by John Lenahan
Araf and I wanted to bring half a dozen soldiers to help pitch tents and cook and maybe set up a base camp but Spideog said we had to travel light and fast. ‘If we beat the snows it will only be by days,’ he said, ‘and it will be a good thing for you two princes to go without your handservants for a while.’ Dahy was right – he was annoying.
We travelled hard and while the sun was in the sky we took no breaks. On the morning of the third day we saw the peak of Mount Cas. It looked close but it took two more days to get to its foothills. On the fifth day we found a field and set up a base camp where we left the horses to graze. After that we went on foot. It took a day to reach t the cuse of the main peak and then another day of circling the mountain to find the trail up. The days were cold and the nights freezing but there was no imminent threat of snow. The night before we started our ascent Spideog disappeared and came back with a couple of pheasants that he had convinced to give up breathing so we could eat. There was little talk over dinner. Araf and Brendan turned in early but something in the old archer’s eyes made me think that he was troubled, so I just sat with him by the fire and matched his silence. Finally he blurted out, ‘I want to know why.’
I waited for him to say more but when he didn’t, I asked, ‘Why what?’
He didn’t look at me; he just kept staring into the fire. ‘Why I was unworthy.’
‘Who says you are unworthy?’
He pointed up the mountain. ‘The Oracle. The last time I was here he told me that I was unworthy. I didn’t ask him why, I just accepted it. This time I want to know.’
‘Well, I think it’s probably ’cause he’s nuts and has been breathing thin air for too long. One thing you are not is unworthy. Even Dahy respects you.’
He looked at me. ‘How do you know that?’
‘He told me.’
That brought a crooked smile to Spideog’s face. ‘It must have pained him to tell you that.’
I laughed. ‘I think it did.’ I stirred the fire with a stick and felt the extra warmth on my face. ‘I found a letter of yours in the library.’
‘Oh yes?’
‘Yeah, it was a letter you wrote to Dahy after the Fili war.’
‘Really? Oh, I think I remember someone collating material for some sort of an archive. Good gods, that was so many years ago.’
‘It seemed to me that you and Dahy were friends.’
After a sigh he said, ‘We were. More than just friends, we were comrades in arms.’
‘What happened?’
‘What else? A girl. I thought he stole her from me. He thought I stole her from him. In the end we fought. She said that she loved each of us equally and it was tearing her apart. She left us both and I disappeared into the Real World. Dahy always said he wasn’t mad about the girl, he claimed he was really mad about me leaving my duties but that is a false memory on his part. It was the girl. I needed to get away from him but more importantly I needed to find some peace of mind. I went to the Real World which was a pretty barbaric place back then. I didn’t discover what I was looking for until I travelled east. In Asia I found that the answer lies within, and as a bonus I learned their way of fighting. It was exciting and it changed my life. Everyone thinks that fighting is about brawn but in the east I learned that success in a battle comes from thinking.’
‘Dahy says that you know.’
‘I’m not surprised; Master Dahy is the most natural fighter I have ever known. He didn’t have to study to be as good as he is.’
‘It sunds to me that you two still like each other.’
‘Maybe.’
‘What happened to the girl?’
‘She found another, a man better than both of us.’
‘Well, I think you are both great men,’ I said, standing. It was time for bed. ‘It sounds to me that this two-timing woman screwed up a great friendship.’
Spideog rose, his face grimaced in the firelight. ‘You really shouldn’t speak that way about your grandmother.’
Chapter Fourteen
The Yew House
Spideog would say no more that night. I went to bed trying to remember what Dad had told me about his mother. It wasn’t much. He once told me that she left on a sorceress quest when he was still a baby and had never returned, but that was all I could recall. It was well into the next day, after the camp was packed and we were hiking up the trail, that I got a chance to speak to Spideog in private. It turned out that the love of his and Dahy’s lives was indeed my grandmother, Macha the Sorceress Queen, the Horse Whisperer, Mother of the Twins of Macha – Dad and Cialtie.
