Ronan Boyle and the Swamp of Certain Death

by Thomas Lennon

  “It will all become clear to you soon, Ronan Janet,” said Pierce Brosnan. “You’ve left your human body behind, and you’re headed to a mixer that Dame Judi is throwing in a very bright cloud in what you would think of as space, but what angels know as the former planet of Pluto. But please don’t worry, it’s a very casual affair. Just some pass-arounds, pressed sandwiches, and of course the beret gifting room.”

  My mouth hung slack. Moments ago I was dying in a cage in Bad Aonbheannach. Now I was being escorted to a casual mixer with one of the very solid James Bonds. I could already feel that my various allergies had vanished. My nostrils were wide open. Not even one part of my body was itchy (and this is rare in our dimension).

  “I think you’re going to like it here, Ronan Janet,” said Pierce Brosnan, giving me a little wink. “And a great friend of yours is already with us.”

  “Hello, I’m David Beckham, welcome to McDonald’s, can I take your order?”

  The ghost of Brian Bean had materialized next to Pierce Brosnan. I was delighted to see him. He was doing the bit I had suggested to him in a dream: David Beckham working the drive-through. It wasn’t a perfect bit, and honestly, I’ve heard a lot of David Beckham impressions in my life, so it felt a bit tired. Still, I laughed hard, feeling happier than I had ever felt before.

  And then a unicorn hoof kicked me in the midsection so hard that I barfed up a walnut. Ugh.

  I was back in Tir Na Nog.

  “Is he dead?” asked Equasos with zero panic in his voice.

  “Not quite, sir,” replied Nelson, with that pleasant whistle between his teeth.

  “Good. He’s the best sidekick I ever had. I love this li’l beefie. Wake up, kid—you’re about to get a raise. That is, if you’re not dead.”

  I blinked and wheezed for a moment, fumbling around for my glasses. My throat was burning from the choking, and my sternum was bruised from Nelson’s hoof kick. But somehow, in all of this something ever so strange was happening. It was a feeling I wasn’t quite accustomed to.

  I was happy. Genuinely happy. Because I knew what was waiting for me in the next dimension: some kind of mixer with my favorite actress and pressed sandwiches. But deep down, I was mostly proud that I was doing a good job for Equasos here in the Cave of Miracles. Maybe playing a hapless leprechaun sidekick nine times a day for retired unicorns was my destiny. Perhaps Captain de Valera and Lily had already escaped the weegees and were fine?

  I could just stay here. Back in the human Republic of Ireland, my parents were museum types, and they were never overeager to praise me willy-nilly. Captain Fearnley, my mentor in the Galway Garda, said many kind things to me, I think—but I cannot be sure, as I could never understand his country accent. This praise from Equasos, a drunken lavender unicorn with a weight problem and major rage issues, was the most positive feedback I’d ever gotten in my life.

  Was this a horrible job? Technically, yes. Was I locked in a cage between shows and paid in damp walnuts? Yes—but even Equasos knew that I was nailing it. For perhaps the first time in my life, I felt like I deserved to be where I was. The teensiest, tiniest part of me felt bad that I was plotting my escape this very night, during the show that was about to begin. I was about to betray Equasos and I knew he would not take it well. He doesn’t even take good news well.

  “Anyhoo, make sure this kid gets some extra walnuts,” whinnied Equasos at Ricky as he trotted toward the stage, his hooves looping and tripping over one another in his soggy state. Ricky threw a few damp walnuts at me—hard.

  “Ooooooh. Everybody loves the new beefie, isn’t he wonderful? Puts Ricky to shame, doesn’t he!? Blah blah hooray for the beefie,” sneered Ricky as his paw-foot gave me a swift kick to the bottom. “And don’t you forget—it’s five hundred euros if you want that note from your beautiful pig friend!”

  Ricky reached into his fur for the note, but of course he couldn’t find it, as it was in my stomach! His eyes darted around the room angrily. He patted himself down. Then patted me up and down, but of course—found nothing. Then he let out a very sad howl, which is the kind of noise far darrigs make, inflating the little pouch under his tusks like a balloon—it was so loud that it would cause a ringing in my ears that would last for several days. Ricky gave me an extra hard blast with the hose, then threw one last walnut right at my nose.

