They Mostly Come Out At Night

by Benedict Patrick

  "Dearie," Mother Ogma interceded, "do you really think you should be refusing our friend's command?"

  To refuse the command of the king is high treason.

  "Fine," Lonan relented, "but I’ve a bad feeling about this."

  "Let me get this straight," Inteus sneered, "you escaped almost certain death last night, just to walk back into it now? My lord was wrong to be concerned about you. Such a fool is no threat to the crown."

  This insult earned Inteus a slap on the back of his head, which only served to spur the bureaucrat on further.

  "And you think this foolishness will save the life of your family and friends? He knows where you live now, and expects to hear from me within two days. Where do you think he will look first for answers when I do not arrive back? His questioning is not kind."

  Lonan pointed the knife at Inteus' face, giving him a steely glare. "I shall not be back here, not while the Magpie King lives. You tell him that if you see him. Mother Ogma, set this fool free after two days. He can go and deliver his message, to keep the village safe.”

  “But," and as Lonan uttered this last sentence he lowered his hand so the knife point tickled the end of Inteus' nose, "you’d better pray he doesn’t find me. Because if he does then your name and the information you gave me will be the first thing that I mention to him."

  Inteus paled, and was silent.

  "Come on then," Lonan motioned to Adahy. The old man continued to stare. Lonan rolled his eyes. "Artemis' beard," he muttered, and took the king's arm to help him totter out of the cottage door.

  Mother Ogma came outside with them, bringing travelling cloaks and bags she had hastily prepared with bread and dried meat. "Good gods, the king," she was finally able to whisper to Lonan, free from prying ears. "I've been living with the Magpie King for all this time and didn't know it."

  Lonan smiled sadly at her. "I suspect Adahy doesn’t know it either. The wound was bad - I can't imagine there’s much of him left in there."

  "I hope not, dearie. A lot of what he has heard and seen under my roof were not fit for a king to weather."

  He caught the twinkle in her eye and smiled with her.

  Then she frowned. “But dearie, the monsters. Your dreams showed you the Wolves attacking us, and you were able to find their tracks in the morning.

  Lonan shrugged. “We always knew monsters roamed the village at night. Of course I was able to find some kind of evidence that something had been there. Not the Wolves though - I reckon there hasn’t been a Wolf in the forest since before I was born, probably since you were young. The thing that got me last night, those are the monsters we hide ourselves from.”

  Ogma smiled again. “One less for us to worry about now though.”

  Lonan nodded, and then thought for a moment. "So, the temple then?"

  Mother Ogma pointed north. Lonan gave her a brief hug and she attempted to do so to Adahy, but received no physical response. With that, Lonan and Adahy trotted out of Smithsdown towards the Eyrie.

  The town's northern border was marked by a river which the pair crossed by way of an old log that had been placed across the current. As he helped Adahy make his way across it, Lonan instinctively looked upstream. There in the distance was the tiny figure of a young woman washing clothing, a baby girl sleeping close by. For a brief moment Lonan considered leaving her alone. She would still be angry with him for breaking his promise last night, and there was no point in making up with her now, only to break her heart all over again by dying. Time enough to heal those wounds if he survived. The sensible, selfless thing would be for Lonan to walk away now.

  “Wait here a moment,” he said to Adahy, and made his way down the river towards Branwen.

  Her face was a mix of emotions when she eventually caught sight of him. Lonan could tell she was thankful to see him, thankful he had not died as the tax collector had suggested. However, the relief on her face lasted only a moment, and was replaced by the angry scowl that Lonan had looked at for most of his life.

  “Go away,” she said simply. “I’m not ready to speak with you yet.”

  Lonan nodded his head. “Yeah, I get that. Really, I understand - I was stupid.”

  “You lied to me,” she said, the anger working its way to the surface. “Do you know what I need less of in my life right now? Lies.”

  Lonan winced. Her whole life with Jarleth had been built on lies, and Lonan was not doing any better at this early point in their relationship. He looked away in shame.