‘By the time I had come back from the Real World she had married Finn,’ Spideog said.
‘How did you deal with that?’
‘I had found peace in Asia. She was my queen and Finn was my king – I re-entered into the service of the House of Duir.’
‘But you never took a wife after her.’
‘No,’ he said. There was so much emotion in that one word I didn’t have the heart to ask him any more.
The path up got steeper and narrower. By midday I was exhausted and ready to stop but Spideog was not a ‘stopping for lunch’ kind of guy. He was a ‘one foot in front of the other’ kind of guy. We walked into the night until we found a place where the trail widened enough to make camp. It was cold and windy but dry and we all went out like candles in a hurricane.
The trail got ledge-like on the morning of the second day. Around one bend a small stream had frozen where it crossed the path. It was nothing too dangerous but Spideog lashed us together with ropes. He said one can never be too careful and it would be disastrous if he lost one of the two princes, to which Brendan replied, ‘What am I, chopped liver?’ We camped well before dusk on the second day. I would like to think it was because Spideog’s muscles were howling with the altitude and the cold as much as mine, but it was probably because we came onto a place that was wide enough for all of us to sleep safely.
It was not a comfortable night. The thin air meant that even though we had stopped climbing my legs still ached. We made a small fire to brew willow tea but we didn’ have enough wood to build one for warmth. The wind whistled around so that we almost had to shout at each other.
I sat next to Brendan with my back against the mountain and said, ‘Are you enjoying our vacation?’
He did a strange thing then, he turned completely away from me and presented his other ear and said, ‘Say that again.’
So I did. ‘Are you enjoying our vacation?’
He sat back down and asked me to say it again so I said it a third time.
‘Well I’ll be damned,’ he said.
‘What?’
‘About five years ago I went to the rifle range to test some experimental ammunition. The officer in the firing stall next to me was a quick draw. I thought he was finished so I took off my ear protectors just as his gun misfired. I have only had about 20 per cent hearing in this ear ever since.’
‘Sorry to hear that,’ I said, wincing at my accidental pun.
‘Don’t be. The weird thing is, I can hear perfectly now. This place is astounding. If I wasn’t so worried about my daughter and the junk my lunatic mother must be filling her head with, I’d think I was in paradise. I’m climbing a mountain without even breaking a sweat. Back home I could hardly walk up three flights of stairs without wheezing. And my accuracy with a bow and arrow is almost better than with a gun. This place is amazing.’
‘As I recall, I told you that a long time ago.’
‘Well, I’m starting to believe you, Conor.’
After half an hour of walking on the third day of the climb, we spotted the Yew House above us. Five hours later and after completing almost two circumnavigations, the sun was high in the sky and I was actually working up a good sweat despite the cold. We came to a sharp bend in the path that was covered by another one of those frozen fords and Spideog once again made us rope-up and don crampons and ice picks. I remembered laughing at the old guy when he made us pa
ck all of this stuff, but not now. The wet ice in the noonday sun would have been impossibly treacherous to traverse without crampons.
Spideog, in the lead, had just rounded the corner when his rope went slack. Then Brendan, in front of me, disappeared around the bend, stopped and said, ‘Oh my.’ Rounding the bend myself I saw what had stopped my fellow mountaineers. Standing on the path just past the ice floe were two tall thin men dressed in tight woolly brown tunics and trousers – Brownies. They stood there with one fist on their hip. They would have looked just like an illustration in an old copy of Peter Pan, if it wasn’t for the cocked crossbows in their other hands.
Spideog spoke first. ‘Greetings. We come to speak with the Master of the Yew House.’
The Brownies just stood there and grinned. I didn’t like it. Neither did Spideog. He raised his voice and repeated himself. Still we got nothing from the skinny guys in brown.
Spideog planted his pick into the ice and unslung his bow from his back. He didn’t notch an arrow in it but I’ve seen the ter archer load a bow and it doesn’t take him but a second. Brendan planted his pick into the floe, mirroring his tutor. I guess I could have just stood there but the others were slamming their picks into the ice, so I did too.