  I could hear the first notes of “Hoofin’ It off to Where We Can Kill a Leprechaun for Free.” The show was about to start. Hopefully, I would be out of this stunning cave and buffet within the hour. But either way, I knew one thing for sure . . .

  . . . that I would give the performance of a lifetime.

  * Unicorns don’t wear T-shirts, but they do sometimes wear facebags filled with oats, clover, or leprechaun meat.

  * “Joie de vivre” is French for joy of life.

  † “Chutzpah” is Yiddish for audacious levels of MOXIE.*

  * Moxie is slang for confidence. Sorry, I’ve gone down a rabbit hole here on the footnotes, and I promised myself I would not interrupt this volume. Best regards, Finbar Dowd, Deputy Commissioner.

  Chapter Eight

  THE WATERCOMBS

  While I had vowed to give the performance of my life, Equasos was very off in this last show of the night. When he sang “Mister, Don’t You Poop on My Haypile, Please” (a pretty simple soft-hoof number) he messed up the words so badly that they came out as: “Sister Juan’s Tooth Is in Apoplexy”—lyrics that make even less sense than the real ones, which are nonsense to begin with.

  I scanned the lackluster crowd for any sign of Log, Capitaine Hili, Figs, or Rí the wolfhound—but there was no trace, and they certainly would have stood out, as the audience was barely half full, which always makes the buffet seem to stretch even longer.

  Sadly for Equasos, I could clearly spot a newspaper critic, sitting right up front, making notes in a pad with her dowser. She looked mortified.

  The rest of the crowd didn’t seem to mind that Equasos was phoning it in. These were older unicorns, with glassy eyes, puffing on pipes, or devouring huge piles of macaroni from the buffet. They would mouth along with the words to every song, except for “(Everybody) Get Funky,” which must have been from an era when Equasos was trying to reinvent himself. It didn’t jibe with the rest of his catalog. You could feel the oxygen get sucked out of the room when “(Everybody) Get Funky” began. It was also the number when the buffet line was always the longest.

  Yet I, Ronan Janet Boyle, was crushing this show.

  My yelps and screams were as close to the real screaming a leprechaun would do as you could imagine. In my mind I started musking, which is when frightened leprechauns make a foul smell. Perhaps it was just the crunchy, horrible outfit and two days of boat travel—but I felt like I was giving off a real musk. I was in the moment. The retired unicorns in the crowd sincerely looked like they wanted to kill me (a compliment, of course).

  During the bridge of “Poke, Poke, Poke dat Wee Man, Poke dat Wee Man Good,” when Equasos stabs me with his dowser and I fall down “dead” through the trap door—what was waiting for me below the stage made me gasp.

  I was told to be ready for anything, but of course I wasn’t, as being unprepared is almost a part of my personality.

  In the crawlspace below the stage, Log MacDougal was squatting, shillelagh at the ready, Rí the wolfhound at her side. Combined, they were certainly the largest animals that had ever been crammed into this crawlspace. Log had Ricky the far darrig trapped in her arm, her tattooed hand over his mouth. He struggled, but as Log is ten times stronger than any human I’d ever met, a cynical far darrig was no match for her.

  “Hehehehehe, hello Ronan,” giggled Log, “up for a little excursion?”

  I couldn’t help but give Log a massive hug. This was a bit awkward, as Ricky the far darrig was a hostage in her arm, and unwittingly became the third participant in this hug. He was annoyed, even by his standards.

  “Now little far darrig,” whispered Log, “me, my mate, an
d this bloodthirsty hound are going to walk right out of here, and if you follow us, I’ll snap your tusks right off and poke ’em in your eyes—I’ve done it before.”

  This was absolute blarney (not true). Log had never hurt a far darrig, nor would she. And Rí was an excellent dad of one of the younger wolfhounds in the Special Unit named Pedro. But Log was playing the part of a thug beautifully.

  “Wait, my uniform. My shillelagh, my shenanogram,” I whispered. “I can’t leave here in sequin shorts! I’m on two vendetti!”*

  “It’s quite fetching on you,” giggled Log as she turned to Ricky. “Bring us his uniform, or I’ll snap your tusks off.” Log gave Ricky a squeeze that made his eyes bulge and caused him to let out a sad little toot from his bottom.