  “I know, it was really bad. I’m really sorry. I just wanted to see you before-”

  “Where’re you going?” He looked back at her, but Branwen’s gaze was now directed downstream. She had spotted Adahy, waiting silently for him.

  Lonan winced again, unsure about how much he should explain. “I have to leave for a while.” He showed her his bandaged hand. “It’s to do with all of this. I’m going to stop this from happening again.”

  Branwen looked puzzled. “Whoever did that, are they coming back to finish the job?”

  Caught by a sudden burst of inspiration, Lonan stepped forward and took Branwen by the shoulders. “They come back every night, Branwen. They always do, they’re always out there, but I’m going to do what I can to stop it from happening ever again.”

  She shook her head, eyes darting between each of his. “You’re mad. The blow to the head, and then last night - you aren’t in your right mind.”

  He smiled wearily. “I wish that was the case, truly. I want nothing more than to win back your trust, settle down with you and raise Clare together. But this has to be sorted first. What kind of man would I be if I brought danger to your door? I’ve no idea if the thing that did this will let our buried cellars stop it.” He drew himself closer to Branwen and lowered his voice. “I want to show you I can protect you, protect Clare, the village, maybe the whole damned forest.”

  Then he kissed her. This was not like before. This was not a chaste kiss between two strangers unsure of how to show their love to each other, unsure of how much affection they were allowed to give at this early stage. This was a full embrace, two people baring all, showing each other how deeply and how long they had cared and wanted to be together. As he held Branwen in his arms, his lips joined with hers, Lonan saw them together. He saw them walking hand in hand along the village green. Clare was there too, older now, having inherited her mother’s brown locks, running around them both and laughing. Another child was being carried - a boy, his face just beyond Lonan’s ability to picture in detail. His own son, a possibility if he stayed here with Branwen.

  He felt her hands grip him, pulling him closer, and the image in Lonan’s mind changed again. This time it was him and Branwen, much older, sitting with each other in a dark cottage, smiling together beside a roaring fire.

  They pulled apart from each other and both had streaks of tears down their faces.

  “I have to go,” he said reluctantly, “we’re racing against nightfall.”

  “Promise you’ll come back to me,” Branwen said.

  Lonan smiled at her sadly. “I don’t want to lie to you again.”

  “Just promise me.”

  Lonan looked down at his feet and then raised his head to smile at her one last time. “I love you, Branwen Dripper.” Then he turned and walked away to rejoin Adahy. Once they had entered the forest again, away from the sight of the river, Lonan finally allowed himself some lonely sobs while he walked with the mute.

  As they plodded through the forest, those last words echoed through Lonan's mind. I don’t want to lie to you again. He had faced death last night, and in those terrible minutes had been sure that he was about to meet his end. The sense of dread had not disappeared with his rescue, and as the information mounted up he had become increasingly aware he had unwittingly fallen into the centre of events that had been in play before he was born. Maedoc was the Magpie King now, and had been for longer than Lonan's lifetime. Adahy's bride-to-be had lived a life of fear in the mad king's
clutches for decades. Now new monsters had come to the forest to replace the good that Adahy had done in his short reign.

  The pair were walking along an old path, one that Lonan assumed had been used much more frequently in the days of Adahy's father when there had been more contact between the Eyrie and the villages. It was still possible to make out the route it had carved through the greenery, but lack of use made it more difficult to travel, especially if you were an old man not used to walking. Adahy tripped and stumbled on the clumps of ferns and shrub roots that now littered the path, causing Lonan to spend longer guiding him along and thus slowing their progress significantly.

  "I suppose those dreams were all to do with you?" Lonan queried Adahy, not expecting an answer.

  "It meant a lot to me, when I first thought I was special," Lonan continued, "when I thought I had a Knack nobody else had. But it makes sense now that it had something to do with you being close by. Some sort of Magpie King power, or kingly Knack? Your mother was an Owl, wasn’t she? I heard they have dream powers - could have been something you inherited from her."