The crack started immediately. It moved like lightning from the point where my pick pierced the ice, to where Brendan’s was planted, to past Spideog’s feet. Then the rumble began as the entire ice sheet began to slide. I thought the whole mountain was about to collapse. Brendan went straight down on his nose. I managed to keep one crampon on the ice but had to go down on one knee. Spideog kept his footing and yelled, ‘Run.’
I dug in my spikes and passed Brendan as he was trying to stand up. Spideog ran straight towards the Brownies, whom I expected at any second to shoot us but instead they just stood there looking bemused. I reached hard ice-free ground not long after the old guy. We both grabbed the rope attached to Brendan and dragged him to safety. I was just about to switch grips to the rope that went from me to Araf when I was pulled sideways off my feet and back onto the ice. As my head smacked onto the cold floor I saw the terrifying image of the Imp prince sliding off the side of the mountain. Araf let out a squeal like a little girl while I dug all ten of my fingernails into the frozen water desperately trying to get any purchase on the sliding ice.
The rope around my waist pushed all of the air out of my lungs as it pulled tight. Brendan and Spideog were on the hard ground and had a good hold of my rope but the pull from Araf’s weight was almost cutting me in half. The ice sheet slid past me and rained down on my poor bodyguard. I could feel the impact of every block of ice as it smashed into the Imp, who grunted with every blow. I just hoped his rope would hold.
When the frozen waterfall finished the only bit of ice left on the trail was below me. I rolled to my left and planted my heels into the hard stone.
‘Araf,’ I yelled, ‘are you all right?’
There was no answer for two long seconds then I heard him say, ‘I would appreciate it, Conor, if you could pull me up from here.’
Apparently Araf’s mother had told him to always be polite even when he was hanging off a fatal precipice attached to a bit of string.
After getting him on solid ground, Araf gave me an uncharacteristic emotional hug that made us both fall over. The two Brownies stared down at us with strange grins.
‘Thanks for the help, boys,’ I said. ‘We couldn’t have done it without you.’
That seemed to bemuse them and I made a mental note to leave sarcasm out of any future Brownie communications.
‘Now,’ I said, getting to my feet, ‘I’d like to see this Oracle of yours.’
‘Yes,’ the taller of the two said, ‘but will he want to see you?’
The Yew House was the most un-Tir na Nogian thing I had seen in The Land. The all-wood facade and shuttered windows made it look like some Malibu beach house you would see on a TV show about the rich and famous. The Brownies wordlessly escorted us onto the porch then told us to wait. Unlike a Californian beach house the porch didn’t have any furniture so we sat on the steps. Ages later the Brownies re-emerged and one announced that only ‘the Son of Duir’ might enter.
I was tired and I had recently almost fallen off a cliff and these guys were starting to tick me off, so I didn’t even stand up. I just said, ‘Nope.’
The Brownie looked beyond confused. ‘I do not understand,’ he said.
‘Either we all go in or we leave,’ I said, standing.
Poor Brownie guy, he looked so befuddled I had an image of his head popping off his shoulders and a bunch of spring works and cogs shooting out of his neck. ‘Only the Son of Duir,’ he repeated.
‘So be it; let’s go, guys.’ I turned and started down the mountain. My companions just stared at me.
‘Are we playing a bit of poker here?’ Brendan asked, in English.
‘Of course,’ I replied in the same language, ‘you think I’m gonna hump all the way up this hill and not get any answers? Let’s just see how much he wants to see me.’
Brendan nodded and put his arm on Spideog’s and Araf’s shoulders and said, ‘All right, let’s go.’ The boys started to object, there is obviously no Texas Hold-um in The Land. Brendan pushed them off the porch, ‘You heard the boss, come on.’
‘Wait,’ came a squeaky sound out of the Brownie, ‘wait here.’
He scurried into the Yew House. I sat on the bottom step suppressing the impulse of making them chase us down the trail.
