The Dark Divide

by Jennifer Fallon

  CHAPTER 46

  The ceremony to transfer the power to the Undivided took place at sunset. Brydie was keen to watch, but more interested in seeing the queen of the Tuatha Dé Danann. Orlagh rarely left Tír Na nÓg and probably wouldn’t do it again in Brydie’s lifetime, so this was a rare chance to see a creature of legend, surrounded by scores of other celestial beings, all of whom had always been more myth than reality to a mere mortal like Brydie Ni’Seanan.

  The exotic creature Brydie saw, however, was not Orlagh, queen of the Faerie.

  It was Jamaspa, the djinni responsible for her imprisonment and, if Anwen and Álmhath were to be believed, the only one who could free her.

  So how she was supposed to attract his attention?

  Brydie assumed Jamaspa would not recognise the stone itself, or surely Anwen would have gone to much greater pains to hide it. She certainly wouldn’t be flaunting it for all to see, if she thought the djinni would know it instantly. He remembered a brooch — a gold filigree fancy worn to hold a cloak together. Now that the amethyst had been reset into a pretentious frippery amid scores of smaller, but similar stones, it was nothing like the item he remembered. And even if he looked at Anwen’s necklace directly, could he tell there was someone trapped inside the centre stone? Would he even think to look?

  The questions were far too many, the answers far too uncertain for Brydie to be hopeful this night would see her released from her jewelled prison. Anwen took her place beside Álmhath and Torcán, observers here rather than participants.

  This was a ceremony belonging to the Druids and the Tuatha Dé Danann.

  The ceremony took place just as the sun rested on the crest of the hill in the west, illuminating the stones for the twenty minutes or so that the sun would bathe the circle and the Undivided heirs in her light, while Orlagh performed the ritual to share the magic, branding them to the bone, searing the magical symbol into the boys so deeply that even losing that limb would not interrupt the flow of power.

  Usually that would be the end of it. The boys would be branded — often as babies — and they would remain in reserve until the Undivided died and they could assume their dying predecessors’ powers.

  Tonight was different. Tonight, the queen of the Faerie would brand the boys and then transfer the power conduit from the absent RónánDarragh to these shy, bemused seven-year-old boys, who stood naked in the centre of the circle, shivering as they were daubed in the blue woad with the triskalion symbol which would define them for the rest of their lives, once Orlagh had branded it into the palms of their hands.

  Brydie felt sorry for the boys. They were pale, ginger-haired and thin, unprepared for what was to happen. As a rule, the Undivided heirs were identified much earlier and branded at an age where they would not remember life without the triskalion tattoo. Their lives from then on were full of privilege and preparation, waiting for the time they would take the reins of power.

  These boys had received no such preparation. Brydie gathered, from what she’d heard between Anwen and Álmhath, that they had been identified years ago, but their presence had been kept secret. For some reason, the Matrarchaí had determined Rónán and Darragh were the preferred Undivided. They had not wanted to give anybody any excuse to threaten RónánDarragh’s position until it suited them.

  That plan had been thwarted, of course, by Amergin and Marcroy Tarth, when they separated the boys as toddlers, robbing the Matrarchaí of whatever it was they wanted of them.

  She wondered if Amergin had understood that what the Matrarchaí wanted, more than anything, was the children of Rónán and Darragh. Brydie put her hand to her belly again, something she was prone to do of late. She still had no idea if she had conceived a child or whether all this plotting and scheming on the part of Anwen and Álmhath was for naught.

  They would be more than a little disappointed, she realised, if her menses appeared a week after they released her from this jewelled trap. That would ruin all their plans.

  The tall stones cast their long shadows as the ceremony began. The boys were ready, a stag had been sacrificed to appease the gods, and the Druids had recited their part of the long, complicated ritual, and now the truly magical part of the ceremony could begin. Brydie watched Colmán and another, taller man wearing a stag mask. She guessed he was the Merlin from Albion, come to aid the Vate in this important task.

  They spoke for a long time, so long that Brydie could feel Anwen starting to fidget.