  Lonan allowed a sad smile to play across his face at the continued silence of his walking partner. He turned to look at the man’s face as he guided Adahy through a pair of particularly dense gorse bushes that had taken root on either side of the unused path. Lonan found it so difficult to think of this old, ruined man as the young prince whose mind he had shared so much over the past few weeks.

  "I could’ve done it at one point, you know. Developed a Knack. I could feel it coming when I first started living with Mother Ogma. I liked it there. She was the only person in the village to keep treating me like a normal child. So, I wanted to keep her happy. As a healer, she needed herbs and flowers, and I wanted to be the one to do that for her.”

  “I spent weeks running around the forest and the cliffs nearby, and I got really good at it. Then one day, I realised I was getting too good. I was starting to spot where a flower would grow because of other vegetation nearby. I was recognising herbs by their scent instead of sight." Lonan spat as they continued to walk. "I was damned if I was going to trade a blacksmith's Knack for one of a forager, so I stopped being useful."

  They walked together in silence for a while. "Something we both had in common for her, I guess."

  Lonan whittled on now and again about more trivial matters, but generally the two walked in silence. Mother Ogma had told Lonan that the temple was a day's journey from Smithsdown, but with Adahy travelling with him there was no chance that Lonan could keep the necessary pace. When the sun was lower in the sky than Lonan was comfortable with, he found a tree that he was able to heft Adahy into the branches of, and secured them both with rope from Mother Ogma's backpack. Lonan planned to stay awake to look out for Wolves or bird-monsters, but exhaustion from last night's events overcame him and he drifted off to sleep.

  For the first night in a long time, Lonan did not dream.

  They awoke with sunrise the following morning. Lonan untied them both and they continued on their way. Sometime after midday they arrived at the shrine. It had clearly undergone some repairs since Lonan had last viewed it through Adahy's eyes, as the broken door had been replaced and windows were now repaired, but the holy building did not hold the air of reverence it once had. The doors to the shrine appeared to be unguarded and the gardens were overgrown and untended. For the first time since leaving Smithsdown, Lonan felt at a loss for what to do.

  "Any ideas, big guy?" Lonan asked Adahy. No response. "Keep quiet then, not a bad idea."

  Aiming to look like curious pilgrims instead of wanted criminals, Lonan and Adahy walked through the clearing to the building and stepped inside. They need not have been worried about discovery, as the shrine was unoccupied. The interior was also much changed. It remained dark, but most of the building walls were now bare, with no sign of the former storytelling wood carvings. The magpie totem pole had been repaired without care, stretching again to the building rafters, but now containing many incomplete, crippled animals.

  "Well, we’re a bit stuck now, aren't we?"

  There was nothing for them to do but wait. Their entire plan consisted of intercepting the queen as she visited the shrine. They idled away many hours until people arrived at the building in the late afternoon.

  A black caped figure emerged from the daylight into the gloom of the shrine. For a split second Lonan thought it was another creature like the one that had attacked him last night, but he quickly came to realise that this was one of the Magpie Guard.

  The guardsman seemed surprised to spy anyone inside. "You there, what are you doing?" The man drew his sword and marched over to Lonan and Adahy, with two more soldiers following after him.

  Lonan decided to play it dumb, remaining speechless as he was surrounded by armed men.

  "State your name and your business or we shall cut you down here and now."

  "I- I am Jarleth Dripper. The Dripper family from Gallowglass. This is my father, Callum. We - we are here for the shrine. Pilgrims." Lonan was quite pleased with his trout impression, doing his best to convey complete hopelessness to the guards.

  "Why have you come here?" Lonan received a boot on his back with the question, pushing him to the flagstones and causing his broken ribs to argue violently within his chest.

  "My-my father. He’s dying. He wanted to come on pilgrimage one last time."

  "Is this true?" The guard addressed Adahy, who remained motionless as usual. He received a fist in his gut for such insolence, causing the old man to double over.

