by Kevin Hearne
Seeing that she would be at it for some time, I took the opportunity to examine my surroundings a bit better; it would distract me while I waited for the pain in my hip to subside. (If I drew any power to smoosh the pain, the Morrigan would feel it and laugh all the more.)
There were two other entrances to the chamber, equidistant from the one we had used. They were lit similarly and lined with bones on the walls. A wrought-iron chandelier with candles in it blazed above our heads.
The chamber was circular, I now realized, the very center of a barrow-mound with three entrances. It seemed like an awful lot of effort had gone into building such a plain room. There wasn’t even a hearth with some questionable stew bubbling in a cauldron.
“What is this place?”
The Morrigan took her time in answering. Once she had wound down, she said, “It is a place for rituals. For mortals it is a place of mystery and dread. Now, thanks to you, it is a place for laughter.”
I chose to ignore that last bit. “I see no thornbush here.” The tattoos that bound us to the earth had to be made with a living plant; Gaia would be present in our minds and direct the process.
“The ritual spaces are all hidden. Come.” She rose to her feet and brushed dust off her body. I rose too, limping a little, and followed her down the passageway to our left. After maybe ten yards she paused and faced the bony wall to her right. “The doors are easily seen with your magical sight. Mortals would never find them.”
Before I could shift my sight to the magical spectrum, she touched an inconspicuous knob of bone, which pushed in like a button, and a section of the bone wall sank backward and then shifted left with a hiss of air. Pneumatics. The Morrigan must have seen the surprise register on my face.
“I know you think me old-fashioned and resistant to change,” she said. “And that is probably not without merit. I still prefer the sword to the firearm. But I think I may have learned something from you. Many somethings. Come.”
She stepped through the door into a humid indoor garden ripe with oxygen and floral scents that tickled the nose. A glass ceiling turned the chamber into a sort of conservatory; along the top of the walls, near the ceiling, bindings carved into the surface spoke of abundance, fertility, and harmony. And, underneath those, bindings that meant the above were to apply liberally to all living things in the room. It was the sort of general, nontargeted binding that my cold iron aura had difficulty suppressing; I’d have to ward specifically against it if I didn’t want to fall prey to it, but, honestly, why would I bother?
Wait. As Hamlet said, That would be scanned. Harmony with the Morrigan?
More alarming: abundance and fertility … with the Morrigan?
I needed to change the subject quickly, even though the subject was only in my head. The Morrigan might spot it there.
“You know, Morrigan, I’ve been meaning to speak with you about how I got this wound,” I said, gesturing to my scarred right hand. “You were nearby at the time. You could have stepped in and prevented it, yet you didn’t. I could have died, and you would have broken your word.”
The Morrigan blew air through her nose in a sort of halfhearted snort, and a corner of her mouth turned up. “Why are you paying attention to what might have happened? Tell me what did happen.”
“I suffered unnecessarily.”
The mention of suffering caused the Morrigan to close her eyes in pleasure and make a yummy noise. “The necessity can be debated. But you lived. I never broke my word.”
“But it was an awfully close thing, Morrigan. A skin-walker tore out my throat—”
“And you healed,” she finished. “I have been faithful in my promise to you. I never promised that you would remain free from injury or suffering. For one thing, that would have interfered with my sex life.”
I flinched and took a step back. The Morrigan noticed and laughed. “Speaking of which, Siodhachan, how is yours of late? Do you even have one?”
“Yes, I have one,” I replied. I did my best to keep my tone matter-of-fact rather than sullen. It was more difficult than I thought it would be.
Her disbelief was clear. “You keep a mistress in that tiny town?”
“No. We head into Farmington or Durango on the weekends, or Gallup and Flagstaff on occasion. We both have various partners in these places willing to, uh, spend time with us.”
“Your gift for euphemism continues to thrive. But I think I have heard of such modern relationships. There is a colloquialism for them, yes? They are boogie calls.”
“Boogie? Oh! Nice try. You were very close. They’re known as booty calls.”
“That’s what I said. Booty calls.”
“You said boogie—” The Morrigan’s eyes flashed red for the briefest moment, and I cleared my throat. “Pardon me. I must have misheard you. Quite right.”
“So your apprentice has these booty calls as well?”
I shrugged. “As far as I know. It’s not really my business. She’s had a steady boyfriend or five over the years. She got a marriage proposal, too, which she rejected.”
“And you were not jealous?”
“It’s not my place to be jealous, because I have made it very clear to her that we cannot have a relationship beyond that of master and apprentice.”
“I didn’t ask about your place or anything regarding propriety. I want to know how you feel about her dalliances. Are you jealous?”
I considered. To claim I was completely indifferent would be dishonest. And there were times, perhaps, when Granuaile was a bit too eager to share her conquests with me. After she first met her boyfriend in Durango, she reported that “he was so hot that he damn near made my ovaries explode.” But that was as it should be; there was no reason for Granuaile to settle for anything less than hotness. Neither should she settle for anything less than joy. I hoped she would find someone to provide that for her since I couldn’t. For my part, I had not been trying very hard lately, and despite the general truth of what I’d told the Morrigan, I hadn’t made a booty call in quite some time. There were many beautiful, delightful, intelligent women in the area, especially in the college towns, but somehow they all fell short of Granuaile in my eyes, and I had been choosing to do without rather than settle for a sort of surrogate. It wasn’t celibacy, I told myself. It was high standards.
