by Kevin Hearne
She could see that Brighid was ignoring her gibes, so she resorted to outright mockery. “It’s odd that a goddess of poetry should be at such a loss for words. Does this mean no one in the mortal world can remember their dirty limericks right now?”
“Return the sword as you promised and leave,” Brighid said.
“There’s an effort!” the Morrigan crowed. “You managed a line of pentameter.” She rested the flat of the blade on top of her shoulder, holding it casually, the way a baseball player might while walking to the plate. With seeming indifference to Brighid, she strolled to her left toward Manannan Mac Lir. She knew Brighid wasn’t going to move off her hill; she’d effectively trapped her there. If Brighid left, she’d surrender all her advantages in battle—and you needed every advantage you could get if you were going to cross swords with the Morrigan.
Manannan stood from his chair and waited, his hood up and his arms crossed underneath his cloak. The entire Court grew still and strained to hear whatever might be said, for Manannan did not speak often in public. The Morrigan paused in front of him and brought the blade down horizontally in her hands, holding it chest high in a clearly ritualistic way, reminiscent of the formal transfer of possession practiced in Japan.
“Manannan Mac Lir, I am here to return Fragarach to you as I promised the Druid Siodhachan Ó Suileabháin I would. Its original scabbard was lost long ago. Will you accept it?”
“I will,” he said, disappointing everyone who was hoping for some more drama. I thought the Morrigan would have had a few more shenanigans up her—well, not up her sleeve. She didn’t have a stitch on. But then I flicked my gaze over to Brighid and realized what the Morrigan was doing. Brighid still stood as if she expected the Morrigan to charge her at any second. The Morrigan’s sudden appearance with the sword had goaded her into a defensive position, but now that the Chooser of the Slain was behaving in a completely nonaggressive and even polite manner, Brighid looked as if she had overreacted at best and like a frightened coward at worst.
The Morrigan placed Fragarach gently into Manannan’s outstretched hands and said, “It is done.” Then, without a farewell or even a backward glance at Brighid, she morphed into her crow form and flew into the grove surrounding the Court. She’d followed Brighid’s curt instructions precisely, and now Brighid looked ungracious on top of everything else. The ball of flame still glowed redly in her gauntleted hand, and all eyes swiveled to her and registered that she was ready to fight a nonexistent threat. Realizing this, she muttered a couple of words, and the armor and ball of flame disappeared. To Perun’s great delight, she was once again clad—if one could call it that—in nothing but wispy, transparent gauze.
She was seriously annoyed, however. Her eyes blazed with a glowing blue light. “How long has she had Fragarach?” she growled.
“About twelve years, I suppose. But I thought she’d returned it.”
“And what of the amulet?”
I shrugged. “I’m sure she’s been working on it, but you could see as well as I that it’s not finished yet.”
“The point,” Brighid said, her eyes cooling while her voice took on three notes of creepy, “is that it will be finished someday. And I would rather that day never arrive.” The unspoken bit we both understood was that Brighid did not want the Morrigan to be immune to fireballs hurled by the goddess of fire, as I was.
The two black wolfhounds near the base of the hill had remained stationary and quiescent all through the Morrigan’s visit; now they rose to their feet, bared their teeth, and growled. At me.
Stay silent for now, I told him.
“If you have naught but threats for me, Brighid, I will take my leave.”
“You may leave when I allow it.”
“We are none of your subjects, and you guaranteed us safe passage.”
“True, but I did not specify how long it would take you to pass through.”
I made a mental note to demand a fixed time period in any future negotiation with the Tuatha Dé Danann. Being duped twice by the same loophole in the space of a few minutes will drive a point home. Now you can growl, I told Oberon, and he did so with gusto.
“You and I had a conversation once, if you recall”—I raised my voice over the din of three growling hounds—“about the finer points of hospitality.” She could take that one of two ways. She could remember that I had completely outmaneuvered her, take it as a warning that I had similar plans laid now, and calm down. Or she could listen to her pride, already wounded by the Morrigan, and flare up. The building blue glow in her eyes pointed toward the second option, and my heart dropped as I realized I’d have to kill somebody to get out of here.