  And then they stepped up to the boys and turned to face each other.

  ‘I invoke thee, first daughters of Ernmas, Ériu, Banba, and Fódla,’ Colmán called. ‘And their husbands, Mac Cuill, Mac Cécht, and Mac Gréine.’

  ‘I invoke thee,’ the Merlin responded, ‘and beg thee Tuatha Dé Danann kings to bring this gift to bear.’

  ‘I invoke thee Ernmas’s younger three — the Badb, the Macha, and the Morrígan,’ Colmán said, raising his eyes to the setting sun.

  ‘I invoke thee, Anann’s sons, the brave Glon, Gaim, and Coscar,’ the Merlin added, opening his arms.

  And so it went, back and forth between the Druids as the sun sank behind the hills of Sí an Bhrú. The boys, Broc and Cairbre, seemed confused rather than honoured. Brydie felt sorry for them, standing there, so small, so insignificant, and yet so important to everyone here. She glanced across the circle to the sídhe who had gathered to watch, looking for Jamaspa, but she couldn’t see his smoky blue form in the fading light. Marcroy Tarth was there, along with the achingly beautiful Orlagh and the contingent of lesser sídhe who hung about her like a cloud of insects in long summer grass.

  Brydie turned her attention back to the ceremony, guessing her chance to catch Jamaspa’s eye was fading fast. The djinni was unlikely to stay for the celebrations afterward. The feast. The free-flowing mead and the ensuing uninhibited revels that accompanied every solstice and equinox and resulted in most of the children born out of wedlock in Temair and Sí an Bhrú and probably every village in a ten-mile radius of the celebration.

  ‘I invoke thee, Leucetios god of thunder and storm,’ Colmán was saying, as Brydie turned her attention back to the Druids.

  ‘I invoke thee. The Bellona, Bel and Caireen, mother goddess. Defender of the young.’

  ‘I invoke thee Caer Ibormeith, goddess of sleep and dreams.’

  ‘I invoke thee Sionnan, goddess of the well spirits,’ the Merlin said, as Brydie started to wonder if this was ever going to end.

  ‘I invoke thee Scathach, guard of the Underworld.’

  ‘I invoke thee Cebhfhionn,’ Colmán said, his voice starting to crack a little. ‘She who guards the Well of Knowledge to bring inspiration to these boys.’

  ‘I invoke thee Finncaev, that they may know of love and beauty.’

  ‘I invoke thee Somhlth, god of pure masculinity, divine energy, that ye bring these boys safely to manhood.’

  ‘I invoke thee Uathach, to teach these boys to be great warriors.’

  ‘We invoke thee Cliodna, goddess of the waves, who with every ninth wave that breaks on the shore, brings us closer to her bosom.’

  At last the Druids were done. As the last rays of the setting sun faded, Orlagh stepped forward to take each of the twins by the hand — Broc by the left and Cairbre by the right — to brand them magically with the symbol that would act as a conduit between the Tuatha and the Druids.

  ‘I invoke thee goddess Danú,’ she called, her voice sounding like the sweetest music imaginable, even to Brydie, trapped inside the jewel.

  ‘And I invoke you, Niamh, goddess who helps heroes at death, to take the souls of RónánDarragh and lead them to the Underworld where they may find eternal peace.’

  And with that final word, the young boys standing before Orlagh cried out in pain as the triskalion made them its own and it was done.

  The transfer was complete.

  PART THREE

  CHAPTER 47

  Sorcha was dying. She knew it in her bones. Especially in her bones. Sh
e ached like an old woman.

  In this reality, she was an old woman.

  Her youth, which had been artificially preserved by her time in Tír Na nÓg, was a distant memory in this realm. It had only taken a couple of weeks for the magical effects of her time in the Faerie kingdom to shake themselves off like leaves falling from a tree with the approach of winter, leaving her bent, old and decrepit, barely able to care for herself, let alone perform her duties as guardian to the Undivided, a task at which she felt she had failed miserably.

