The Last Days of Magic (41 page)

“Yes, sire,” replied the captain, immediately making his way toward the new stone bridge, finished less than a year earlier just upriver of the ford. A steady stream of refugees flowed north across it. After the English invasion, Turlough had suspended the toll of one-half a silver penny.

Liam and Conor rode around the corner of the castle, following the outer edge of the moat, leading a company of frayed and tired Gallowglass. On seeing Turlough and the pile of burning bodies, they reined in their horses.

“King Turlough,” Liam said. “Looks like you had a difficult fight.”

“Indeed,” confirmed Turlough. “The Fomorians overran the ford and the bridge. We counterattacked. It was a long and bloody night. When the sun rose, my archers on the castle walls were able to drive them off with impunity. Now that we know, they’ll not catch us by surprise again. We’ll keep the bridge open.”

“Were many of your people killed?” asked Liam, his brow furrowed.

“Twenty-three warriors died fighting. Most of the wounded will be ready to fight again soon,” said Turlough. “What word of the English?”

Advancing north from Waterford, Richard was copying the slash-and-burn policy of
chevauchée
that his father, the Black Prince, had employed so successfully in France. Turlough last heard that Richard had skirted the Wicklow Mountains, leaving them to his Sidhe collaborators, and that he had captured and fortified Jerpoint and Kilkenny while burning all other villages to the ground along the way.

“We just withdrew from Leighlin,” said Liam. “It’s Richard’s now.”

Turlough nodded, watching the refugees plod across the bridge.

Art was not making a stand in the south. Instead he was harrying the English in an attempt to slow the enemy’s advance while the Irish armies mustered at Tara and to give Aisling time to recover her powers. Art maintained that Aisling was their only hope to defeat Kellach and the English. Meanwhile Irish casualties were mounting, mostly the result of the English longbow’s lethal reach.

“The land will be thick with ghosts tonight,” said Turlough, inclining his head toward the line of refugees. “Few have time for a feast or even offerings.”

“Too many new ghosts,” said Liam.

“Do you know how long it will be until I have to move my forces to Tara?” asked Turlough.

“The English will need to take the bridge at Carlow next. We can slow them down there for a while. And Art won’t attack before Richard moves north of Dublin, so as not to become trapped between
him and his Viking allies. You still have a few weeks to finish preparations.”

“We’ll be ready,” said Turlough. “Will Aisling be ready?” he asked Conor.

“Yes.”

“Tell her . . .” Turlough paused. “Tell her how much we’re counting on her.”

“She knows,” replied Conor as he spurred his horse and splashed across the ford, followed by Liam and the Gallowglass.

A wagon lightly loaded with supplies lumbered toward the castle gate.
Tonight’s feast will be meager,
Turlough thought. Still, a king owes hospitality to his subjects, and the gate would be open to all who wished to attend. A shallow smile crept onto Turlough’s face as he thought of his required, ritual intercourse with the symbolic Earth Mother—a welcome distraction, particularly with the beautiful priestess who had agreed to conduct the ceremony. His smile vanished as Mamos walked through the smoke toward him.

As a young boy, Turlough had been afraid of the gruff druid of Trim, old and weathered even then. Time had not improved Mamos’s disposition, and Turlough hoped Mamos would not insist on being one of the witnesses at the Earth Mother ceremony. That would take all the fun from it and even risk its success.

Without greeting, Mamos declared, “Aisling no longer brings enough of the Morrígna into this world to save Ireland from Kellach or the English.”

Turlough clenched his fist, dried Fomorian blood flaking off his glove, and wished he could hit Mamos for the insult to Aisling. But it was unwise for anyone, even a regional king, to strike a druid as powerful as Mamos, second only to Brigid. Instead he said, “Aisling is all we have.”

“We have her new twins. They’ve drawn the power from Aisling, and it’s said they’re slow to return it. What if these twins are the next incarnation of the Morrígna arriving, as it’s called for, in
our greatest time of need? Perhaps Aisling is the only thing stopping the twins from bringing the Morrígna back fully into this world.”