  “Easy, easy! I’m the beefie’s friend—haven’t I been a friend to you, beefie?” said Ricky to me, his eyes pleading. “I gave you such fine walnuts, and kept you nice and fresh with the gentle hose.”

  I shot Ricky a dirty look. We both knew this was a revisionist notion of our relationship. Gentle hose? Trust me, it was set on “jet” or whatever unicorns call that setting.

  “Get his clothes and shillelagh, now,” whispered Log.

  “And the beret—so important! It doesn’t work without the beret,” I added, because, as you know, I love the optional Special Unit beret.

  “One funny move and . . .” Log made a gesture that suggested tusks getting snapped in half.

  Log loosened her grip. Ricky rubbed his throat with his paw, wounded and embarrassed. He scurried away into the shadows. Above us, I could hear Equasos’s hooves missing their marks. He and Nancy were getting to “Get Out of My Dreams and into This Harness,” which was bad news for me—as it’s immediately before the curtain call when I was expected to pop up through a trap door so that Equasos could set me on fire.

  It felt like a lifetime passed. Ricky was taking forever. Maybe he wasn’t coming back at all? I did not look forward to fleeing Bad Aonbheannach in this sequin outfit that crept up my bottom cheeks. Shockingly, a moment later, Ricky scampered back and passed me a garment bag and my shillelagh.

  “Good luck then, beefie,” said Ricky, with a glint in his eye. “I wish you well. I’ll need that outfit back, as I suppose I’ll have to play the wee man again.”

  I could see that Ricky was thrilled to be getting rid of me, as it meant he would be recast in his old role of Leprechaun Number One. There was an ever-so-tiny smile around his tusks, and I understood. There is a joy to being on the legitimate stage that is difficult to describe—a rush of adrenaline that is addictive.

  For no obvious reason, I gave Ricky a hug. He pretended to be cross with me, but his body language was warm. He patted my shoulder with his paw.

  “Take care in the watercombs, beefie,” said Ricky, “nasty things in there.”

  “Careful in the . . . what now?” I handed Ricky the sequin outfit as I fumbled into my kilt and beret.

  Rí nudged me toward a vent below the stage. A metal grate had been punched in by Log MacDougal, as it would have taken someone as strong as her to do this. Punching things is Log’s superpower.

  Log and Rí had found their way to me through the watercombs of Bad Aonbheannach—the complex water-works of tubes and tunnels that runs behind the cliff wall of the city and under the many spa baths. The flow of the watercombs also powers the locks and dams that bring boats up and down over Arthur falls, as well as a hydroelectric generator that lights up the many showrooms and karaoke lounges of the city. Tragically for those using it to escape, it also happens to be part of the city’s sanitation system. Yes, some of the tubes in the watercombs are used to flush unicorn poop out of the city. A city with a lot of unicorns in the high season. I wish I could tell you that we did not have to pass through one or two of these terrible poopways on our escape, but that would be untrue.

  Here are a few things you would find in the watercombs of Bad Aonbheannach, in order from least scary, to most scary:

  Skeletons of unicorns, stacked neatly for the past few thousand years, which gives the water tunnels the catacombs part of their name.

  Rats the size of teenage wolfhounds.

  Literal rivers of unicorn poop.

  The complete absence of even the tiniest sliver of daylight.

  Rí led the way. A dog’s nose is the only reliable guide in the pitch black. Keep in mind, Rí had to find his way out of this massive labyrinth of tubes the same way he had found me, only by smell. And to do that, he would have to block out the aroma of unicorn poop, which is a trick. I held on to his tail. Log shuffled along behind me, sometimes her huge shoulders rubbing each side of the tubes.

  I did not anticipate what would happen when I encountered the first of the mega-rats. You know the old maxim people love to say about how animals are “more scared of you than you are of them”? Well, this is very true of the large rats in the watercombs. They are the most scaredy-cat creatures I have ever encountered. I can’t say that I’ve seen them per se, as it’s pitch black in the tubes, but every one that bumped into me screamed like bloody murder and panicked. You could hear the rats yelling to each other, things like: “Oh my God! There’s something in the tubes!” and “EWWWWW HOLY MUCK, I JUST BRUSHED INTO SOMETHING.” (Log kindly translated the screams for me, as they were in the language of the animals.)