  Sorcha knew she would never see her home again. The implications were alarming. It wasn’t that she had loved ones she would never see again. Any family Sorcha had in her own realm was long gone. Nor did she have any friend or acquaintance she would like to see again before she died. As Lughnasadh approached, and with Darragh still a captive and unlikely to be released soon, according to Jack, Sorcha fretted about dying because there was nobody left to perform the rituals required to see her into the Otherworld, and that bothered her more than she could say.

  Sorcha was left with no choice, she realised, but to take it upon herself to get things ready, confident she would know when it was time.

  Her first task was to find some woad. She needed to paint her body with the right symbols, so the gods would recognise her when she stepped into their realm. She had thought it might be hard to find here, but it turned out Jack had some growing in a neglected corner of his garden. The old man was fond of his glasshouse, but he had reached an age, he claimed, where kneeling down to pull up weeds in dubious weather was no longer satisfying enough to justify the pain of kneeling. Carmel had one of her nephews lined up to come in and do the grounds, she claimed, when Jack remarked that he should hire a gardener, but there had been no sign of him yet. That meant — fortunately — the small patch of woad growing in Jack’s garden remained undisturbed, and Sorcha had something to work with.

  It was necessary to wait until Carmel left the house, however, before Sorcha could start her preparations. Sorcha knew the housekeeper wouldn’t like the mess she was going to make, or approve of the plastic milk containers full of urine she had collected over the past few days. It was a pity it was already September, Sorcha mused, as she made her way out into the garden in a misty, chilly rain. The best time for harvesting was really July or August. She went to gather the patch of wild woad, hoping the sound she could hear in the distance was Carmel’s car pulling out of the driveway, but she wasn’t sure. Her hearing, along with all her other faculties, wasn’t what it used to be.

  With a great deal of effort, and a few embarrassing groans, Sorcha knelt down on the damp grass and grabbed a bunch of leaves from the woad nearest the edge of the garden bed. Woad dye was best made from plants in their first year. Once they blossomed and died in their second year of life, they weren’t much good for anything but collecting seeds.

  She cut the long dark leaves near to their base with secateurs borrowed from Jack’s glasshouse, chopping away at the leaves of the younger plants until she’d filled a plastic supermarket carry bag. The plastic felt odd against her fingers, its texture unfamiliar and unnatural, but there was nothing more suitable in the kitchen.

  Once she’d collected the leaves, she returned the secateurs to the glasshouse and headed back to the house, her pace frustratingly slow. She wasn’t sure where Jack was. He tolerated her presence in his home — prompted, no doubt, by her galloping decrepitude — but was disinclined to engage with her, and acted as if he really wasn’t sure what he was supposed to do about his unexpected and unwelcome guest from another reality.

  With Carmel gone, Sorcha had the kitchen to herself. After she lined up the utensils and ingredients she would need, including her two bottles filled with urine, she washed the leaves well under the tap, marvelling still at the internal plumbing bringing clean water to so many rooms in the house. Once she’d rinsed them, she washed the leaves again, this time dipping them in a bucket full of warm water. Then she shook them out, a handful at a time, and cut off the stalks with one of Jack’s awesomely sharp kitchen knives.

  Sorcha tore up the leaves into smaller sections by hand when they were washed. Despite the keen edge on the blades of Jack’s knives, it was much easier than chopping them. She threw the shreds into the largest pot she could find in Jack’s cupboards. It was on the stove, two thirds full of water, slowly coming to the boil. Sorcha had left the pot out last night, under the eaves of the glasshouse, to collect rainwater. The sparkling water that gushed from Jack’s taps had a strange smell about it that made her suspicious of its ability to react with the woad and make a decent dye. Unfortunately, Sorcha hadn’t collected enough rainwater to fill the pot, so she’d had to top it up from the tap. Hopefully, she had enough pure water to make it viable.

  Once the leaves had steeped in the almost boiling water for about ten minutes, she lifted the saucepan from the heat and lowered it into the sink, which she’d filled with icy water. This part was critical, Sorcha knew. The liquid must cool down quickly, or the woad would break down and the dye wouldn’t work at all. Thanks to another invention of this realm that Sorcha considered a marvel — ice cubes — she was able to keep stirring the saucepan and adding ice to the sink, to cool the liquid down in as short a time as possible.