“Brigid has said that the Morrígna can’t return as long as Aisling is alive. It’s unknown if the Morrígna can ever return after what happened to Anya,” Turlough said.

“The Morrígna can do anything the Morrígna wishes. Remember when the Goddess first appeared to us, in that time of dire need. She manifested into human form from nothing but her own desire. Are we in less need now?”

Turlough stared into Mamos’s eyes. “What are you suggesting?” Turlough thought he knew. The faction calling for Aisling to retire to the Otherworld—so there could be at least a chance that the Morrígna would return to this world—was rapidly growing and had become more vocal. As one of the most respected monarchs, he had been approached several times already to see if he would join their ranks. He hoped he did not have to.

“There are Sidhe other than the Devas and Adhene that don’t wish to see Kellach rise to power, some even within the ranks that Kellach considers allies.” Mamos lowered his voice. “I’ve received word that they wish for a meeting. What I’m suggesting is that you come with me, and we shall learn what they propose.”

. . . . .

Ignoring the chill of the first winter night, Aisling walked barefoot in her thin night shift along the tree line behind Dunsany Castle. She watched ghosts drift between the trees, so many seeming lost. Thinking of her sister, Anya, awoke that familiar pain in Aisling’s heart, as if the arrow had never been pulled out. A tear slid down her cheek, cooling as it went. She thought of how, when Anya and she were young, they would sneak out in the dark of Samhain and chase the ghosts. She remembered how she had learned an enchantment to reveal their features and how Anya could make them talk, always tales of loss, regret, and loneliness. Tales that the girls, in their
innocence, so confident that such misfortune would never happen to them, would giggle at as the ghosts drifted off.

Now she ached to talk to Anya’s ghost, but all her attempts had failed. Anya should have returned to the Morrígna in the Otherworld, to wait for her there. But could she, with her heart destroyed? Was Anya just gone, never to return to the Morrígna, or pass to the After Lands, or even to haunt this world? Just gone?

Aisling stopped at the trailhead that had once led to her Woodwose camp. The Woodwose believed that after death they would be reborn as animals, echoing how they had lived—wolves, bears, or foxes, they hoped. Aisling saw nothing down the dark path. When she died, where would she go? she wondered. Would she, too, just be gone? Turned to nothing, without Anya’s heart to call her home to the Morrígna? The pain in her chest doubled, causing her to catch her breath. She did not want to hear any stories from the dead tonight—or any night. She circled back toward the castle and increased her pace, trying to keep her fears at bay.

Since the English landed, thoughts of Anya’s loss had been returning too often, bringing with them the old dark visions and making it impossible to ignore the emptiness inside herself. The invasion was a bitter reminder of what she was meant to be and what had been taken from her. With all of Ireland counting on her, the ground under her feet felt less solid. Her sleep was plagued by nightmares of Conor being killed in battle, of herself falling back into her internal blackness. She fell and fell, and in the dream she could not tell if it was a nightmare or if she was trapped once again in that hellish place. She would awake screaming and flailing for something to grasp on to. When Conor was home and she felt the nightmare waiting at the edge of her exhaustion, she would force herself to stay awake all night to keep it at bay. She did not want him distracted by her fears while he was fighting the English.

As Aisling approached her home, the rear door swung open and cast a warm light out toward her. Conor, still grubby from the ride
back and cradling a daughter in each arm, smiled warmly at her. Her pain eased as she ran to him. His absences were particularly hard, given that she could not work enchantments to watch over him. Reaching the stairs, she longed to ask him to stay with her, to not return to the war, but she knew she could not. She was born to her duty to Ireland, but she had thrust position and duty upon him. It would be too much of a betrayal to ask him to abandon those responsibilities now.

