by John Lenahan
‘Luis- rowan.’
A second glowing rune was placed next to the birch one. The next word she spoke I did recognise.
‘Cull- hazel.’
The Hazel Rune, my mother’s rune. The real one was destroyed–here was its shadow. Mom made a point of showing it to me before she placed it with the rest. She continued to produce runes for a long time.
‘Fearn–alder.
Saille–willow.
Nuin–hawthorn.
Duir- oak.
Tinne–holly.
Quert- apple.
Muhn–vine.
Ur–heather.
Nion–ash.
Gort- ivy.
Getal—reed.
Straif—blackthorn.
Ruis–elder.
Ailm—silver fir.
Onn–gorse.
Eadth–poplar.
lodhadh–yew.’
Each rune was placed in a specific order. When she was finished, I couldn’t help thinking how it reminded me of an old chemistry class. There were empty spaces for runes not yet discovered, just like in the Periodic Table of Elements.
She rubbed one last ball of sap between her palms and told Fergal to extend his hands. In Ogham and then in the common tongue, she said, ‘Fergal of Ur, this is your last chance to back away. Is it your wish to go on?’
Fergal instantly said, ‘Yes.’ I would have been disappointed with him if he hadn’t, especially when I could see in my mother’s face how much effort it had taken for her to make all of the Shadowrunes.
She placed the ball of sap into Fergal’s palm and then pressed his hands together. ‘The rune you make, Fergal, will be blank. Only a Choosing in the Hall of Choosing can give you your proper rune, but your Shadowrune will complete the casting.’
Fergal opened his hands like a book. Deirdre took his rune and placed it in the centre of the pattern–then it began.
The runes began to glow and then to flame. Not a candlelight flame, but a soft, almost invisible flame like the fire on a gas stove. The flames rolled along the ground between the runes. In some cases the runes repelled the fire, other runes absorbed the flames. After a few minutes, it was clear to see that some runes were joined with others by fire. Mom picked up the flaming runes and rearranged them, so that the runes joined by fire were together. The fire obviously did not burn–this was Shadowfire, not the real thing. When she had finished, Mom had five Shadow-bonfires before her. She sat cross-legged in front of them, her face fixed in concentration, her hands, still burning with Shadowfire, outstretched at her sides. Fergal sat opposite her, unmoving. They were both bathed in the same amber glow. Looking at them, I couldn’t help thinking how different they were from each other–opposites, in fact. Still, these two opposites were locked eye to eye, both bent on the same goal. It sent a chill down my spine.
Mom waved a hand over a group of flaming runes and its fire increased as the others subsided. The flames grew higher until forms appeared. I began to make out a face and was surprised when I realised it was mine! The vision cleared and I found myself looking into a fiery 3-D movie of Fergal’s life. Around the edge the apparition was a golden blur, but at the heart it was crystal clear. The images ran fast and made no sound, but I heard what was happening in my…soul. Like a conversation with a tree–it surpassed language. It was pure understanding. We watched the whole story of Fergal and my meeting: the shoe theft, the comedy of him knocking me out, the terror of the boar attacks and the courage of our stand against the Banshees in the Reedlands. More than just seeing, I was understanding Fergal, from Fergal’s point of view. I had already decided that he was a good man–not perfect, but worthy of my trust. Now the Shadowmagic confirmed it. Fergal was a true free spirit. I saw that living for him was a joy, and that malice was a waste of his time. I realised then that I loved him–how could I not?
The images of Fergal and me dimmed as Mom brought up the fire in another set of runes. Visions formed before us of a young (and very cute) Fergal practising sword and banta stick fighting with Araf. Fergal did OK with his swordplay, but never even came close to winning the stick fights.
Another collection of runes showed Fergal turning down a kiss from a pretty young Imp girl. Not because he didn’t like her, but because he didn’t want her to get teased for kissing a Banshee. It nearly broke my heart.
Another runefire showed Fergal with his nanny–Breithe. Blissful images of walks in the woods, baths, kisses and being tucked into bed made my heart ache. Fergal may not have known his real parents, but he had the kind of motherly love that I always dreamt about.
