The Gatekeeper (The Guardians of Tara Book 1)

by S. M. Schmitz

  Bridget took another bite of her toast and ignored them. “Who?”

  “Some Irish myths claim the Tuatha Dé are descended from the Nemedians, so what if the Otherworld originally belonged to Nemed and his followers? And what if the Stone of Fal was his, and proclaimed the next Guardian of Tara?”

  “Tara… are you talking about Ireland or all of Earth?” Bridget asked.

  Selena shrugged. “The Mesopotamian gods are far older than any of ours, so I doubt the Stone of Fal was intended to proclaim a guardian of Earth. I think it’s quite possible each civilization had its own guardian and way of determining who the next guardian should be. And maybe some gods didn’t like that they were serving humans, which is how we end up with all these legends about warring groups of gods within a civilization. Isn’t Prometheus often portrayed as a champion of the mortals in Greek myths?”

  Cameron dropped the slice of bacon he’d been about to eat and gaped at Selena. “Wait. If you’re right about the Olympians and the Titans, then the reason the Otherworld was just lying there empty could be that the Tuatha Dé fought against the Nemedians and took it from them.”

  The three young gods looked at Nemain who squirmed beneath all of those questioning eyes. “Well, I didn’t fight against them!” she insisted. “I’m not that old!”

  “But the Dagda is,” Cameron said. “There’s no way the entire race of Tuatha Dé descended directly from Danu. There had to have been others regardless of what people say about us now.”

  Bridget nodded and drummed her fingers across the table. “I think that’s our next step then. We need to confront him and find out what really happened to the Nemedians and if Selena’s theory…”

  “Hypothesis,” Cameron interrupted.

  Bridget blinked at him then continued. “Could possibly be right. And if they did lead some kind of civil war against the Nemedians, why?”

  “Power? Control of the Otherworld and Ireland?” Selena guessed.

  “The Dagda’s not like that,” Nemain protested. “For God’s sake, he’s not Zeus.”

  “Which god are you talking about?” Cameron asked. “Dagda or Zeus?”

  Nemain sighed, “Both.”

  “But like you said,” Bridget pointed out. “You’re not as old as he is. You didn’t know him when he was a young god. And even gods change over time.”

  Bridget stood up as if the matter were settled, and all of the gods were returning to the Otherworld with her right now. Nemain groaned and buried her face in her hands while Cameron looked forlornly at his breakfast.

  “Magic chef,” Selena reminded him.

  “All right,” he reluctantly agreed, sliding out of the booth so he could wait by Bridget. The Dagda’s chef did beat IHOP, hands down. Perhaps returning to the Otherworld wasn’t so bad after all.

  Selena joined him and grabbed his hand and the three newest gods of the Tuatha Dé waited for Nemain. She lifted her head and shook it slowly. “This is a mistake. We’re wasting our time with this when we should be looking for Huitzilopochtli.”

  “If the Dagda doesn’t know anything, then it won’t waste much of our time, will it?” Cameron countered.

  “And if he does,” Selena added, “then finding out who the Stone of Fal belongs to and what it’s really supposed to do could help us with Huitzilopochtli anyway. If it’s really tied to the Guardians of Tara, then Huitzilopochtli seems to be a pretty big threat to mortals and gods alike, and the new Guardian could be a tremendous help to us.”

  Nemain groaned again but reluctantly rose from her side of the booth. “I’m not sure what worries me more,” she admitted. “That you’re wrong and we’ll end up at square one with no leads at all on the Stone or that you’re right, and the only reason we’re the old gods of Ireland is that we stole it from someone else. We’re supposed to be better than that, Selena.”

  Selena touched her arm gently and offered her a sympathetic smile, but Cameron also didn’t like the prospect that his ancestors had waged a war against their relatives simply because they wanted to control the Otherworld and a small piece of land on Earth. If the war took place at all, he suspected it had far more to do with the Otherworld than Earth, which may have been why the stories about the Stone proclaiming guardians were replaced by legends of it proclaiming rightful kings. Perhaps the Tuatha Dé had only ever been interested in one world, and it wasn’t the one Selena and he had been born in.

