The Last Days of Magic (5 page)

The song of the Grogoch faded, taking with it the enchantment that had been hiding the passage he needed, this was the first time this one had been used. In front of him, a small door appeared, set in the face of a single foundation stone, two feet high by four feet wide. Opening it with a word, he bent and entered.

Cinaed stepped into Haidrean’s library at last and straightened up to his full height. He had been delayed, not long, but maybe too long.
He flung a silent curse back down the passage at the waiting Grogoch, ignored their muffled cry of pain. Some clumsiness or laziness or double-dealing by their kind centuries earlier had left this passage without an exit door in the last stone. He’d been forced to break through into the chamber. In doing so he had triggered an enchantment designed to protect the room and, more problematically, alerted the druid Haidrean to his approach.

He pushed briefly against the enchantment with his consciousness and realized that he was not going to survive. It had closed too late to keep him out—the druid who cast it must not have considered an attack through the wall—so now it was going to keep him in. Reaching for his sword, Cinaed strode toward the pair at the table, but the old druid was already whispering to Anya, “Send Aisling all your strength. Now. It’s the only hope.”

Cinaed’s sword swept down, severing Haidrean’s head. He leaped over the table and thrust at the unmoving Anya. As he carved through breast and bone, he could feel that the Morrígna was already leaving. There was little more than this shell left.
Gods, don’t let me be too late,
he thought. Kellach had stressed that the attacks on the twins had to be simultaneous in order to kill them both. Cinaed reached into the cleft he had made in her chest and pulled out a heart that began to shrivel in his hand.

Still, he hesitated. In the fifteen hundred years since the Battle of Tailltiu, which led to the truce between the Sidhe and the Celts, three attempts had been made to assassinate a physical aspect of the Morrígna, yet no assassin had ever held half the Morrígna heart in his hand, as he now did.
What will the two worlds become without the Goddess to connect them?
he worried. She was the ruler of their high kings, the one being to whom all Sidhe and Celts alike owed allegiance, bound by ancient oaths.

Looking down at the heart folding in on itself, he could feel the enchantment fading at the chamber door. Soon the guards who had been shouting for Anya would be able to enter. He thought of the
words of Kellach. Raising the heart to his mouth, he bit off a large chunk and began to chew. The dagger of the first guard reached him as he swallowed the last piece.

A
ISLING
COULD
FEEL
Anya’s energy flowing into her body, keeping her alive, when suddenly a wound she did not know could be inflicted opened up in her, bringing pain that eclipsed that of the arrow and its poison. In that instant her bond with her sister was ripped away, and with it her connection to the Otherworld. Screaming, she collapsed into Liam’s arms, knowing for the first time since conception what it was to be alone, to be less than whole.

. . . . .

Kellach watched Liam carry a limp and sobbing Aisling to his horse. Having made himself indistinguishable from the surrounding trees, the Skeaghshee king stood in the rain at the edge of the clearing. A brief shudder passed through him, like a faint gust through leaves, as he felt the death of his brother, Cinaed. Knowing that Liam could sense the presence of a powerful Sidhe, Kellach was careful to remain concealed. Although he detested all crossbreeds, Liam was one whom he would prefer not to fight by himself. So he waited until the guards regrouped, collected Aisling’s horse, and galloped back the way they had come.

Expelling the Morrígna with concurrent attacks had been too much to hope for, he thought. Kellach had preached to his followers that if each of the twins’ hearts could be destroyed before its share of the Morrígna could retreat to the Otherworld, the Treaty of Tailltiu would be broken and all the Sidhe clans would at last unite and rise against the Celts and the Christians and reclaim the land they had lost. He, Kellach, would lead them to victory.

As his concealment enchantment faded, Kellach retreated into the woods. He should not have had to sacrifice his brother. He should not have had to deal with the twins at all, he thought, his anger
rising. They were not truly entitled to rule and should not have participated in the Ceremony of Hearts seven years ago, even if they had survived the Test. He alone of all the kings of the Middle Kingdom had stood up to the Morrígna’s tyranny. He alone had refused to return the pitifully small segment of heart that had been granted to the Skeaghshee clan for safeguarding, after the passing of the previous Morrígna twins. Without it the Ceremony of Hearts had been a sham, he told himself.

But now even the high kings would have to acknowledge that the surviving twin was flawed and, by the laws of both the Sidhe and the Celts, could not rule either race. Aisling had been wounded as never before. With her diminished state, he would seize the next chance he got to kill her and banish the Morrígna for all time.

2

Toraigh Island, Ireland

1373

F
ourteen years before Liam would become protector to the Morrígna twins, he stood alongside Earnan on the island of Toraigh, off the northwest corner of Ireland. Liam’s human ancestors were Gallowglass, warrior elite of mixed descent—traces of Norse, Gael, and Pict—from the isles and highlands of Scotland. When they had established this training school, more than a century ago, they named it Sgathaich Scoil after their old fortress on the Isle of Skye—the Fortress of Shadows.

