The Park Family: Mairi: Retribution

by Lisanne Valente

  “Now, now, Paschar, we must be grateful for all that she can give.” His eyes turning black and malevolent, he glared at the woman and hissed, “Don’t we, Mother?”

  Angela scurried nearer, taking close note of the clothes he wore. “What do you wish me to do, Son?” she asked coyly.

  “Nothing dramatic, Mother, just assist me in freeing the kings.”

  “What kings?” she asked, confused.

  “We kings, you moron,” said Amdusias.

  “Are you sure she’s up the the task?” asked Baal.

  She was the epitome of how a witch was expected to appear. A wizened, haggard old crone, bent over, requiring a stick to help her shuffle, the chains around her ankles making movement even more difficult for her.

  Her nose was hooked with a wart on one side, and her wrinkled face was grey, but her eyes, now they were as sharp as a teenage lass. They saw everything.

  “Let me help you, Son,” she purred, leaning over and taking his hand.

  Lucias visibly grimaced at her touch but remained stoically in place. She lifted his hand to her cheek, and he withdrew it immediately, not wishing anything so intimate with her, but not before Amdusias and Baal noticed the open cuts to her wrist.

  “Can we get on with it, please?” asked Baal impatiently.

  Angela turned on him, taunting him. “We’ll get on with it when I’m ready!” she screamed. “Wait your turn, you traitor.”

  “Mother, Mother, calm down. Do not, under any circumstance, talk to my men in this way. I have a special plan for them, when they leave this prison.”

  “Well, I hope you know to keep them shackled, because the minute they are free, they will betray you.”

  Lucias turned a querying eye at the kings. “Is that so? Is my mother right in this regard?”

  Amdusias spoke honestly, “I have made a pledge. I may be a demon king, but as far as I am aware, a demon king’s pledge holds in place, no matter where or when it was made. Am I not correct in that assumption?”

  Lucias stared at his mother. “Is this so, Mother, are you the one who is betraying me?” he asked dangerously.

  “I may have misunderstood,” she mumbled. “Let me help you free them,” she said urgently, hoping he would forget her transgression. “Then, you can be on your way to whatever war you have planned.”

  “Did you think to remain, Mother?” he whispered. “I have need of you. You will be with us when we venture to my war.”

  “Who knows, you may be lucky enough to reunite with Balam.” Baal’s booming laugh threw her to the ground.

  Lucias helped her to stand, then, ridding himself of her stench, wiped his hand on his pantaloons. Placing both hands on her shoulders. When she started to raise her arms, Lucias shook his head and began chanting. “Ab utero dimittere eos.”

  Angela chanted, “Ligabis ad eum.”

  Dust rose from the ground between them and circled like a whirlwind.

  “Sint liberi, sed mea,” Lucias instructed the magic. “Ligabis ad me.”

  Angela whispered, “Ligabis ad eum.”

  “Oh, wait a minute,” Amdusias said, panicking. “You’re setting us free but binding us to you?”

  “What happens if you are killed in your war?” asked Baal.

  “Then I guess you’ll be killed alongside me—now that you are mine.”

  Angela’s shoulders shook, and she began to laugh, though it sounded more like a cackle. Lucias smiled and started to laugh alongside her, and, with a wave of his hand, he sent the magical whirlwind in the kings’ direction. Angela and Lucias pursed their lips and blew until the whirlwind separated into two parts. One attached itself to either king.

  Their cages spun like electric whisks, whizzing round and around. When they stopped spinning, the kings stood before Angela and Lucias, dressed identically to him. The plumes in their helmets were not quite so ostentatious, nor were they as bright, but it was clear they had been attached to the same bird that had died, in order his feathers be used as decoration.

  “Let us group with the armies of Hell,” Lucias said proudly and held his mother’s hand. Baal and Amdusias expected a flourish of magic to assist them reaching the Throne Room. Instead, as soon as Lucias vanished, they vanished with him, the binding spell tying those together. Wherever he went, the kings would be right beside him.

  “Master, we must go now, the Armada is preparing to leave, and we have to be on board,” insisted Paschar when they appeared in the room.