  “I could be wrong,” Selena offered. “But if I’m not, we’ll just have to work on being better now.”

  “If you’re not,” Nemain responded sadly, “then what makes you think the oldest gods of our pantheon will really be so willing to walk away from what they’ve stolen and claimed as their own?”

  Chapter Four

  Cameron watched Selena as she stood in front of the tapestry of her Cauldron in the Dagda’s hall. For the first time since returning to the Otherworld as a goddess, she was able to study her tapestry, which now hung lifeless against the wall, no longer dancing in its enchantment with her presence before it. The enchantment of the tapestries allowed them to come alive in the presence of the Treasures’ heirs, but once the heir accepted their place on the pantheon, the enchantment was broken. Selena ran her fingers along the flames beneath the Cauldron and smiled, and he sensed the pride she felt in finally earning her place on the Irish pantheon.

  Cameron touched the tapestry with the Stone of Fal embroidered on it and for the first time, paid attention to each detail Lugh had woven into the fabric. Selena glanced at him, and her smile widened. “Finally got you interested in the rock?”

  Cameron snorted and lifted a shoulder. “It has a more interesting history than I originally thought. Apparently, it’s not just some singing rock, which admittedly, would be pretty cool to see.”

  “Technically,” Selena teased, “I think you mean hear.”

  Cameron smiled at her and conceded then pointed to a mark near the base of the Stone. “What does this mean?”

  “I don’t know,” Selena answered. “It looks like some sort of symbol, but I don’t think it’s even Celtic. It doesn’t look like any of the seals of the old gods.”

  “Maybe it’s something unique to the Nemedians,” Cameron guessed. “Like their own language or something. But If Lugh knew something about the origins of this Stone, then why don’t the other gods? Why doesn’t Badb? She thinks she knows everything.”

  “I heard that,” Badb called from the hallway.

  “Don’t care,” Cameron called back to her.

  Badb entered the hall with her sisters, Macha and Nemain, and put her hands on her hips as she scowled at Cameron. At some point, they might grow bored with giving each other a hard time, but Cameron didn’t think it would be in this century. Or maybe even this millennium.

  “Just for that, I’m telling you the truth. I knew Lugh really well, and he never mentioned anything…”

  “Ew!” Cameron interrupted. He turned to Selena and begged, “Lobotomy?”

  Selena shook her head but grimaced as she asked Badb, “Please don’t tell me Cameron could potentially be one of your descendants.”

  Badb rolled her eyes and waved her off. “We never had any children together. It’s impossible for him to be descended from me, which is unfortunate for you, Cameron.”

  “Selena, deal breaker,” Cameron warned. “If I have to hear anymore about their… nope. Screw it. I’m going to meet your mom and aunt in Findias.”

  Macha snickered and added, “I think screwing it is how Badb ended up knowing more about Lugh than the rest of us.”

  “Hey!” Badb protested, turning to her sister. “Whose side are you on?”

  Macha lifted her hands and smiled but didn’t answer her.

  Selena sighed at the war goddess, one of her closest friends, and Cameron felt the pieces of this puzzle slowly settling into place for her as she began to understand why Badb’s voice changed every time she talked about Lugh, why the memory of his death on the battlefield still he
ld so much pain for her. He wanted to separate his own thoughts from her mind so he wouldn’t have to puzzle through this with her, but he hadn’t quite mastered separating their emotions and feelings yet.

  “You were a couple during the first war with the Norse in the Otherworld. You watched him die,” Selena said.

  Badb turned away from her and pretended to study the carvings on the back of one of the tall oak chairs that lined the Dagda’s table.

  “Selena,” Cameron whispered, “I’m begging you to stop right now.”

  “But I don’t understand,” Selena persisted. “Wouldn’t Lugh be in Findias? You still love him. We can all see that.”

  “Selena,” Cameron groaned.

  She ignored him again. “You can still go see him. We’re well aware that spirits can have… relationships.”

  “That’s it. I’m finding Huitzilopochtli and offering myself as a sacrifice,” Cameron threatened.