Finally, Deirdre calmed all of the fires except one. This was it, this was the runefire that had the answer. The other fires sputtered and went out as the last group of runes roared with an amber inferno a third higher than the rest. We all leaned in, trying to make sense of the forms. As the vision cleared we saw Breithe! She was washing her hands in a tent. Could that be it? Was Breithe Fergal’s mother? No, Breithe walked to a bed where a heavily pregnant woman screamed in labour. Wild, jet-black hair with a white streak covered her face–she was a Banshee–this was Fergal’s mother. It was the moment of his birth. Breithe was the midwife, but who was the mother?
The contractions stopped. The Banshee mother fell back into the bed, her face still obscured. Breithe said, ‘It’s almost over, Mná dear,’ and pushed the hair away from the mother’s face. Mná! Dad had just mentioned that name–she was Cialtie’s Banshee sorceress. The one who had bewitched Eth and had made the screaming shell for Cialtie in the race. That’s when the realisation shot through my mind like a lightning bolt–if his mother is Mná, then his father must be…then he walked into the vision, Fergal’s father–Cialtie.
A gasp went through the group. Why didn’t I see this coming? Mná looked up and saw that Cialtie had entered. She pushed her hair back in an attempt to look better and smiled at him. ‘Is it done?’ she asked.
Cialtie smiled broadly. ‘It is done.’
‘Now you are king?’
‘Soon.’
Mná, smiled. ‘And I shall be your queen.’
Cialtie’s smile vanished. ‘I don’t think so.’
Mná, sat up, confused.
‘You don’t think I could have a Banshee for a queen, do you?’ Cialtie said Banshee like it was a profanity. ‘What would people say?’
Mná, went to attack him but was struck by another set of contractions. She fell back onto the bed, screaming. Breithe came up behind Cialtie and told him that he should leave and not upset the girl. Cialtie answered her with a backhanded punch that sent her across the tent, unconscious on the floor.
‘You have been very helpful,’ Cialtie said to Mná, ‘but I’m afraid your usefulness has run out.’
I don’t know if Mná was screaming from the pain of labour or because she saw the sword–either way, the screaming stopped abruptly when Cialtie chopped her head off.
Fergal freaked. He screamed, ‘No!’ and tried to stand.
Mom reached through the fire and grabbed him by the collar. ‘It is dangerous to leave before we are done.’ Her voice meant business.
‘Please,’ Fergal cried. His face was soaked with tears. ‘Don’t make me watch this.’
‘I don’t want to see any more either, Fergal, but we must. The Shadowmagic would crush us if we broke the casting. We are almost finished.’
I wasn’t sure if I was allowed or not, but I had to go to him. I got up and sat next to Fergal and put my arm around him. Araf did the same on the other side and Essa held him from behind. Sobs racked Fergal as, together, we watched to the end.
In the vision we saw Cialtie pick up an oil lamp and walk to the entrance of the tent, then without emotion he smashed the lamp on the ground. He turned and exited, leaving the tent aflame. Breithe came to before the flames reached her. I wish I had met her–she must have been a remarkable woman. When she saw what had happened to Mná, she allowed herself only a second of horror–then she pulled a knife from her sock, jumped o
n the bed to avoid the flames, and went to work. Breithe performed a Caesarean section. She made a careful incision in Mná’s, midriff and gently removed Fergal from his dead mother’s body. Just as swiftly, she tied off the umbilical cord, cut through the side of the tent and escaped into the night–leaving the evidence of Fergal’s birth to burn behind her.
‘It is done,’ Deirdre said, her shoulders slumping with exhaustion.
Fergal collapsed, shaking, on Araf’s lap. He was beyond weeping, he was, as the Irish say, keening. A soft, constant wail came from his throat. There was nothing to say. What could I say? I remembered a friend who was adopted who had hired a detective to find her real mother. She told me that all of her life she had dreamt that her real parents were some sort of aristocracy and she was really a princess. She told me how much it hurt when she found that her mother was just a poor, uneducated woman who had tried to forget her. I saw how much pain that caused her; I couldn’t imagine what Fergal was going through.
Fand left to prepare a sleeping draught. We got Fergal to his feet and by the time we arrived at our room he was amazingly calm. Araf and I offered to help him get ready for bed, but he shooed us away. He said he wanted to just lie and think, and he promised he would take the sleeping draught in a little while.
