by Funaro, Greg
“Mind yer gob, neep,” Mack said. “We’ve got nothing to say to the likes of you.”
“When I want commentary from a sputtering Scotsman, I’ll ask for it.”
“Why you little—tick—tick—!” Mack trembled and flashed, and then his eyes went dark. Just as well, I thought, as this wasn’t the time for brawling. I slipped him in my pocket, and realized my heart was pounding.
“A word, Grubb, please,” Dalach said. “You needn’t be afraid.”
Cautious, I stepped closer to the prison sphere, and the Gallownog pressed up against the glass so that I might see him better. His normally blue face, coming into focus, looked green now behind the shield of sparkling yellow light that surrounded him.
“I wanted to thank you for being such a good friend to Cleona,” he said. “She told me of your escape from Nightshade’s castle, and how you risked your life to save her.”
I didn’t quite know how to reply, and just stood there, eyes hard, staring back at him suspiciously.
“I was able to watch you for a bit when I first came on board,” Dalach went on. “I hope you don’t mind my saying so, but you remind me of your mother.”
“It’s not polite to spy on people,” I said. “Especially in the midst of their lessons.”
Dalach smiled. “You misunderstand me, lad. I’d seen your mother once before I spied her in that mirror. Only from a distance, of course, but enough to know that your heart beats with the same courage and character.”
“But how—”
“We Gallownog are capable of things that other banshees are not.”
“I don’t believe you,” I said. “My mother died in England. Banshees cannot cross over the Irish Sea unless they’re protected, so you couldn’t have seen her.”
“If banshees can’t cross over the Irish Sea, then how did Cleona get to England to wail your mother’s death?”
I fumbled for an answer, but when I couldn’t find one, Lorcan Dalach found it for me. “Love,” he said simply, and I just stared back at him, confused. “It’s as simple as that, Grubb. A banshee’s love for her family is so powerful that it can carry her across entire oceans to wail for them at the moment of death. However, if a banshee tries to interfere, as Cleona did, she is banished to Tir Na Mairg.”
“Tir Na Mairg?”
“It means Land of Sorrow—an afterlife where evil spirits and the damned dwell in eternal torment. Tir Na Mairg exists between this world and the Land of the Dead.”
“I don’t understand.”
“Think of Tir Na Mairg as if it were the shield of fairy dust around this sphere. Inside, where I am, is the Land of the Dead. The fairy dust is the Land of Sorrow, and where you are is the Land of the Living. But Tir Na Mairg is by far the worst of the three. It’s the in-between. I’ve seen it with my own eyes, Grubb—a terrible, desolate place of untold pain and suffering, for Tir Na Mairg is home to the doom dogs.”
I took a sharp breath in. “You mean you’ve traveled there?”
Lorcan Dalach held up his spirit shackles. “Aye, lad. It is the unhappy lot of the Gallownog to escort banished banshees into Tir Na Mairg, for only a Gallownog has the fortitude to endure the horrors that dwell there.” Dalach leaned in closer and held my gaze. “And so it was, Grubb, that on one such journey I saw your mother in the Land of the Dead.” My eyes grew wide and my jaw hung slack. “I saw her in much the same way as you see me now”—he gestured at the force field of fairy dust—“from a distance, through the mists of Tir Na Mairg.”
“You’re lying,” I said, my voice small, but I could tell by the look in his eyes that the Gallownog spoke the truth.
“I swear it on my love for Cleona,” he said, raising his hand in oath. “I saw your mother, Grubb; and from what I’ve seen of the Odditorium, I’ll wager Alistair Grim intends to find her by using Cleona’s spirit energy to take him into the Land of the Dead.”
I averted my eyes. This bloke doesn’t miss a trick, I thought, and the Gallownog smiled as if he’d read my mind.
“Then what I say is true,” he said. “But take heed, lad. Cleona is a banshee, a spirit meant only for this world unless banished to the Land of Sorrow. And so her energy will transport Alistair Grim not to the Land of the Dead, but to Tir Na Mairg—and only for a moment, because love and goodness cannot exist there.”
“So, the first time Father used his Sky Ripper, it was the Land of Sorrow what spit us out?”
“Ah, so you’ve tried already,” Dalach said, and I dropped my eyes. Once again, I’d revealed too much. “Then you know I speak the truth. Alistair Grim will never reach the Land of the Dead through Tir Na Mairg. The evil that dwells there, repelled by the love in Cleona’s energy, will cast out his Odditorium in the blink of an eye.”
My heart sank. “Poor Father,” I muttered. “It’s all for naught.”