  Selena grabbed his hand to prevent him from going anywhere, and even if he’d wanted to defy her, he couldn’t. As a goddess, her power rivaled his own. They were equally matched and if she didn’t want him leaving, he wasn’t going anywhere.

  So he pouted instead.

  “Lugh is in Findias,” Badb said quietly. “But he blames me for his death. He hasn’t spoken to me in five hundred years.”

  “Holy shit,” Cameron muttered.

  “What happened during that battle?” Selena asked. “Do you think you did anything wrong?”

  Badb shook her head again. “Maybe. I don’t know.”

  “But if he hasn’t spoken to you since the first battle, how do you know he blames you?” Selena asked. “Maybe he’s waiting in Findias for you to go to him. Maybe you’re the one who feels guilty about his death, and you’re just assuming too much.”

  Badb shook her head slowly. “Don’t you think I tried to go to him as soon as the battle was over? Uscias stopped me and told me Lugh never wanted to see me again.”

  Badb swallowed and looked away from Selena, running her fingers along the intricate carvings of the chair. Both of her sisters put their arms around her and murmured to her in an ancient Gaelic dialect, and Selena sighed again, this time in frustration.

  This can’t be right, Selena complained. Even if Badb made some mistake during the battle, which doesn’t sound like her at all, how could Lugh hate her for it? I would want you with me even if you’d refused to fight.

  Agreed. And Badb doesn’t make mistakes. Not in battle. More secrets, Cameron told her. I thought we were through with secrets.

  Me too, love, Selena agreed.

  Why did it never occur to us to look for Lugh in Findias? Since I’m his heir, that must mean he wasn’t reincarnated and has to be in Findias. He might know more than the Dagda will tell us.

  Selena nodded just as the door to the hall opened again and the Dagda, the good god of the Irish, entered, his eyes immediately settling on Selena and dancing with the delight they always held when he was in her presence. His lips, mostly obscured by his thick ruddy beard, spread into a grin and he opened his arms. Selena let go of Cameron’s hand to hug the god she’d adopted as the father she’d never had.

  The Dagda stepped back from her and nodded toward Cameron, his eyes still sparkling with the happiness that all of his youngest gods had returned home – even if it was only briefly. Cameron suddenly didn’t want to ask him about the Nemedians and the Stone or a war similar to the famous Titan War in Greek mythology. He’d liked the Dagda from the moment he’d met him, which had been surprising considering he’d been raised not to trust the gods. But the Dagda’s gentle, good nature made him impossible not to like.

  “Bridget tells me you have some questions about the Stone of Fal?” the Dagda asked.

  Bridget entered the hall and stood beside the Mórrígna. She was the only one among the assembled gods who didn’t seem uneasy about questioning the Dagda now.

  As the other gods shuffled their feet and stared intently at invisible spots on the floor, Bridget grunted at them for their cowardice and faced the head of her pantheon. “We’re trying to uncover the Stone’s history since so little is known about it. We think it may have an heir attached to it as well.”

  The Dagda shrugged and told her, “Maybe, but we didn’t make this Treasure as we did the others. We found it.”

  “In Falias,” Bridget confirmed.

  The Dagda nodded. “And it didn’t do anything. We brought it to Tara and discovered that it would make noise when the next rightful king approached it, so we loaned it to the kings of Tara.”

  “And Falias was empty?” Bridget pressed. “The entire Otherworld was just sitting here empty?”

  The Dagda shuffled his feet nervously now and looked among his gods. Most of them wouldn’t meet his eyes and immediately inspected the floor again.

  “Our race is quite old, Bridget. We’ve lived here for as long as I can remember.”

  “Dagda,” Cameron said cautiously, “are the Tuatha Dé descended from the Nemedians and did the old gods of the Tuatha Dé, the ones that mostly died off and aren’t even in the legends anymore, fight a civil war against their ancestors? Did our ancestors kill them off?”

  “Those gods are long gone, Cameron. Not even their stories survived,” the Dagda answered, but Cameron thought he sounded nervous and Selena agreed with him.

  “But you’re old,” Cameron pointed out. “You knew Danu who supposedly mothered this entire race, which seems totally sketchy, but what do I know? I’m twenty-seven.”

