Fantasy Gone Wrong

by Greenberg, Martin H.

  Now Isien’s twin brother, Tierney, glanced over from where he and his own hound lay in a tangle of copper hair and brindle fur. “How’d you know it’s a fire-cat?” he asked. “Instead of just a plain old moggy?”

  “Because it’s not plain,” Brae answered, lacing her fingers behind her head and closing her eyes. “It’s fire-colored.”

  Tierney considered her answer, then gave a satisfied nod, but Isien snorted, unconvinced.

  “It has white feet,” she pointed out.

  “Ash,” Brae answered.

  “And black markings.”

  “Soot.”

  Reaching over, Cullen chucked the cat under the chin and it immediately spun about to sink its tiny teeth into his hand.

  “Ow! It’s a wild little monster, whatever it is,” he observed, sucking at the double row of punctures along the base of his thumb.

  “That also makes it a fire-cat,” Brae stated.

  “No,” Isien retorted, “that still makes it a cat-cat.”

  “It could be a Sidhe cat,” Tierney offered. “It has got red ears. And Cnu Deireoil says single hawthorn trees are entrances to Sidhe Raths. So are the bottoms of deep, secretive pools.” He made a grand gesture at the sparkling water below them, then pulled his hand back hastily as the cat took a swipe at it.

  “No mortal cat nor Sidhe-cat either would ever exit through a pool of water,” Isien pointed out.

  “But they are found in trees,” Tierney answered.

  “Says who?”

  “Brae.”

  Her sister opened one eye with a triumphant expression and Isien shrugged.

  “That may be, but it still doesn’t explain what it’s doing here. And why . . .” She frowned. “It seems to be so taken with Balo,” she added as the cat settled down against the hound’s chest and began to knead on his right forepaw, its ruddy pelt gleaming in the noon sun.

  “Maybe we should ask him.” Tierney said.

  Cullen frowned in confusion. “Ask who, Balo?”

  “No, whelp, Cnu Deireoil,” his brother answered in disgust.

  Cullen flushed as red as his own hair. “Oh. I knew that.” Pulling at his hound’s ears, he put on a careless expression. “I heard that cats were familiars for druids,” he said.

  “Balo isn’t a druid,” Brae pointed out.

  “Maybe he was a druid and he was cursed and turned into a dog.”

  “I got him when he was just weaned. I don’t think the druid could have been that young.”

  “Maybe his father was the druid and he angered a powerful being like a demon or a wizard and it turned his son into a dog,” Cullen persisted eagerly, warming to his subject. “Or maybe even the cat was a Druid and got cursed and turned into a . . . well, into a cat, instead and it’s come to us for our help to break the spell. Just like that hag needed Fionn’s help to turn into a beauty, you know?”

  “What hag?” Brae asked.

  Cullen flushed again. “Just . . . just a hag I heard a story about once.”

  “The whelp likes older women,” Tierney said with a grin. Cullen turned on him with a snarl, but his older brother just laughed at him.

  “Stop it or I’ll dunk you both,” Isien said sternly. “Balo is a dog and that cat is a cat. It probably just wandered away from one farm or another.” She watched as it began to knead against Balo’s side and shook her head. “Mind you, it’s a very confused cat,” she added.

  “I still think we need to ask Cnu Deireoil about it,” Tierney said thoughtfully. “There just might be something in what the whelp says. And if it has come to us for aid,” he continued, ignoring the suspicious glance Cullen shot him. “We have to help it. It’s what we do. So we’ll need to know how.”

  “Fine,” Brae answered with a yawn. “We’ll ask and we’ll help, but later. Right now I’m bored, I’m hot, and I want to go swimming.”

  Standing, she shed her tunic and her human seeming in the same fluid motion, spun about, and made for the pool at a dead run. Cullen gave a whoop of pleasure and gave chase a heartbeat later, his hound at his heels. Tierney and Isien shared a superior glance before they and their own dogs followed. They caught up with their younger siblings at the pool’s edge, then as one, four gleaming white faery-hounds with blazing red ears and three brindle hounds dove into the inviting waters below.