“No, there is hope, lad,” Dalach said, and he rattled his spirit shackles. “As a Gallownog, I can take your father into Tir Na Mairg. Once he’s chained to me he can remain as long as I do. After that, well, I should think if anyone could find a way from there into the Land of the Dead, it’d be Alistair Grim.”
“You mean, you’d help Father find his lost love?”
“Aye, lad. I’ve had a change of heart. My love for Cleona has made me see the error of my ways. But in order to help your father, you have to get me out of this sphere.”
“Perhaps you should tell him of this change of heart yourself.”
“He won’t believe me. Besides, I imagine your father’s preoccupied at present, what with Prince Nightshade on his tail. You, on the other hand—if you let me out of this prison, I can take you into Tir Na Mairg. Then you can tell your father what I say is true. You can tell him you saw Elizabeth O’Grady’s spirit for yourself.”
“If you think I’m going to set you free, you’re even dafter than this witch I know.”
“But don’t you want to meet your mother, Grubb? Don’t you want to ask her why she abandoned you all those years ago to a life of misery?”
The banshee’s words cut me to the quick. It was as if he’d read my innermost thoughts—thoughts that, until now, I’d been afraid to admit even to myself. For although I desperately wanted to know what drove Elizabeth O’Grady away from Father, even more so I wanted to know why she kept my birth a secret from him. Unfortunately, there was only one person who knew the answer to that question, and she presently resided in the Land of the Dead.
“All your questions shall be answered in Tir Na Mairg,” Dalach said. “I can show you your mother. I can show you how to talk to her, and then—”
“That’s enough!” someone shouted, and I spun round to find Nigel poking his head up from the porthole to the lower gunnery. His face was cast in shadow, his eyes hidden behind his goggles, but it was clear from the tone of his voice that he was cross.
I glanced back at the Gallownog. “Tir Na Mairg, lad,” he whispered. “Tir Na Mairg.” And then Lorcan Dalach withdrew into the sphere, his shape becoming just a fuzzy green shadow amidst the glow of fairy dust.
“Come along, Grubb,” Nigel said, and when I joined him down in the gunnery, he lifted me up by the shoulders so that our noses were nearly touching. “The Gallownog speaks with a silver tongue,” he said with quiet anger. “Should I catch you with him again, the boss’s son or not, it’ll be my hand you feel across your mouth. Understand?”
I nodded, terrified, and Nigel set me down. I’d only seen him like this once before—all those weeks ago when I first blurted out the prince’s surname in the marketplace. And yet, despite my present fear of him, I knew deep down that the big man’s anger stemmed only from his love for me.
“Carry on, then,” he said, handing me a wrench. A panel in the floor had been removed and an oil can sat nearby. I shimmied into the cramped crawl space beneath the gyro-seat and set to work on the jammed rotary gear. I tried hard not to think about my conversation with the Gallownog—I truly did—but once the gear was oiled and moving freely
again, I lay there on my back for a long time afterward with Lorcan Dalach’s words echoing in my head.
“Tir Na Mairg, lad… Tir Na Mairg…”
All through the afternoon and well into the evening Nigel and I labored feverishly, oiling gears and rerouting pipes in nearly every room of the Odditorium. We spoke very little during our work. As the evening wore on, I sensed that the big man had grown sad—so much so that, when he asked to be left alone in his quarters to charge himself, I felt the need to apologize for speaking with the Gallownog.
“Trouble yourself no more about it, lad,” Nigel said with a smile. Nevertheless, I could tell something was still bothering him, and as he removed his goggles and made to lower the charging helmet upon his head, I saw that his animus-filled eyes were rimmed with tears.
My heart squeezed, and without thinking, I rushed over and hugged his leg. “Oh, don’t despair, Nigel!” I cried as my own tears began to flow. “I’d never set Dalach free—no matter what he promised!”
Nigel chuckled and placed a beefy hand upon my shoulder. “I know that, Grubb.”
“Please forgive me, then, won’t you? I didn’t mean to make you cry.”
“Now, now, lad. It’s not your fault. All that talk about seeing people what’s passed on…Well, I suppose we all have someone we’d like to talk to again, eh?”
At first I thought Nigel meant his daughter, Maggie. After all, he was always so jolly except when missing her. But Maggie was alive and well and residing in the country with Judge Hurst’s sister, so Nigel couldn’t possibly hope to see her from Tir Na Mairg.
But Maggie’s mother, on the other hand…
The light suddenly dawning, I gazed up at Nigel to find him smiling. I best not press him about it tonight, I said to myself. Don’t want to upset him further.
“You run along to bed now, Grubb,” Nigel said. “We’ve got a big day ahead of us tomorrow. Which reminds me: you better see if Professor Bricklewick needs anything before you turn in.”