  “I knew her,” the Dagda acknowledged, “but that doesn’t mean I knew the Nemedians. They were a much older race than ours, Cameron.”

  Cameron glanced at Badb because she was a powerful psychic, and she and Bridget were the only two who would know if the Dagda was lying. By the way she was looking at him now, he didn’t need to ask her to verify his suspicions: the Dagda wasn’t telling them the truth.

  “So you never met any of the Nemedians?” Cameron pressed. “What happened to them? How did they all just disappear?”

  The Dagda shrugged again. “Races die off. Or they intermarry with other gods and humans, and we eventually lose track of who’s descended from whom.”

  “The Nemedians would have been as old as the Sumerian gods, and yet some of them are still around. They didn’t just vanish,” Selena pressed.

  Bridget nodded and added, “The Titans are gone because the Olympians killed most of them off.”

  “What are you implying, Bridget?” the Dagda asked. His normal, jovial expression had shifted to one of suspicion and hidden anger.

  But Bridget was the queen of the Tuatha Dé, and her gods couldn’t intimidate her. She held her ground and asked, “Did you fight a war against the Nemedians or not?”

  The Mórrígna lowered their eyes again and refused to even watch the altercation between the Dagda and the young gods.

  “Bridget,” the Dagda said, his voice feigning patience, “if we didn’t know the Nemedians, how could we have waged a war against them?”

  Bridget opened her mouth, most likely to argue with him, but Selena didn’t want a rift between them and the Dagda. In the end, it would help no one. She grabbed Cameron’s hand and forced a smile in the good god’s direction. “You’re right. Sometimes, pantheons do just die out. We all know that was the fate of the Polynesian gods. I want to go see my mom and Aunt Tara in Findias then we need to get back to Earth. Thanks for answering our questions.”

  The Dagda’s expression shifted again as it reflected his normal warmth and gentleness. He smiled at her and hugged her quickly. “Any time, Daughter.”

  Cameron caught Badb watching them curiously, but the triune of war goddesses stayed in the Dagda’s hall with their young queen as he and Selena left for the land of the dead.

  The tall red spires of Uscias’s palace gleamed in the sunlight and cast red beams across the bright green grass of Findias. Cameron and Selena had no intention of going inside the wise man’s palace though.
They hadn’t come to talk to her mother or Aunt Tara, but to find Lugh, the legendary sun god and master craftsman, the god Cameron had replaced on the Irish pantheon.

  He heard footsteps on the marble path behind him and glanced over his shoulder to see the wise man approaching them, wearing that perpetual smile and friendly expression. “Are you looking for your family, Selena?” Uscias asked her.

  Selena shook her head. “Not right now. We need to talk to Lugh.”

  Uscias’s smile faltered, and his eyes darted between the young gods. “Why?” he finally asked.

  “We have some questions for him,” Cameron answered. “We need his help.”

  “Lugh has been dead for five hundred years. Surely, you can find a living god that’s far more helpful,” Uscias deflected.

  Cameron felt Selena’s fingers twitch inside his hand. Something odd was going on in the Otherworld, and the gods were playing games with them again.

  “No,” Cameron insisted. “We need Lugh. It’s knowledge that’s specific to him. Besides, he’s my ancestor. Shouldn’t I get to talk to him? What if I have, like… new sun god questions for him?”

  New sun god questions? Selena teased.

  Cameron wanted to shrug in response but Uscias was watching them, and he didn’t want the wise man to know he and Selena were conversing privately.

  I could have questions. Like “What’s the perfect temperature for roasting marshmallows?” or better yet, “What’s the perfect temperature for frying shrimp to make a po-boy?”

  Unable to help herself, Selena sighed aloud then blushed as Uscias’s bushy gray eyebrows bunched together in response.

  “I’m sorry, Children,” Uscias finally said. “Lugh has asked to be left alone, and I must honor his request.”

  Do you believe him? Selena asked.

  For the second time, Cameron wanted to answer her with a bodily gesture, this time by shaking his head, but caught himself before he could reveal they were talking about Uscias privately.

  No. But what choice do we have right now? We’ll need help if we want to uncover the truth about Lugh. The Mórrígna will help us.