I
T
TOOK
FIVE
WEEKS
before Turlough was ready to accept the dissident Sidhe’s invitation to meet. He had urged Art to storm Dublin and take it from the Vikings before Richard reached it, but Art continued to wait for Aisling. Now Richard had arrived at Dublin and had added Carlow, Castledermot, and Connell to his chain of fortified villages, linking it to Waterford, burning the twenty-three villages in between that he did not consider strategic enough to hold. If something was not done to stop Richard soon, he would roll over Tara and be at the gates of Trim Castle in a month. Not even Trim could stand long against an army as large as his.

Tonight the road northeast was a ribbon of black rain wandering through a darker black forest. Turlough had been following the hint of gray that was Mamos’s horse, which had now stopped. Turlough dismounted, tied his horse to a tree next to Mamos’s, and pulled a torch from behind his saddle. He struck a flint a few times, but the sparks were doused instantly in the rain. Mamos spoke a few words, and his own torch flared up. Abandoning his efforts with the flint, Turlough lit his torch from Mamos’s, then followed the old druid down a narrow path into the thick forest. He could hear Mamos muttering an enchantment of concealment, keeping other druids and Sidhe witches from sensing their location or intent.

The path opened into a large field, where a few cows along the edge huddled together against the cold, wet night. In the center an
earthen ring rose waist high. Large retaining stones set lengthwise in the earth were carved with star trails, the eighteen-year-long cycle of the moon around the earth and, some said, maps through the Middle Kingdom to new worlds known only to the Sidhe. The ring glowed, as if lit by moonlight, though the moon was well hidden behind thick clouds. It looked empty.

Taking over the lead from Mamos, Turlough sloshed across the field and around the ring to the gap in the far side. He drew his sword, stuck it into the soft ground, and then jammed the base of his torch into the earthen ring above a retaining stone. Once through the gap, he found that it was not raining inside and saw, as he knew he would, that the faerie-lit ring was full of Sidhe.

Eight squat Grogoch and three diminutive Dryads awaited his arrival. One Grogoch stepped forward. Turlough had the impression that he was older than the rest, though, truthfully, it was hard to tell; perhaps it was just that he was a bit wider than the others. He was called Eldan. Turlough recognized him from negotiations about the construction of the new stone bridge at Trim.

“King Turlough, thank you for agreeing to see us,” rumbled Eldan with a bow.

“Eldan,” replied Turlough with a nod of his head. “It doesn’t surprise me that you’re not aligned with Kellach, though I’m surprised you’re still here.”

Eldan rolled out a deep sigh. “I thought to leave, as so many have, but who knows if a new world will have stone as loving as in this world? Or harsher masters? Ireland is my home. Best to protect this land from Kellach, for the tree does not respect the stone; rather it seeks to break it, turn it to earth, and consume it.”

“How do you propose to stop Kellach?” asked Mamos, in a tone belying the fact that he already knew the answer.

“The Morrígna must return fully.”

“The Morrígna must return,” echoed the gravelly voices of the other Grogoch and the squeaky voices of the Dryad.

“Aisling still lives. And even if she didn’t, Anya’s heart was destroyed,” Turlough said, repeating the old familiar argument.

Eldan trundled over to one of the inner retaining stones and sang to it. Reaching his stubby fingers into the stone as if it had softened to clay, he tugged open a chamber, then stepped back.

Mamos pulled a candle from his pocket, lit it with whispered words, and held it up to the opening. Turlough bent to look inside and gave an involuntary intake of breath at what had been concealed: a shriveled thing, brown like a piece of dried meat, no more than a small bite. Turlough had been at the Ceremony of Hearts when Aisling and Anya were but seven and knew that this must be the missing piece of the Morrígna heart, the piece entrusted to the Skeaghshee—thought to be from the previous Anya incarnation.

Turlough straightened up quickly, instinctively surveying his surroundings, straining to see into the dark beyond the ring. He reached for his sword, but his hand found only the scabbard.