Chapter 5
“BWAH-ha-ha!” someone laughed amongst the Tuatha Dé Danann. I darted a glance that way and saw everyone looking at Manannan Mac Lir, who had clapped a hand over his mouth. Flidais threw in a girlish titter, and then they all erupted—which gave everyone else permission to laugh as well, though they had no idea what they were laughing at. What had happened is that the Tuatha Dé Danann had “heard” Oberon’s comment. My eyes slid back to Brighid, and her mouth was quirked upward on one side; as I watched, her hounds subsided and sat down. I told Oberon to lay off as well.
You might have just saved our bacon there, I added.
“Please explain, if you will,” Brighid said in a much more cordial tone, “why you found it necessary to conceal your existence from me and the rest of the Tuatha Dé Danann.”
“I needed some assurance that I would be undisturbed for a span of years, for I have been hard at work training an apprentice. You may remember her.” I gestured over my shoulder. “Granuaile MacTiernan.”
Brighid bestowed a nod of recognition, and I assumed Granuaile returned it. A murmur of appreciation rippled through the Tuatha Dé Danann. A new Druid would be most welcome.
“She is not yet bound to the earth,” Brighid noted, seeing no tattoos on Granuaile’s right arm.
“No, but she is ready. I was on my way to begin the process when we were interrupted.”
“On your way where, if I may ask?”
“I was searching for an appropriate place in Arizona.”
Brighid frowned. “You cannot bind a Druid to the earth in the New World.”
That set me back on my heels a bit. “You can’t?”
Brighid seemed as bemused as I was. “It may be done only in Europe. Only the Eurasian plate has agreed to participate in the ritual. I thought you knew this.”
“No.” I had never tried to bind an apprentice elsewhere—in truth, I had bound precious few apprentices to the earth in the first place. All three Druids of my “issue” were dead now. Two had been ambushed—or perhaps assassinated, shot in the back—and another had died in the civil war that resulted in the dissolution of the Carolingian Empire. I hadn’t attempted to train anyone since the death of Cíbran, my last apprentice, in 997. And so it was no wonder I had never discovered this particular proviso to a Druid’s binding, but it made sense. All levels of the earth, from elementals to plates to Gaia herself, must be involved, and the plates were notoriously loath to get involved in anything but their own slow movements and ceaseless grating against one another.
Manannan spoke up. “Brighid, if I may interject?” She waved at him to continue, and he rose to address me. He commanded everyone’s rapt attention. “I cannot speak for all, but I hope I speak for many of the Tuatha Dé Danann when I say we welcome Granuaile MacTiernan to Druidry, and I, for one, would like to see you train many more apprentices. Druidry has been neglected far too long on the mortal plane.” Emphatic nods among the Tuatha Dé Danann s
upported his statement.
“Thank you, Manannan, and all of you who agree,” I said, and privately cursed myself for not taking note of who hadn’t visually concurred. “If I could find such excellent apprentices as Granuaile, nothing would give me greater pleasure than to continue teaching. However, for me to accomplish this goal, I need to have a modicum of security. To that end, I humbly request that you keep my existence a secret, especially from the Olympians and the Norse.”
Furtive glances warned me that I had made a troublesome request.
“If … that is possible?” I asked.
Flidais spoke up. “The Olympian Bacchus asked us to inform him if you ever showed your face here.”
“Well, the Olympian Bacchus can go blow a goat.” There was no love lost between us. I had called him a “petty god of grape and goblet” and derided him as a pale echo of Dionysus. All the Roman gods were; their worshippers had possessed so little imagination that they hadn’t even moved them off Olympus. Two pantheons lived atop the same bald peak, albeit on different planes.
“Attempting to conceal it will strain our relationship with the Olympians,” Brighid pointed out.