  "No, sire, do not hurt him. He cannot speak, or even see or hear us really. His illness is in its final stages."

  "If this is so, then how do you know he wanted to come here?"

  "He always spoke of this shrine, of his journeys here as a boy. Made me promise when I was younger to take him here one last time. This is my only chance to live up to that promise."

  The guards looked at each other, clearly irritated by the presence of the villagers. "You are not worried about sundown?" they asked, suspiciously.

  "Of course," Lonan replied. "We’ve walked hard since early morning to get here on time. We assumed there would be protection for us here…" He let his voice trail off.

  "Villagers do not come to the shrine anymore," the guard informed Lonan brusquely. "They are not welcome here. You must leave."

  "But," Lonan replied with feigned horror on his face, "where shall we find shelter?"

  "Not our problem-"

  "Let them stay," a commanding female voice ordered the guards, just before they laid their hands on the two villagers to escort them outside. "The least we can do is offer some shade of safety to these men of faith." The owner of the voice stepped through the door.

  She was female, but the gravelly tone in her words betrayed her age. This was kept hidden from sight, however, by the light grey hooded cloak that the woman kept furled around herself, hood pulled low to cast shadows on her face. Only a few wisps of white hair falling from the darkness of her hood betrayed her identity, although Lonan had guessed it already. Andromeda, his queen.

  Lonan quickly bent his knee, struggling to get Adahy to do the same. He realised that a single tear was running down the old man's face, and did his best to brush it away in the confusion. "My-my lady," Lonan stammered, "I had not known. We shall leave here at once."

  "Nonsense," she commanded, waving a wrinkled hand at Lonan to stop him from removing himself from the building. "For too long have I prayed to my husband's god in solitude in this hall. It would be refreshing to have some company for once."

  "But my lady," the head guardsman objected, "my orders-"

  "Your orders are to keep me safe," the queen snapped back at him, "and to keep me within sight at all times. Unless you view these two men as a serious threat, I think your duties can be performed most admirably from the shrine doorway. Or should I have a word with my husband about the capabilities of my personal guard?"

  The guard shifted unea
sily. "No, my lady. Apologies, my lady." The guardsmen set up post at the doorway, and Andromeda beckoned for Lonan to bring Adahy and join her kneeling at the foot of the totem.

  "What a curious stare your father has," she remarked in humour as they knelt staring at the butchered wooden birds. Sure enough, Adahy's eyes had not left the shadow of the queen's face since she had entered the room, even as they knelt now side by side together.

  "Yes, he's been doing a good bit of that lately," Lonan muttered under his breath.

  This is exactly where I wanted to be, to have the ear of the queen.

  "Actually, your majesty, I’ve a confession to make."

  "Well, young man, I am afraid there are no priests here to take your confession. Ghosts and wooden pigeons are all the ears you will find here now."

  Lonan smiled. "Yes. And yours, your majesty."

  The queen turned to look at him and for the first time, Lonan caught a glimpse of her face. When he had seen her in his dream a few nights ago she had been young, beautiful and with a life full of possibility. What Lonan saw now was an old woman, drained of vitality and spirit, and a face in which happiness no longer lived.

  "Now, young man, what on earth would you have to confess to my ears?"

  Lonan took a deep breath. "Well, for a start, your majesty, this man is not my father."

  The queen's face was rigid, tensed for danger.

  "In fact, your majesty, you’ve met him before. A long time ago."

  The queen's eyes darted to Adahy's face, widened, and then her head turned back to a praying pose, regarding the totem pole before her.

  Lonan decided to continue his confession. "He served you wine at a feast, but I think that even then you knew he wasn’t a normal servant."

  In a different voice now, one that choked out from her withered throat, she stated, "You are the dreamer."

  "Actually, m'lady, I suspect he is. I was just along for the ride, it seems. This is no ordinary man. This is Adahy, the true Magpie King. The man who should have been your husband."

  The queen remained praying, but her hands were shaking. "And what do you have to say to me, Adahy? Why have you abandoned me for all of this time?"