  “You will note we have all the Legions prepared.” Duke Vual stepped forward, together with Flauros. “We are with you, Lucias. Lead us to glory.”

  Lucias scanned the room. Thousands of demons dressed as Spanish soldiers waited for him. The dukes and kings were visibly excited at the prospect of another war, killing, blood, every disaster that went with the sport they loved the most.

  His mother hid behind him, impressed by all he had achieved. To think, all he needed was her own blood in order he became the man his father had hoped he would be.

  Now he truly could call himself King Lucias.

  “Ready yourself for the Merging.” He pushed his hands in the air, his fingers spread wide, making small rotations with his wrists. The movements gradually moved from tight circles to an ever increasing widening vortex, until his arms were whipping and whirling, creating a hurricane. As they spun wider and wider, the air became denser, and droplets of water began to pour onto the floor sizzling upon contact, changing instantaneously into tiny stones.

  The stones became one with the magical spinning and spread around the room, surrounding all the demons.

  Lucias flicked both of his wrists, and the stones turned to ties that bound them all together. His mother pursed her lips and blew her energy over them all, catching them in her magic.

  “We go to war!” he screamed as a fearsome wind grabbed them and yanked them through time.

  The Conjurer watched from the darkness as the brigade of armies were swept up in the time tunnel and whispered into Flauros’s ear. So caught up in the heady excitement Lucias had brilliantly attained he had forgotten about The Master.

  When his words evilly wormed their way into his soul, fear gripped him. He trembled, spinning his head around to catch sight of The Conjurer, who now stood in plain sight, in the middle of the Throne Room.

  His eyes stared ominously at Flauros, who shrank into the mass of Legions, in the hopes of evading. But there was no escape.

  “He dies, Flauros, or it is you who will go, in his stead, to my chair of evil.”

  Chapter Twenty

  War

  When the Spanish Armada were defeated by Drake, they were forced to sail for home. Unable to retrace their route, the fleet was forced to sail back to Portugal using the North About route, which took them around the tip of Scotland and down the west coast of Ireland.

  The Spanish had little food and water, and many of the ships had been severely battle damaged and were therefore unsuited, in their design, to take on such inhospitable waters.

  The time of year they had chosen to invade and do battle, was one of the stormiest in the Atlantic, and without charts to help them navigate around the coast of Scotland, almost half of the ships were sunk in the sudden, cruel storms.

  Two ships of the fleet sailed into Tobermory, and laid anchor. The Laird MacLean welcomed the crew into his home. He had no affinity to the English, and for a fee, allowed the ships to rest for repairs, and restock.

  Lucias ordered his men to take the provisions necessary, while Vual oversaw their storage. Amdusias willingly helped, and Baal made sure his men were doing their share.

  Flauros, meanwhile, readied the men for combat, keeping them fit by continuing their daily battle routines.

  “How long must we remain on this small island?” he complained once again to Lucias.

  “When the time is right, we will leave. Let us rest and repair ourselves in body, as well as mind.”

  “I thought we would defeat the English fleet.”
Vual moaned and spat out the wine he had tasted. “This stuff is vile, what is it?”

  “I would be grateful for anything, if I were you,” Amdusias argued. “It was you who led the fleet straight into Drake’s fleet. I’d run when we reach Portugal. Half the men of the Armada fleet are dead because of your tactics, and the other half want to kill you, and they’re our Demons.”

  “Gentlemen,” Lucias said in a hushed voice, “there will be no going on to Portugal. We are at our destination and have to work together, now more than ever. If there is dissent, we cannot win our next battle. Drake was an appetiser for the main meal, not the reason we came to this realm. Remember, it is the Mistdreamer we come to end, not the English navy.”

  The Demon kings and dukes put away their squabbling for a moment and faced the mainland, the outline of which could be seen from Mull.

  “It’s not far to cross,” Vual noted. “And we have the vantage point of watching all that is going on at Mingary.”

  “Do you wish us to go over there in these wooden tubs?” asked a horrified Dantalian.