  Once she was satisfied the woad tea was cooling, she put the lid on the pot and went about gathering the other items she needed for her journey into the Otherworld.

  In her own world, once she had passed on, Sorcha’s body would be left exposed to the elements, away from the village and curious strangers, for at least nine days. Then her family would return and take whatever remains were left, dry them out and then bury them, either in the ground or under water. In her realm, a body was supposed to decompose in a way that returned the person’s essence to replenish the earth. That wouldn’t happen here, of course. She had no family and she suspected the people of this over-governed realm would balk at a decomposing body laying about for any length of time.

  The worst of it, Sorcha thought, as she opened the kitchen drawer to retrieve the largest carving knife — a poor substitute for the sword she would rather be buried with — is that at my funeral, there will be nobody to perform the remembrances. There will be no drinking, no recounting of past deeds, no feasting … nothing.

  Just an anonymous old woman slipping away, without anybody in this realm aware of the great warrior she had been until recently, when duty and perhaps a cruel twist of fate had stranded her in this magic-less realm.

  The thought made Sorcha pause. This world wasn’t entirely without magic, she knew. The Leipreachán, Plunkett O’Bannon, had survived here quite well. The trouble with this realm was that any magic to speak of would be concentrated in the Enchanted Sphere. The more depleted the world, the higher the Enchanted Sphere, and more difficult to reach. On a world like this one would have to travel to the tallest mountain ranges. If one was lucky and had the talent and the resources to access them, perhaps tall buildings, like the one destroyed in New York, reached high enough to touch it. But down here on the ground, there was nothing useful.

  Not that it mattered if there was. Sorcha lacked even the slightest hint of magical talent. This realm could have been dripping in magic, and she would not have felt a thing.

  ‘What the feck is that smell?’

  Sorcha slammed the drawer shut and turned to face Jack who was looking at the mess Sorcha had made of his kitchen, shaking his head.

  ‘Smells like a cat pissed in here,’ he said. ‘A whole frigging herd of them.’

  ‘It’s not cat piss,’ Sorcha informed him. ‘It’s mine.’

  Jack stared at her. ‘Okay. I’ll bite. Why?’

  ‘I needed ammonia to extract the dye from the woad.’

  The old man walked across the kitchen, jerked open the cupboard under the sink, and reached inside. He pulled out a plastic bottle with a screw top lid and slammed it on the counter. ‘I suppose the bottle marked “ammonia” wasn’t good enough for the job.’ />
  ‘I cannot read your language, old man. I am doing this the only way I know how.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Because that is what I know.’

  ‘I don’t mean why are you making woad the old-fashioned way,’ he said impatiently. ‘I want to know why you’ve trashed my kitchen and turned it into a public toilet to do it.’

  Sorcha turned to check the woad soaking in the pot, wondering if it had been there long enough yet. ‘I need to get ready.’

  ‘For what?’

  ‘For Lughnasadh.’

  ‘What’s going to happen on Lughnasadh?’

  ‘Darragh will die, and with him any chance I have of finding my way home before I die of old age.’ She turned to face him. ‘Look at me, Jack. A week ago I was a young woman. Now it’s all I can do to drag myself out of bed each morning and make it down the stairs. I am going to die, and I want my body to be treated according to the customs of my people.’

  ‘Don’t be stupid,’ he said, looking at her in alarm. ‘You’re not going to die.’

  ‘If it’s possible,’ she told him, ignoring his denial, ‘I’d like you to leave my body outside for nine days, but I realise that might be difficult in this realm, so I need you to place my body in a large hole in the earth and then cover it. It would be good of you to cover it with layers of corn husks and maybe some small branches.’

  ‘Why small branches and corn husks?’

  ‘Because over them, you’ll need to put a layer of rocks. Once you’ve done that, you must fill the rest of the hole in and build a bonfire on top, which you must keep alight until the funeral is done. That should take no more than three days, or so.’