“Perhaps you do not have all the facts here. Bacchus does not want to know of my whereabouts so he can send me a skin of his best cabernet. He wants to kill me, nothing else. He has sworn to Jupiter that he will do so. You cannot strain our relationship any more than that. So do you want more Druids or not? If you do, then don’t tell the immortal god of madness where to find me, and keep a close watch on your faeries.”
“Regrettably, it may already be too late,” Fand said, in a liquid sort of lilt that perfectly matched her appearance. “I’m quite sure many of the Fae have already spread word of your audience here. Word will circulate quickly that you are back from the dead. Bacchus will hear of it sooner or later.”
Three kinds of cat shit, Oberon.
There was nothing I could do about it now. “Speaking of people returning from a long absence,” I said, “Loki, the Norse god of mischief, is walking the nine realms again. And he seems intent on burning others.”
Brighid frowned. “Explain.”
I waved a hand at the Russian thunder god looming behind me. “This is Perun, a Slavic god of the sky. Loki somehow gained access to his plane and burned it all. You could feel the plane dying on the earth. I tell you three times; Gaia shuddered beneath my feet. I do not know if Loki plans on attacking the Tuatha Dé Danann or the Fae, but considering the myriad paths to Tír na nÓg, I highly recommend taking steps to seal it off from intruders, keeping in mind that Loki has a reputation as a shape-shifter.”
Brighid nodded. “I hear you three times, Siodhachan.” She turned to her right and said, “Manannan. Ogma. Please see to our security and devise a plan to deal with Loki should he make his way here.” She turned to her left and addressed the dignitaries there. “The Lords of Faerie and their respective hosts will assist you.” They bowed in acquiescence and acknowledgment of the order. The hairstyles represented there, I thought, could start a revolution in Hollywood salons. I didn’t know much about the Lords of Faerie and their hosts, other than that they didn’t like me very much. I think that had something to do with the cold-iron-touch-of-death thing.
One of the lords cleared his throat to get Brighid’s permission to speak. He was dressed foppishly in an Elizabethan kit, cursed with the physique of an anorexic mannequin, and had half-lidded eyes that communicated his disdain for the universe. She looked at him and dipped her chin, giving him the green light to pontificate.
“Majesty, perhaps the shuddering of Gaia reported by the Iron Druid may explain some recent disturbing reports coming in from the rangers throughout Europe.”
“Do share with us all,” Brighid said.
“Most tethers to Europe from Tír na nÓg are now inoperable. The death of the Slavic plane may explain this.”
“Begging your pardon,” I said. “Are you saying that it’s impossible to shift to Europe right now?”
The fop raised an eyebrow and sneered at me. “That is precisely what I am saying. Except for a small area in the south of Greece.”
“The tethers for the rest of the world still work?” Brighid asked.
“Yes, Majesty.”
“And the secret paths walked by the Fae?”
“Those still function admirably.”
“So your theory is that the death of Perun’s plane is causing this.”
“It is a possibility.”
“Where, precisely, in Greece may one still travel freely?” I asked.
“Anywhere in the vicinity of Mount Olympus.”
I snorted. “An Olympian wants to kill me and the only place I can currently bind my apprentice to the earth is under the nose of the Olympians? Doesn’t that seem odd to you?”
The faery shrugged indifferently. “The timing of the Slavic plane’s destruction coincides with the beginning of the tether disturbance. I realize that correlation does not imply causation, but it is a plausible theory. Have you another to offer?”
I almost held back, but then thought better of it. I would never win the favor of any Fae host at this point, so I might as well enjoy myself and call it like I saw it. “I will offer the theory that you are an insufferable grundlebeard,” I said, much to the amusement of the audience behind us, who were not of that particular lord’s host. He’d always be called Lord Grundlebeard after this, and he knew it; his face burned red.
“Why is it that only the area around Olympus is free from this disturbance?” I asked, turning away from the Fae.