  Stretched out on the hillside, Balo and the cat watched them go with equally indulgent expressions.

  “It’s a fire-cat.”

  Dusk found them gathered in Staigue’s cool stone refectory hall, attacking half a dozen trenchers piled high with meat while their hounds dug into four wooden bowls of bones and ends at their feet. Beside them, Cnu Deireoil, Sidhe Bard of the Fianna, strummed quietly on his harp and considered Brae’s words. When she punctuated her statement with a large flagon of beer, he pushed a lock of golden hair from his face and, after taking a long swallow, glanced down at the cat who was currently shoving her head between Balo and his supper.

  The Bard pursed his lips. “Possibly,” he allowed. “But fire-cats are very rare. They’re usually seen only in the far north. It’s said that they’re the messengers of Danu, able to travel from realm to realm in the blink of an eye. But it’s also said that the Goddess sends them only into the land of mortals at great need, for although they may be very courageous, they’re also fickle and easily distracted, much like their mortal counterparts. Ow.”

  The Bard reached down to disengage the cat’s claws from his ankle. “I spoke only the truth, little Cnu Cath,” he admonished. “I’m sorry if you find my words offensive, but there they are, nonetheless.”

  The cat regarded him with a steady golden glare, then rolled onto its back with a coy expression.

  “It seems to understand you,” Cullen noted. “It’s showing its belly in submission.”

  The Bard gave a loud snort as the cat smiled slyly. “Is it now?” he asked. “Lay your hand on its belly then if you think that’s the case.”

  Cullen immediately stuck his hand out, then gave a yelp of pain and surprise as it was suddenly enveloped by a ring of teeth and claws.

  The cat jumped back in bristling indignation as Cullen jerked his hand away and the Bard snickered.

  “Cats show their bellies so that all five sets of weapons in their arsenal may be brought to bear at the same time,” he lectured. “You see, a cat knows when and how to fight to the best advantage. There’s great wisdom to be gained in following their example.”

  Cullen watched as the cat returned its attention to Balo’s supper, pulling a piece of tripe right out from between his teeth. The dog woofed at it but did little else as the cat dragged its prize under the table.

  “It doesn’t seem like great wisdom to follow that example,” he pointed out. “If Balo wasn’t so gentle he’d have eaten the little moggy.”

  “And you don’t think it knew that?”

  Cullen just shrugged. “Maybe.”

  “Maybe nothing. Cats are excellent judges of character.”

  “But do you really think it’s a Sidhe cat,” Isien asked, bringing them back to the question at hand. “A messenger from Danu?”

  Cnu Deireoil shrugged. “All we can do is wait and see,” he answered in a noncommittal tone. “If it does have a message for us, it will reveal it in its own good time. In the meantime, I suggest you treat it as an honored guest with all the traditional hospitality that involves.”

  “But we don’t know anything about how to be hospitable to cats,” Brae protested weakly. “We’re faery-hounds.”

  “So learn. How hard can it be?”

  Glancing down at the cat who was now crouched over its piece of tripe, growling low in its throat and lashing its tail back and forth, Brae swallowed involuntarily.

  “I’m thinking it might be pretty hard,” she answered.

  The cat favored her with one sly glance before returning to its meal as the Bard gave another snicker.

  Days passed and summer slowly handed over its dominion to autumn.
The trees changed their green mantels for those of gold and red and bronze and the air grew heavy with the spicy odors of fallen leaves and ripened grains. At Staigue, the fire-cat settled into a comfortable routine of stealing Balo’s meat and grooming his paws, while the old hound suffered its ministrations and its thieving without protest. Each afternoon, both cat and dog accompanied Brae to the hawthorn tree, sitting together while she stared up into its branches, wondering if tomorrow would be the day they would have to begin their journey to Anglesey; and wondering too, just what she was supposed to tell her mother about Balo’s new companion. And each night, as they fell asleep in the dog’s nest of blankets, she decided to wait just one more day for some sign that the fire-cat was indeed a messenger from Danu or some otherworldly creature come to them for aid.