On this clear afternoon, Earnan, a young instructor, readied himself to face off with Treasa, Liam’s fully human niece, who was waiting in the center of the practice field. In her left hand, she gripped an elegantly curved scimitar, an unusual sword for a Gallowglass. A polished chain-mail vest shimmered serpentine over her red padded jacket; loose trousers were drawn tight at her ankles. A heavy silver torc, in the form of a twisted rope, circled her long neck. She clenched and unclenched her right hand into a taut fist, her gaze unwavering.

“What did you do to anger her this time?” asked Liam.

“I don’t know. I just asked her if she’d like to share my bed tonight,” replied Earnan.

Liam handed Earnan a round wooden shield, two feet in diameter. “Take this and maybe you’ll survive with all your limbs attached.”

Bare-chested, muscular, and wearing a copper torc, Earnan stood at least a foot taller than Treasa and weighed more than twice as much. He bowed his head for a mumbled prayer to Frey and then reached for his claymore. He raised the weapon, pulled his shoulders back, and rushed at his fellow instructor with a roar.

“Next time offer to go to her bed!” Liam shouted after him. “That works sometimes!”

Sgathaich Scoil boasted over three hundred young Gallowglass students. They were joined by a hundred Celtic boys and girls who showed sufficient skill and whose families had the required funds.

The Gallowglass had emigrated en masse to Ireland rather than convert to Christianity following the Treaty of Perth in 1266, when Norway ceded northwest Scotland to England’s Edward I. With unsurpassed fighting skills, they quickly became one of the most powerful guilds in Ireland, as every lord of substance hired a garrison of at least a hundred. Not influenced by local feuds or clan pressure, their loyalty was unquestioned, as long as their contract was in force.

Liam watched the warrior dance between Treasa and Earnan, occasionally calling out instructions to Earnan. To the north of the practice field stood a ring fort, a castle keep, and a section of defensive wall. Beyond that, in a large lake hidden in a dense wood, stood the last type of fortress common in Ireland, a man-made island structure called a crannog. In the water’s depths dwelled a group of Fomorians—a race banished from all other Irish lakes—who were known to make the occasional meal out of hapless students attacking the crannog, even though Liam left that challenge for the students’ sixth year.

To the east stretched the village that had grown up with the school. To the west before the tree line stood a ring of standing stones in front of what appeared as a small hill, but with a stone-rimmed door set in its side: one of the entrances to the Middle Kingdom, home to most Sidhe clans. No battle, not even a mock battle, could be fought without gifts to bind contracts with the local Sidhe. Otherwise swords might stop a fraction too late or mail might develop weak spots. Liam, of mixed blood, handled these negotiations. His Sidhe mother was a Devas noble, a willowy beauty. His father claimed he had captured and bedded her the day he moved to Toraigh Island to take over the school, though who had captured whom had been a lively debate between Liam’s parents throughout his early years, until his mother sang over
his father’s grave and walked back into the Middle Kingdom. His father had bequeathed the school to Liam, but from his mother’s bloodline he was gifted with a variety of foresight. He instinctively knew the next move of any adversary standing close enough to attack him with a sword or ax, making his opponent’s life span brief.

Liam was watching a squire run out to Earnan with a replacement claymore—the original one lay some distance away—when something between a sound and a feeling caused him to turn. The full moon had just risen into the late-afternoon sky, giant against the distant Donegal hills across the channel separating the island from the mainland. A flock of rooks wheeled and swooped, boiling black against the silver moonscape. Rolling toward Liam from the rocky coastline, their cries overwhelmed the clang of steel against steel.

As the black mass passed overhead, Liam knew he had been called, an enchanted call that told him he would soon be needed elsewhere. It may have come in the cry of the birds, or in the wind they rode upon, or in the leaves that rustled in their wake. Or perhaps from something else entirely. It was a moment of knowing for those like Liam who could still perceive. Even in Ireland many were forgetting how to—forgetting itself a force as powerful as any spell—but not those who carried the blood of the Sidhe.

Turning to the practice field, Liam saw that Earnan was now on his back with Treasa astride his waist, the point of her sword pressed up under his chin. In her right hand, a dagger—Earnan’s own, Liam noted—slowly drew a red line across his chest. Treasa liked to leave a scar if her opponent had fought particularly well. She bent down and began to clean the wound with her tongue, her sword never leaving Earnan’s throat.

Earnan may get his wish after all,
Liam thought. “Treasa, finish up!” he shouted. “I must leave for Trim Castle before the next new moon, and there’s much to be done.”

Treasa moved her sword away from Earnan’s neck. “When will you be back?”

“I don’t know.” Liam gestured toward the retreating flock. “I have been called. The Morrígna may be returning.”

Treasa smiled down at Earnan. “That means real battles are in my future. I’ve dreamed of this time.”

“For now the school is yours to run,” Liam instructed her. “Try not to kill too many students, particularly those with wealthy families.”

Liam walked toward the school buildings, troubled. Had it truly been the long-absent Morrígna’s call? Or—more likely—the signal of some overeager druid who believed they had identified the Goddess twins? Since the last set, ambition or incompetence on the part of several druids had caused them to misread the signs, dooming the infant girls who were subjected to the Test. Liam dearly hoped this was not such a mistake.

He quickened his pace. If the call in fact signaled the Morrígna’s return, then he was destined to play a significant role.