Outside, a voice came out of the dark. ‘How is he?’ It was Essa.
‘Who knows? I’m freaked out after seeing that stuff,’ I said. ‘Fergal won’t get over this in a hurry’
Essa nodded. ‘I too won’t be able to sleep. Would you like to walk for a bit?’
‘Go on,’ Araf said, ‘I will keep watch here until Fergal sleeps.’
The night had gotten so dark, walking was actually dangerous. The first thing I did was trip over a small boulder.
‘Are you alright?’ Essa said, with a tone that sounded like real concern.
‘Ow, I hurt my leg, but hey, I only need it for walking.’
‘Let me have a look,’ she said as she crouched down.
‘How are you going to look? If there was any light around here I wouldn’t have smashed into the damn rock.’
Essa turned her palms face up in front of her and closed her eyes and whispered, ‘Lampróg.’
A light twinkled in the distance and came at us, and as it got closer I actually had to shield my eyes. It was one of those nuclear-powered fireflies. Another came from behind me. They landed on Essa’s fingers as she looked at my bruised shin. ‘It’s only a little bump, you baby’
‘Hey, you’re the one that’s making the big deal out of it. I just said I hurt my leg. You’re the one who went all Florence Nightingale on me.’
‘Florence who?’
‘Never mind, why don’t we just sit here for a while.’
She sat opposite me, cross-legged. A firefly landed on each knee, she whispered to them and they dimmed.
‘Can you teach me the firefly trick, or is it a chick thing?’
‘I don’t know what a chick thing is but you have to be a bit of a sorcerer to do it. Since Deirdre is your mother, I think you could be taught.’
She smiled at me, her face bathed in firefly light. She was beautiful and I desperately wanted to kiss her, but the last time I kissed her–she decked me.
Like she was reading my mind, she said, ‘I’m sorry I hit you back there in the Reedlands.’
‘Don’t worry about it. It was a learning experience. Next time I’m in a life-or-death situation with a beautiful woman–I’ll ask before I kiss her.’
‘I didn’t hit you because of the kiss. I hit you because you sounded like you were giving up.’
‘So you liked the kiss then?’
‘I didn’t say that,’ she said, smiling a Mona Lisa-like smile that I couldn’t quite read.
I returned her smile with a swashbuckling grin. ‘Let me put it this way–if I were to kiss you now, would you punch my lights out again?’
‘I’m not sure, that is just the chance you will have to take.’
I looked deep into her eyes. I had to make sure I was reading this right. The girl packed a serious punch and I had had enough concussions for a week–hell, for a lifetime. I held her gaze and her eyes gave it away. She wasn’t looking for a fight. I was sure of it. At least, I think I was. If I got this wrong, I decided I was going to become a monk.
I leaned in and so did she. There is nothing like a first kiss. When I was a kid I remembered complaining about how slow the first kiss scenes in the movies were–now I know that that’s exactly what they are like. Seconds take forever and the anticipation is exquisite.
So what was that first kiss with Essa like? I didn’t find out. Araf came bounding up to us, shouting our names in the dark. We were both on our feet in a second.
‘Araf, what is it?’
‘Fergal’s gone,’ he said, ‘and he has taken your sword.’
Chapter Twenty-One
Aunt Nieve
‘Where could he have gone?’ Essa asked. Araf shrugged.
‘I know where he’s gone,’ I said. ‘He’s going to kill Cialtie.’
‘That’s madness!’ Essa said.
‘I don’t think Fergal is thinking all that straight at the moment.’
‘I’ll head south,’ Araf said. ‘He might try to get out the way we came in. May I borrow a firefly?’
Essa mumbled. One of her fireflies danced into Araf’s hand and he was off.
‘I’ll talk to the Fili and see if they can help,’ Essa said, and ran off, leaving me alone and in pitch darkness.
‘Hey!’ I shouted into the black. I couldn’t see a thing and I had no idea where I was, so I did something I had always wished I could do. I shouted–‘MOM!’
Deirdre was there within the minute. ‘Are you alright?’