  The equinox came and went and the days grew shorter and the nights colder. As the small pack of Fianna and their hounds went out into the woodlands to hunt the season’s deer, Balo began to tire. He grew loathe to leave the warmth of Staigue’s main hearth, and one morning, the fire-cat took a piece out of Brae’s hand for even suggesting that he accompany them. That day Brae hunted without him by her side for the first time in nine years, and that night she took his graying muzzle between her cupped hands, and laid her forehead against his. “That’s it then,” she told him gently. “We leave tomorrow.”

  The snowstorm that hit the region late that night took them all by surprise. Brae awoke the next morning to the howling winds and dark cold of a winter’s day and the ominous silence of an empty room. Both hound and fire-cat were gone.

  “Brae, you can not go out in this weather!”

  “Watch me.”

  “You’ll be buried under a mountain of snow!”

  “I don’t care.”

  “Brae . . .” Isien attempted to catch hold of her younger sister as she pulled on a pair of fur-lined boots, but Brea shook her off with a warning growl.

  “Balo’s my hound, my responsibility. I have to find him.”

  “He’s probably gone out to die with some dignity,” Tierney said, but closed his mouth with a snap as Brae rounded on him.

  “I don’t care what he’s gone off to do,” she snarled. Grabbing a pair of rabbit skin gloves, she stuffed them into her belt, before reaching for her weapons. “I should have taken him to Anglesey a long time ago,” she added quietly.

  “Maybe,” Isien agreed, “but you couldn’t have known. It hasn’t snowed before Samhain in Munster for three decades.”

  “I should have known anyway. I should have smelled it coming. I didn’t. I missed it.”

  “We all missed it,” Cullen attempted.

  “I missed it,” Brae repeated. “That’s all that matters.”

  Her three siblings argued with her all the way down the stone passageway that protected Staigue’s main keep, but on reaching the heavy oak gatehouse doors they were suddenly confronted by a small figure dressed from head to toe in multicolored furs and covered in a foot and a half of snow. It shook off the white mantle with a disgusted gesture, before dropping its hood to reveal a young girl’s pale, scowling face beneath a wild shock of red and brown hair. Stomping forward she stood, fists on hips, to stare up at Brae from a pair of furious golden eyes.

  “What have you done with my dog!” she demanded.

  News of the strange girl’s arrival swept through the fort, and by the time the chaos caused by her words and Brae’s response had cleared, most of the residents of Staigue were crowded into the refectory hall. Standing dripping on the flagstones, the girl cast a haughty glance across the room until she caught sight of a man hurrying forward, his golden hair gleaming in the torchlight. His deep, respectful bow did little to soften her expression.

  “I am Cnu Deireoil, Bard of the Fianna,” he said formally.

  Pulling off a pair of large white mittens, the girl eyed him critically before inclining her head with a regal gesture. “Caoit of the Ferrishyn Sidhe,” she replied. “Your name and deeds are known to us, Little Nut of the Daoine Sidhe.” She turned to regard Brae with a baleful stare. “As are those of the Sidhe-hound children of Diardin,” she added in a voice that suggested she remained unimpressed by whatever she might have heard.

  Cnu Deireoil nodded before anyone else could speak. “And how may we aid you this day, Caoit of the Ferrishyn Sidhe?” he asked politely.

  “I have been sent by the Goddess Danu to aid the people of Killorglin, kindred to the Tuatha de Danann,” she replied, ignoring both Tierney and Cullen as they mouthed I told you so at their sisters. “They have been beset by a giant weasel the size of a bullock that has been ravaging their cattle and carrying off full-grown cows in its jaws. Any crops that have not been shredded by its passage have been either despoiled or consumed by an army of vermin that run before it.” She punctuated her words with a savage grimace, showing a mouthful of pointy white teeth in response to the thought of an army of vermin. “The people fear that come winter they will starve,” she continued. “Which they likely will,” she noted almost as an aside. “And so they prayed to Danu, and she has sent me to summon a hero to defeat this terrible scourge and thus save them. From the weasel anyway,” she added. “How they defeat starvation is their own problem.”