  “I have no intention of ever getting in one of those floating trees again,” Lucias answered disdainfully. “I will magic us to the mainland, the original fleet will be restored, to the remainder of their ships, and will head towards their own homeland, but they cannot live to tell any tales. We will place devices throughout the ships that will go off as soon as they leave this harbour.”

  “And none will survive?” asked Zagan, gleefully.

  “None can survive,” Flauros answered sternly, impressing his point, his eyes fixed squarely on Lucias.

  “Then what is the point in loading the food onto the ships? It is a waste of time if, in the long run, you intend to destroy the ships,” grumbled Zagan.

  “Why should we leave anything for the MacLean?” asked Lucias.

  “He would double-cross us as quickly as he can breathe,” agreed Amdusias.

  “And it’s good for the men to keep in shape, carrying the heavy loads up and down the gangplanks. It stops them becoming as bored as I with all this monotony.” Vual removed a piece of linen from under his sleeve and polished the steel of his breast plate.

  “Damn infernal rain, does it do anything but rain here?” he asked.

  “It snows.”

  “It blows the coldest winds.”

  “It has fog that will hide us when we enter the mainland and kill the Mistdreamers.” Lucias sneered.

  “Are they even there?” asked Baal. “I have seen no movement other than the Highlanders going about their usual mundane lives.”

  “I have no doubt they are there,” Angela said from behind them. The kings turned and shivered when they set eyes upon her.

  “Why say you this, Witch?” asked Baal.

  “They have a cloaking spell around them, that is why they are hidden from your sight.”

  “And you can see through this spell?” asked Amdusias.

  “I cannot,” she said sourly. “It is a spell of another witch.”

  Flauros touched Lucias’s arm. “I know she was of benefit to you in Hell’s dungeons, but can you inform me why she has come with us?”

  “I will inform you, Flauros,” Angela snarled. “I am Witch. I will remove the enchantment, in order you have knowledge of what it is you face.”

  Amdusias ignored Angela and asked Lucias if this was possible.

  “I can do it!” she screamed.

  “Calm yourself, Mother,” Lucias said quietly. “My kings will believe you to be mad. We wouldn’t want that, would we?”

  Angela stepped away from them, hunkering under her shawl, pulling it tighter around her old frame. “I always hated this realm. I never wanted to be put on this land. You kings insisted I infiltrate the Mistdreamers, and when I did, you left me as this… this old witch.”

  “Because you are an old witch,” Zagan said as he picked out a piece of meat from in between his teeth.

  “Just do what you have been brought here to do,” Flauros said angrily, “and we will all have our rewards.”

  Lucias turned his head so quickly it blurred in the movement. He stared at Flauros, who stood tall and returned the look.

  There was no doubt in Lucias’s mind, exactly what Flauros had insinuated.

  Death faced not just the Mistdreamers…

  *

  From the moment they had all arrived in Mingary, everyone appeared to know what was expected of them. All, that is, except Mairi. Appoloin had taken it upon himself to train her in defensive moves for an hour every day, and she enjoyed the lessons.

  She wandered around the castle, checking everyone was comfortable. Working with the kitchen, rather than in the kitchen, she made sure there was enough food to go around. It was magic, that was obvious, because there was no way a few fish could ever feed so many people.

  The Dragon were able to show off their incredible fighting talents and impressed the Highlanders who lived within the castle. They taught unusual ways to protect and prevent themselves from being killed. Contouring their bodies into shapes of defence and attack they had not realised were possible.

  The Angels constantly guarded the perimeters of the castle, while the Fae worked with the witches, watching from inside the boundaries, constantly checking their spells remained untouched.

  She visited Valerie and Lauren regularly, pleased they were in a secure place in the upper levels of the castle. Mairi was certain the room next to theirs had once been a chapel; it had a beautiful, serene atmosphere. Whenever she felt worried, she often found herself wandering there and just sitting, working on needlework, which she had been told young women were inclined to do. She was useless at it, much preferring knitting needles and wool.

  Her cousins were kept out of sight. Their pregnancies were further along than even they had known, Seere and Forcas rightly refused to allow them near any danger, but they had insisted their help would be essential, come the time.