‘I’m lost and can’t see a damn thing.’
Deirdre spoke quickly to a nearby tree and picked up a pinecone. She smeared it with a bit of sap and ignited it. When she handed it to me I was half expecting to be burnt, but the Shadowfire felt of nothing.
‘Fergal is missing and he took my sword. I think he is trying to get to Castle Duir.’
‘Oh my gods! He will never get past the blackthorns.’
‘Will they hurt him?’
‘They will kill him if he tries to cut through.’
‘You have got to stop them.’
Mom whipped out her wand and touched it to the ground. A small plant pushed through the grass. Mom touched it with a finger. After what seemed like an eternity, she stood.
‘He’s this way,’ she said, pointing west.
‘Is he OK?’
‘I don’t know. He is contained. We had better hurry’
We found him in the same area where Dad and I found the Pooka. Unlike the Pooka, Fergal wasn’t on the other side of the blackthorns, but then again he wasn’t on this side either. He was in the thorn wall. He had tried to climb the thorns at the same time that Deirdre had spoken to them. Instead of stabbing him, the thorns encircled him. He was off the ground and trussed up like a smoked ham in an Italian supermarket. It must have hurt like hell. The only thing he could move was his head. And let me tell you–he was not happy about it. He was beyond words, thrashing his head, cursing and ranting with sounds that were before language, like a high-pitched mad dog. His mouth was foaming to match.
Mom took some sap out of her satchel and spoke to a nearby tree, then threw the sap into the air. The top of the tree exploded into flame and light–Shadowfire.
‘Fand will be here in a few minutes,’ she said.
‘Can you let him out?’
‘I think we should wait till he calms down. Fand will have something.’
‘Can I climb up to him without the thorns perforating me?’
Mom placed her hands on the thorn wall and said, ‘Go ahead.’
The spikes turned away from me as I climbed. Fergal was still raving when I reached his eye level. He noticed me and his head whipped in my direction–there was murder in his eyes. Mom was right–if we had le
t him go, I think he would have attacked us. His mind had snapped.
Fand and some other Fili appeared out of the darkness. They had run without any lights–amazing. Upon seeing Fergal, Fand put away the vial she was holding and took out some greenish sap. She lifted the cuff of Fergal’s trousers and rubbed the stuff on his skin. Fergal snarled at her but then started to relax. Mom released him enough for me to get a hold of his shirt and lower him down to the throng of waiting Fili hands. Fergal winced but didn’t fight. I jumped down, and the blackthorns creaked back to their original position. Fand sat Fergal up. She was just about to give him something that would knock him out when he opened his eyes and saw me.
‘Conor?’ he said. The mad dog that had taken over his face was gone. He was Fergal again, without the smile.
‘I’m here, Fergal.’
‘He’s my father,’ he said. His voiced quivered and his eyes welled with tears.
‘Yes,’ I said. What else could I say? It’s OK, Fergal, don’t worry about it? That would be a lie. One thing this was not–was OK.
‘Oh, Conor.’ He sounded like he was five years old. ‘He killed my mother.’
I put my arms around him. His head shook on my shoulder with silent sobs, his warm tears fell down my neck. I don’t know how long we stayed like this but when I looked up, everyone else was there: Essa, Araf and my father. Dad leaned down and stroked Fergal’s hair.
‘Nephew,’ he said. Fergal looked up, confused. Dad smiled at him. ‘That’s right, I am your uncle.’ He wiped some of the tears from Fergal’s cheek. ‘Listen to me, Fergal, I know what it is like to lose all and I know despair, but I promise you–it will get a little better every day. I know you feel as if you can’t go on, but it will be better tomorrow and the next day. The pain will never go, but it will get easier. You can do it. You are a son of Duir.’
I saw hope enter Fergal’s eyes. I loved and admired my father at that moment more than I ever had.
Then Fergal’s eyes went dark again. ‘What about Cialtie?’ he hissed.
‘He will be dealt with soon,’ Dad said, ‘but we must not seek revenge. Revenge is an evil motive that corrupts the soul.’ Dad grabbed Fergal under his arm and helped him to his feet. He looked his nephew in the eyes, and then looked at me. ‘We shall seek justice.’