“No,” I finally said. “She is my apprentice but isn’t mine in any other sense. I am a tad envious of her partners, perhaps, but nothing more. I am happy for her happiness.”
The Morrigan scoffed openly. “Happiness? Neither of you is happy. Your auras scream of repression.”
“That’s okay,” I said.
“It is not. Sexual repression is conduct unbecoming a Celt.”
I shrugged. “Better that than having to deal with guilt ferrets.”
“What are guilt ferrets?”
“They’re bastards. They cling to your neck and tickle and bite and generally make you miserable, which is a pretty good trick for a metaphor.” They were also impervious to logic—perhaps their most diabolical power. There was no cause for me to feel guilty about any liaisons with other women, since Granuaile and I were not in a relationship and monogamy was not required, but the guilt ferrets attacked me anyway every time.
“I dislike guilt,” the Morrigan said. “It is regret and recrimination and despair over that which cannot be changed. It is like eating ashes for breakfast. It is the whip that clerics use on the laity, making the sheep slaves to whatever moral code the shepherds espouse. It is a catalyst for suicide and untold other acts of selfishness and stupidity. I cannot think of a more poisonous emotion.”
“I don’t like it either,” I admitted.
“So why do you bother to feel it?” the Morrigan asked.
“Because an inability to feel guilt points to sociopathic tendencies.”
The Morrigan made a purring noise deep in her throat, and her hands rose to pinch her nipples. “Oh, Siodhachan. Are you suggesting I’m a sociopath? You always say the sw
eetest things.”
I took a step back and raised my own hands defensively. “No. No, that wasn’t meant to be sweet or flirtatious or anything.”
“What’s the matter, Siodhachan?”
“Nothing. I’m just not being sweet.”
The Morrigan’s eyes dropped. “Fair enough. Looks to me like you’re scared stiff.”
I looked down and discovered that the sodding abundance and fertility bindings weren’t messing around.
“Ignore that guy,” I said, pointing down. “He’s always intruding on my conversations and poking his head in where he’s not wanted.”
“But what if I want him?” The Morrigan had an expression on her face that was almost playful; it humanized her, and for a moment I forgot she was a bloodthirsty harbinger of death and realized how stunningly attractive she was. She reminded me of one of those old Patrick Nagel prints, except very much in three dimensions and far more sexy. I found it difficult to come up with a clever reply, perhaps because most of the blood that used to keep my brain functioning well had relocated elsewhere.
“Well, um. Uh. Pretend I’m saying something witty right now. Also: nnnn—” I couldn’t say no. I wanted to, but I was physically unable to say it. I kept trying. “Nnnn …”
The Morrigan laughed and drew closer, taking me into her hand. I tensed up, expecting pain. She chuckled a bit more about that and leaned forward to whisper in my ear.
“Relax, Siodhachan. You have nothing to fear. You saw the bindings for harmony in this room. They work on me too. There can’t be harmony if you’re terrified, now, can there? So we will do it your way. This once.”
Harmony, I discovered, could be horrifying. That was what kept me from saying no. There couldn’t be open disagreement in the presence of these bindings. Combined with fertility and abundance, what the Morrigan currently wanted was precisely what the bindings wanted. I was the one out of harmony, so I felt the force of it. I thought of simply exiting the room, and managed a single step before my legs refused to move any farther in that direction. “Do we have to do it at all?” I said, desperately.
“You need it. So do I. And I can play nice when I want to.” Her words fell on my ear in soft warm puffs of breath, and she stroked me gently to prove she spoke the truth. My eyes closed and then snapped back open as I realized what was happening.
“But …”
“Shh.”
“Weren’t we supposed to be in a hurry?”
“I allowed for some wiggle room.”
She kissed me, preventing any other protest, and played nice. But the physical pleasure didn’t come with a side of emotional fulfillment. A zoo full of guilt ferrets bit me the whole time.
A Druid’s tattoos aren’t the sort one gets in a parlor from an excessively pierced person. The needle has to be living—in other words, a thorn from a live plant—and Gaia must be present. She guides where the ink goes and creates the binding that allows us to tap into her magic. Alone it took me about a week to get in touch with Gaia, but together with the Morrigan we were able to enter the trancelike fugue state and meld our minds in only five days. Touching up the tattoo on the back of my hand took an additional two, and during that time we were able to speak of the Morrigan’s progress on her cold iron amulet, amongst other things. One needs a distraction or five when getting stabbed repeatedly with pointy bits. Gaia doesn’t let you turn off the pain; gifts and talents earned without pain are so often taken for granted.
“So it’s been six years,” I said. “Are you about ready to bind your amulet to your aura?”
A hint of red crept into the Morrigan’s eyes and she didn’t respond at first, so I was going to let it slide and pretend I’d never asked the question. She surprised me by answering a few minutes later, just as I was about to introduce the topic of crocheted superhero plushies and their excessive cuteness.