  The time hadn’t come yet.

  She felt guilty because she still hadn’t told them about her babies. They were growing so fast, only a few weeks old, yet they already displayed signs of their unique and distinctive individuality. She had Baglis cast an invisibility spell, with the help of Appoloin, and they hid in a room with a concealed door in the wall.

  Kakabel had been unable to come to the century. He was to stay and watch over Lauren and Forcas’s twin boys, but Xaphan had somehow found his own way here.

  He had gone straight to Jenny, and a very emotional reunion left the woman in floods of tears. They talked daily, and the love they once shared was still there, but they had changed, and although they loved one another, they had different needs. It was a classic case of ‘wrong time, wrong place’.

  “A penny for your thoughts,” Xaphan said, and Mairi jumped.

  “I’m sorry, Xaphan. I didn’t hear you coming. My mind was elsewhere.”

  “Hmmm,” he agreed. “I wonder where your thoughts take you and with whom.”

  “I always think of him, Xaphan.”

  “And your boys?”

  Mairi gasped. Baglis was the only one who knew of Mairi’s babies. She had attended Mairi when she gave birth, and had been sworn to secrecy by the laws of the witch.

  Mairi felt dizzy, fear grabbing hold. “How did you know?”

  “I know, as do your cousins. They wait for you to trust them enough to share your news, and you cannot hide the smell of baby milk! I have lived with Lauren’s little terrors.” His face lit up like a bright star, and then, just as quickly, it was gone. “I recognise that smell from a hundred miles away… and so do your cousins.”

  “I’m not very good at deception, am I?”

  “I think you’re too honest for your own good. Trust your cousins, Mairi. They want to see your little ones.” He shuffled from foot to foot.

  “What’s wrong?” she asked, and, concerned for him, she placed her hand on his arm.

  “I do wish to meet them, also.”

  That was all
she needed. She took his hand and led him up the Castle’s winding staircase, past her ‘chapel’, and touched the wall. It parted, and Xaphan was delighted to see a Witch cradling the two babes, bouncing them on her knees and singing softly. She looked up in surprise and then fear when she saw Xaphan, pulling the babies closer to her.

  “Mirabelle, this is Xaphan.”

  The nurse did a double turn, looking from Xaphan to the babes.

  “I will leave,” he said, turning to go, but Mairi grabbed his arm and picked up one of the boys. She placed him in his arms, and he gurgled contentedly. “Xaphan, meet my boy, Paul Xaphan Park MacIain, Master of Kilchoan, Viscount of Acharacle.”

  Xaphan blinked a few times. He told himself he would not appear upset in front of her, but his eyes filled despite his best efforts. What was that all about? Why did this accursed eye watering keep happening? Ever since Omniel had turned him into a mortal, they kept leaking!

  “You do me a great honour, Mairi. He’s a strong lad. I’ll have him riding a horse and blacking some eyes in no time.”

  Mairi wanted to pull her baby from his arms, but knew it wasn’t going to happen. Xaphan cradled and rocked him, safely tucked in his arms.

  When he raised his eyes, he saw the other little bundle watching his every move. “And your other son, can I meet him also?” he asked.

  Mairi moved to take Paul from him, but Xaphan pulled away and shook his head. The baby, fingers wrapped around one of Xaphan’s, yawned happily.

  Mairi shrugged and placed her other boy in his arms. “Xaphan, meet my baby boy, Lord Christopher Graeme Park MacIain, of Acharacle.”

  “About time you introduced us,” Valerie and Lauren said, floating into the room. Mairi checked the door. It was closed and concealed. Her cousins were wrapped in their mists, which meant all the Angels would be informed soon.

  Xaphan refused to hand the boys over to either of them, and Lauren laughed. “He’s like this at home. Trust me, nobody gets near the boys except him.”

  “Kakabel is allowed to pick them up as well,” Xaphan argued.

  They laughed and talked, the Mistdreamers getting a chance to hold their new cousins, but only when Xaphan said it was time for him to join the Highlanders at the lists did he relinquish his hold of the little Lords. The whole day passed so quickly. It was like old times.