Ten minutes later I was still trying to explain to Araf the subtleties of bluffing.
‘You mean lying,’ he said.
‘It’s not lying, it’s saying an untruth in order to make your opponent give in to you,’ I expounded.
‘It still sounds like lying.’
‘Well, I think we should try a little poker, Araf. I bet you would be quite good at it.’
‘I don’t lie.’
‘It’s not lying, it’s bluffing!’
Our Brownie messenger came onto the porch, saving Araf and me from going around that circle again. Now that he had new instructions he looked much more composed. ‘You may all enter but only the Son of Duir may speak.’
I felt like saying no deal again and sending him back inside but it was getting cold. ‘Is that all right with you guys?’
Brendan spoke in English again. ‘If I want to say something once I get in there – who’s gonna stop me?’
‘My thoughts exactly,’ I said. ‘Spideog, are you OK with this?’
The archer nodded but I could see he didn’t like it.
‘Araf, do you think you can manage not talking for a while?’ I smiled at him but he gave nothing back. u can always count on Araf.
I nodded to the Brownie, who looked very relieved that he didn’t have to face his master again with a problem. He motioned for us to follow and pushed open the double doors. Two other Brownies were waiting inside the entrance of a surprisingly long hallway. They fell into step on either side of us. The Yew House it seems was just a front; the dwelling was carved directly into the mountain. As we walked, our footsteps echoed in the lengthy and increasingly dark corridor.
Brendan leaned over my shoulder and said, ‘Well, Dorothy, what are you going to ask the wizard for?’
A large carving of Eioho, the Yew Rune, marked the end of the stone hallway. To the right a couple of Brownies opened two wooden doors and gestured for us to enter; they didn’t follow and closed the doors behind us. It took a minute for my eyes to adjust to the light. The high vaulted ceiling had glass discs inset into the stone which put out as much light as any electric fixture in the Real World. The light bounced dramatically off the black seamless polished marble floors that I assumed to be the stone the mountain was made of. The walls were panelled with yew wood. Mom had told me about how difficult it was for her to earn the tiny wand she received from a yew tree – it made me wonder what kind of power the builder of this house must have. As my eyes adjusted I saw the Oracle
in the centre of the room. He was seated in a huge chair, or I guess I should call it a throne, made from the severed trunk of a yew tree – its roots spread out at the bottom like the appendages of a starfish. The discs from the ceiling spewed tight beams of light all around but not directly on him. He wore plain black robes that rippled in the cool breeze. His face was illuminated from the reflection off the black marble. It gave the same appearance as when a boy scout puts a flashlight under his chin to tell a spooky story around a campfire. The room went on for a distance that I could not make out. No one spoke for ages.
I’m not good with uncomfortable silences, so I broke it. ‘Nice digs you got here.’
‘The Son of the One-Handed Prince,’ he said in a whispery voice that seemed as if it was unused to speaking. ‘I have heard about you.’
‘What did you hear?’
‘I have heard that you are impertinent.’
‘Yeah, I get that a lot. Have you heard anything good about me?’ There was no reply so I continued. ‘By the way, I’m no longer the Son of the One-Handed Prince.’
‘Are you saying Ona was wrong?’
‘No, Ona’s prophecy was spot on but it wasn’t about me. It was about Fergal of Ur – Cialtie’s son.’
‘Cialtie has no son.’
For the first time I saw a movement in the back of the room. It was hard to see in this light but it looked like there was a hooded figure towards the back of it.
‘Well, if that’s what he told you – he lied. I was there when Cialtie met his son, I was there when he killed him and I was definitely there when my uncle lost his hand.’
The Oracle leaned forward on his throne. The change in light allowed me to see him more clearly. He was old. Not decrepit old but at least young grandfatherortawith lines on his face and silver hair that blew in the wind, like a singer in a Bollywood music video. For The Land this guy looked ancient. He also looked scarily crazy. He leaned back into the gloom and said, ‘You came all of this way to bring me this news?’