“I don’t know if I’ll ever be ready, Siodhachan,” she said. “The trick is winning the favor of an iron elemental. As I have said to you before, I am unskilled in the arts of currying favor. If I curry anything, it is fear. But I cannot scare an elemental into binding cold iron to my aura. All I can do is scare them away.”
“But I thought you were making progress with one. The last time we spoke of this, you were feeding it lots of faeries and it was pleased with you.”
“Yes. Well, shortly thereafter I lost my patience and it fled. The same thing happened with two others. What is that American game you like so much, where a player gets three chances to succeed?”
“Oh—I think perhaps you mean baseball.”
“Yes. Baseball. I have struck out, Siodhachan—is that the correct phrase?”
“It is.”
“I have witnessed a couple of those games in crow form, because you find it so fascinating.”
“Really? Who did you see?”
“I misremember. My attention wandered, but I believe one team was inordinately proud of the color of their socks.”
“Oh, yes! Boston or Chicago?”
“Boston. That was it. Many fine Irish people there. I perched on top of a large green wall, and I can understand your attraction to the game. The players suffer greatly yet mask it with stoicism.”
“You liked the suffering? Well, that’s not why I enjoy it, personally.”
“How can you not appreciate their inner struggles? Whether they strike out or allow the opposing team to score or commit any number of other tiny failures, they are filled with doubt and self-recrimination and outright fear that their careers have ended, that they have lost the talent or skill that earned them the opportunity to play professionally, and with dread at the possibility that they have publicly shamed themselves. It is magnificent drama. It is little wonder that people pay to watch it and swill cups of poorly made beer while gobbling up those tubes of low-grade meat paste covered in ketchup and mustard. What are those called?”
“Hot dogs.”
“Why? Do they contain dog meat?”
“I certainly hope not. It’s just an idiomatic term.”
“Americans are a strange people.”
“Granted.”
“But the despair, Siodhachan! It is so very succulent. They strike out and return to their bunker area, you know what I mean—”
“It’s called a dugout.”
“Their dugout. They sit on a bench, curse their luck, and loudly accuse the opposing team of having Oedipal relationships with their mothers.”
“What? Oh, that took me a second. Thankfully, Morrigan, motherfucking is not nearly so common in America as baseball players would have us believe.”
“I am relieved to hear it. But then they chew gum or sunflower seeds or cancerous wads of tobacco and try to forget their failure, even though it gnaws away at them. They tell one another lewd jokes and speculate about the sexual orientation of the umpires. All of it is an attempt to lift their spirits to the point where they can compete successfully at their next opportunity. The true beauty of the game is in the dugout, Siodhachan.” She paused and swallowed before continuing in a subdued tone. “And that is where I am, regarding the binding of my amulet. I have failed and I need to convince myself that I can succeed the next time.”
“I don’t think there’s any question, Morrigan. You can.”
“I think you do not see my problem. To men I am either sex or violent death. Sometimes both. Occasionally I am a healer of battle wounds. But I am no one’s friend.”
“But, Morrigan—”
“Hush, Siodhachan. There is nothing you can say to alter the truth of matters. You have been more kind to me than anyone in my long life, but even you fear me. You are a wonderful lover, but I have taken you as I have taken all the others. I understand that I am not given friendship because I give none. It is truth, and I must face it here in my dugout.”
I had no ready reply. Perhaps the single tear trailing down her face stunned me to silence. Perhaps there is nothing one can add to the truth if it is properly told.
The Mo
rrigan sniffled once and wiped the tear from her cheek. “I would not share my emotions were we not bound with Gaia in a room of harmony. You see? I cannot give my trust or anything of myself without the aid of magic. All I do is take.”
“Well, I think you should take me out to a ball game or five after this. I will admire the grace under pressure and you can get off on the despair in the dugout. Great fun for the both of us. I’ll spring for the Cracker Jacks and maybe buy you a jersey. What do you say?”
“You want to simply … spend time with me?”
“Yeah. It’s what friends do. How does it sound?”
The Morrigan smiled and her eyes glistened. “It sounds like a gift. I would be grateful.”
“We are going to Norway now,” the Morrigan announced as soon as we left the room of harmony, abundance, and fertility and stood in the hallway of bone. Her tone immediately returned to the cold, businesslike rasp I was used to, and I was on my guard again.
“Why?”
“For an exquisite meal. And a rendezvous with certain gods who very politely requested a word with you.”
“Which gods?”
“They wish to introduce themselves.”
“They’re not Norse gods, are they?”
“They are.”
“I can’t see them!”
“You must. I have given my word.”
“That’s not my problem.”
Her eyes locked on mine and glowed red. “Oh, I rather think it is, Siodhachan.”
After our heart-to-heart talk in the binding room, this severe return to her old, implacable self was a bit jarring. “Could we maybe go back into the room of harmony and discuss this?”
“No.”
“Morrigan, I’m supposed to be dead, remember? If the Norse find out I’m alive, they’ll just want to kill me all over again.”