“It would make sense if you assume the Olympians are protecting their territory,” Flidais said, rising from her chair to address the assembly. “I’m sure the dryads are under their protection. If the reverberations of Perun’s plane are being felt worldwide, the Olympians would see it as their duty to prevent the creatures in their domain from suffering.”
“Then why don’t all the world’s pantheons do the same?” I asked.
Flidais shrugged helplessly. “Perhaps they don’t understand that there’s a problem. Few depend on the earth for travel as we do, and they might be entirely unaware. And they might also be too weak to do anything about it, whereas the Olympians still retain a decent measure of their old power.”
These were certainly possibilities. It would be as fallacious for me to assume that the world was out to get me as it would be for them to assume the world wasn’t. In their favor was the timing: How could the Olympians have known an hour ago—in time to orchestrate something like this—that I was still around? I had to admit that, though it looked like a convenient trap for me, Flidais’s theory held much more water. The Olympians were looking after their own.
“Brighid, though the news of my return has probably spread already, as Fand noted, will you neglect to tell Olympus, or to officially acknowledge my return, until such time as I can finish binding my apprentice to the earth?”
She tilted her head slightly to one side. “Why should I do this?”
“So that the world will have another Druid. One,” I added with a wry smile, “who is perhaps not so annoying as myself.” Self-deprecation is an enduring social lubricant and should be applied liberally in cases like these.
Brighid broke into a full grin. “For that, I would do much more.” Her voice took on the three-note tone and she announced, “None of the Fae or the Tuatha Dé Danann are to speak of the Iron Druid’s return until after his apprentice is bound to the earth. Transgressors will be severely punished.”
I nodded my thanks instead of speaking it. “Will that be all, Brighid?”
“For now,” she said. “Your audience was not without excitement. But Fragarach is returned and we have a new Druid to welcome.” All was forgiven, then. At least in public. “Please inform us when she is successfully bound.”
“I will,” I said.
“Flidais will escort you wherever you wish.”
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nbsp; A soft but excited “Da! Da!” escaped Perun’s lips. As Flidais walked up to us, a coy smile on her lips for the thunder god, the assembled crowd began to murmur and discuss my audience. Flidais said the Tuatha Dé Danann all wanted to meet Granuaile; for them, she was the highlight of the day, for she represented something new. Watching them stand next to each other, I was struck again by how similar they looked—at least, when Flidais was all “cleaned up” like this. They were the same height, and their hair was quite nearly the same shade; Flidais’s hair leaned perhaps a bit more toward auburn.
Granuaile had a slightly wild yet glazed look to her eyes, the look that graduates and brides get when they are congratulated by an endless train of well-wishers. Having your hand kissed by gods and your cheeks kissed by goddesses can set one’s heart aflutter, but I think she bore it well. She didn’t go all fangirl on anyone, but I suspect that’s only because none of them bore the slightest resemblance to Nathan Fillion. I’d taken her to Comic Con about eight years ago and she got to meet him; when he shook her hand and said, “Charmed,” she damn near swooned. Then she lost most of her language faculties.
“Am. Uh. I mean. Granuaile. That’s me. Oh, gods! Hi. So handsome. You, and. Wow. Sorry! Can’t breathe.”
I got a lot of mileage out of that one.
Manannan invited her to his house for a pint of ale; Fand seconded the invitation and included the rest of our party and her mother, Flidais.
“Yes, of course, ye must all come,” Manannan said. He looked expectantly at Granuaile, but she swung her gaze to me, which caused Manannan to raise a querying brow in my direction.
“I told them not to accept any food or drink while here,” I explained.
“Ah!” The god of the sea nodded sagely. “A wise precaution. I should have thought to be more formal and observe the proper manners.” He turned to Granuaile once more but addressed us all. “Granuaile and friends, I invite ye to enjoy my hospitality this day, expecting no favor in return and incurring no debts or obligations on your part. I keep a wholesome table.” Wholesome, in this case, was the Fae equivalent of Certified Organic; it meant he personally guaranteed the food would be the simple sort, without any sort of bindings used before, during, or after its production.