  Cnu Deireoil bowed again. “We will send messengers out to Fionn mac Cumhail as soon as the weather clears,” he promised but Caoit gave a disdainful sniff.

  “I’ve not come to summon Demne son of Muirne of the Fianna,” she replied coldly, “but the great warrior-hound Balo of the Cwn Ulaidh Fianna.” Before anyone in the hall could react to her words she whirled on Brae, her teeth bared. “And you let him go out into that”—she stabbed one finger at the snow-blocked window—“all on his own!”

  Brae snarled back at her at once. “I didn’t let him go anywhere!” she shouted in reply.

  “Yes, you did! We had it all arranged, he and I! We were to leave in three days! That would have given him enough time—with my help, by the way—to gather his strength and assuage his guilt about leaving you behind so you wouldn’t get killed! But oh no, that would have been too easy! Now he’s run off on our quest alone without me because you had to go and tell him you were taking him into retirement on the eve of a snowstorm! Stupid mutt!”

  Both faery-cat and faery-hound took a single threatening step toward one another, but before they could come any closer, Cnu Deireoil stepped swiftly between them.

  “I think we should offer our guest a warm cup of . . . milk,” he said smoothly. “Before tempers get the better of hospitality.”

  “I have to find Balo,” Brae growled back at him.

  “And you will, but the storm has increased in its ferocity, young one,” the Bard said gently. “No one’s going anywhere just yet.”

  The storm abated by noon, the sun breaking through the clouds to reveal a vast ocean of white fields without a paw print to be seen. Throwing open the gatehouse door, Brae stared out at the figure of the hawthorn tree standing stark and alone on its distant rise, her expression grim.

  “You’re sure he’s making for Killorglin?” she asked stiffly.

  Beside her, Caoit gave another disdainful sniff. “Straight and true, north across the Reeks, no doubt,” she answered.

  “The snow should cushion the journey, anyway,” Tierney said, glancing past his sister’s shoulder.

  Isien shook her head. “It’ll make it harder to track him though,” she noted.

  “I’ll track him,” Brae answered darkly. “I’ll track him to Falias and back if I have too.”

  “So it’s a good thing we aren’t going that far, right, Brae?” Cullen asked with an attempt at a reassuring smile. “Because Killorglin’s so much closer we should catch up to Balo in no time, and he’ll be fine, right?”

  As Brae strode wordlessly into the snow with Caoit at her heels, Tierney gave his younger brother’s shoulder a comforting squeeze. “Yeah, whelp,” he answered. “He’ll be fine.”

  Turning to shoo their own three hounds back in
to the keep, Isien closed the gatehouse door before bringing up the rear with a worried frown.

  “So, why Balo?”

  The five of them had been traveling most of the afternoon, following an ancient hunting path that ran due north. No one had spoken since leaving Staigue and finally Isien had given a snort of impatience. Now Caoit gave her a rolling-eyed grimace in response to her question.

  “Why not Balo?” she retorted.

  “He’s a dog.”

  “So? The Sidhe have their own tales of quests and heroes, you know. They don’t have to be your tales.”

  “Certainly, but tales of other Sidhe.”

  “Of you lot, you mean? Please. It’s easy to accomplish great deeds when you have supernatural abilities. Much harder when you don’t.”

  “Point taken but . . .”

  “But what?”

  “But he’s still just a dog.”

  “So?” Whirling about, Caoit caught the older woman in a golden-eyed glare. “Did Balo of the Cwn Ulaidh Fianna not travel to Ynys-Witrin in far away Logres to ask for the aid of the legendary Cwn Annwn and their master this very summer past?” she demanded.

  “There was a little more to it than that,” Cullen said hotly. “I went with—”

  Caoit made an imperious gesture, cutting him off in mid protest “And did he not stand against the army of Dolar Durba, son of the King of the Sea, the traditional enemy of the Fianna and the Tuatha de Danann both and almost single-handedly slay a giant the size of a yew tree in that selfsame battle?”

  “He did have some help,” Isien said coldly. “From the warrior bands of Fionn mac Cumhail.”