  The next three hours were like a horror movie from the reverse point of view, in which me and my mates were the monsters, and the plump rats were the heroes, running away from us.

  If I never hear a gaggle of super-rats screaming again, it’ll be too soon. At a few points I tried my best to have Log tell them: “Hello! Just two humans and a friendly wolfhound here, nothing to be frightened of!” But it was to no avail. The rats seemed to be very dimwitted. They did lots of things that unwise humans do in horror movies. They would back up into us and scream, they would split up, then run into us and scream. None of them had a plan other than to run and scream.

  I genuinely wondered what they thought we would do to them? Eat them? Ugh. Plump rats that have been marinating in unicorn poop for their entire lives? No, thank you very much! I don’t even eat shrimp or popcorn. God forbid popcorn shrimp.

  Rí was doing his best to navigate. His nose was pumping air like a well-made Dustbuster. We arrived at what felt to be a metal hatch. I could hear water was dripping around the seal. We’d been steadily climbing in the tubes for a human hour.

  “Well done, Rí,” Log said. “This hatch should put us under the top part of the falls. It opens underneath the river. So once through the hatch, hold your breath as long as you can. I’ll try to pull it closed after us.” Then Log repeated this to Rí in the language of the animals.

  We all held our breath. Log spun the valve on the hatch and a zillion gallons of water rushed down on us.

  I would not have made it through, had Rí not pulled me up by the shillelagh hooks on the back of my jacket. I remember thinking that I was about to drown and that wolfhounds were surprisingly good swimmers. Log squeezed through behind us and somehow managed to seal the hatch behind her—this was quite a feat, as she was fighting the full power flow of the River of GLOOM.

  My lungs were on fire. Rí’s teeth had lost their grip on me. I was disoriented, swimming in the direction I suspected was up, but this was more of a feeling than a fact. As I was about to run out of air, my beret bonked against something big and metal. I pulled myself along until I finally came to the surface of the river, panting, barely alive.

  The last few moments were pure terror, but it did get the last traces of unicorn poop out of my kilt.

  Capitaine Hili looked down at me from the deck of the Lucky Devil. Clearly she did not recognize me. At some point in my captivity she must have turned invisible and reset her memory* to back to blank. It would take much of the rest of the evening to catch her up on things.

  “Enchantee! Je suis Capitaine Hili, petit leprechaun. Très handsome, zis one!”

  In all the chaos, I had forgotte
n that I still had a long red beard glued to my face.

  Rí popped up beside me, paddling like a crazed Chihuahua. Log surfaced a moment later and pulled me toward the ladder of the Lucky Devil, which took me back to the moment that she had saved my life on Frolic Day during our training in Killarney.

  “You’re a sight for sore eyes, Ronan Boyle! We thought we’d lost you to the sharpies!” said Figs, using a derogatory word for unicorns as we flopped onto the main deck. “And I love the beard. Can’t believe you grew a long red beard in a day. Humans—they never cease to amaze!”

  “Figs!” I rasped. “I can’t tell you how good it is to see you! I’ve been living on walnuts and the finest water I’ve ever tasted. Also I was in a show, and—going by crowd reaction—I think I was pretty great in it.”

  “Well, you’re safe now,” said Figs, totally ignoring my triumph in the unicorn theater. “And I truly hate to do this, but you may have been compromised by the unicorns, so—you’re under arrest.”

  And then my friend Horatio Fitzmartin Dromgool, a naked little man with a hat, clapped handcuffs around my wrists.

  * Not a word.

  * Some consider the Tokoloshe trait of forgetting their entire life each time they turn invisible as a negative—BUT there are also well-regarded articles in Faerie and Human Science Journals that prove that the Tokoloshe quite love this phenomenon, and wouldn’t change it even if they could. Imagine being able to hear your favorite joke thousands of times, as if for the first time. Every Tokoloshe kiss is a first kiss, the kind that makes your heart race.

  Chapter Nine

  A CLUE

  For the next little bit I was a prisoner in the hold of the Lucky Devil, in a metal box that was once used to hold some manner of small livestock. The irony that this box was identical to the Box of Death that Equasos had kept me in was not lost on me. Only now I was being held by my own pretty-good friends.