deliberately pounded the ground next to Ian’s neck. “Call that a strike to the neck,” Ivar del Hival said, rising. He offered Ian a hand. “But nicely tried. Another fall?”

  Ian was already trying to work out some stratagem for the next fall when Thorian Thorsen interrupted.

  “No. It is my turn.” Thorsen was on his feet, a palm outstretched. “I’ve been hearing so much talk of late about the incompetence of a House of Steel duelist when the competition doesn’t involve swords.”

  “Very well,” Ivar del Hival said, in between pants, with an expansive sweep of the arm. “He’s all yours.”

  “No.” Thorsen grinned. “I think not. I’ll try heavier game. The game responsible for all the talk.”