Without a word, I hugged Nigel’s leg one last time and dashed from the room. And after checking in on Professor Bricklewick, who had retired for the evening with his map in Father’s quarters, I headed down the hallway toward the lift. However, as I passed by the door across from Cleona’s room, I noticed that the SILENCE IS GOLDEN sign had been replaced with one that read, ENTER, PLEASE.
“That’s odd,” I muttered. “I wonder who it’s for.”
The sign let out a puff of shimmering sparkles, and then the words transformed themselves into, YOU, DUMMY!
“Cor!” I gasped in amazement when I realized I’d just been insulted. “Hang on. It’s not polite to call people names.”
Another puff of sparkles, and the sign again said, ENTER, PLEASE.
I must confess that I was tempted, but Father had been very clear in his instructions: under no circumstances was I to enter this room. True, I thought it very strange that no one, not even Nigel, would tell me what was inside. But as I’d quickly learned in my time at the Odditorium, Father had his reasons for everything. And, like it or not, those reasons were always sound. Well, almost always.
“I most certainly will not enter,” I said. “That’ll be the day I listen to an ill-mannered sign over Father.”
I was answered with a loud thump! on the door. Startled, I jumped back and waited for the sign to insult me again, but nothing happened. I hurried downstairs to report to Father what I’d seen. The clocks were just chiming ten as I stepped off the lift and into the parlor. A heated discussion was taking place in the library.
“But, Uncle,” Cleona said, “you assured us that you’d return Lorcan to Ireland after we left the circle of stones.”
Father mumbled something unintelligible, and I crept closer to the pocket doors, which were cracked open just enough for me to get a clear view of him reading at his cluttered desk. Cleona hovered above Father’s shoulder, staring down at him with her eyes narrowed and her arms crossed. I knew I shouldn’t spy on them, but I also knew I shouldn’t interrupt them either.
“Don’t change the subject,” Cleona said. “You know very well that Nigel connected the Sky Ripper’s induction unit to the flight sphere last night.”
“I’m sorry, love, but I simply don’t have the time to argue with you.”
“But surely—”
“Furthermore, this Aquaticum is sizing up to be my most dangerous quest yet, not the least of which has to do with our traveling underwater. Who knows how the interdimensional space jump will affect the Odditorium’s systems once we pass into Avalon. Therefore, I suggest you get some rest in the event you need to charge the reserves in a hurry.”
Cleona began gliding back and forth, pacing in midair. “That’s exactly my point. It’s too dangerous to have the Gallownog on board for the space jump. What if something does happen to the Odditorium’s systems? What if we have another animus drain like last time and Lorcan escapes?”
“If you’ll recall, both the flight sphere and Gwendolyn’s fairy dust were unaffected by our last space jump. Thus, I am quite confident that the Gallownog will be perfectly secure inside his prison.”
“Pshaw. Say your silly Aquaticum pans out and we do reach Avalon, what next? You don’t very well think you can just walk up to Queen Nimue and ask her to borrow Excalibur, do you?”
“Well, if you have a better idea, I’m all ears.” Father tossed aside the book he was reading and opened another.
“But, Uncle—”
Father pounded his fist on the desk. “Cleona, please!” he thundered. “Need I remind you that the prince and Mad Malmuirie are still on our tail?”
Cleona bowed her head and bit her lip. Father’s outburst had clearly winged her.
“Forgive me, love,” he said, softening. “But as far as I’m concerned this matter is closed until we gain possession of Excalibur.”
Cleona descended slowly to the floor so that her eyes were even with Father’s.
“I know why you want to keep him here,” she said. “Your little plan of rerouting the Sky Ripper’s induction unit—you’re thinking about using Lorcan’s energy to take you through Tir Na Mairg, aren’t you?”
I gasped, and my heart began to hammer. “Have you gone mad?” Father said. But from the way his voice went up in pitch, I couldn’t help but wonder whether or not he was bluffing.
“I’m not mad and neither are you,” Cleona said. “You know very well why our space jump didn’t work last time. You thought my love would transport you across Tir Na Mairg and into the Land of the Dead the same way it transported me across the ocean to wail Elizabeth’s death.”
“Cleona—”
“But you miscalculated. My love was too strong, and so we were cast out of Tir Na Mairg at once. A Gallownog, on the other hand, can remain there as long as he pleases. You think that if you were to use Lorcan’s energy in the Sky Ripper instead of mine, you could stay in Tir Na Mairg long enough to find a way to Elizabeth!”
Father fixed his eyes on Cleona’s, and a heavy silence hung between them. “Well?” Cleona asked. “Am I right?”
“Go to bed,” Father said, and Cleona dropped to her knees.
“I beg of you, Uncle. It’s called the Land of Sorrow for a reason—a realm of unspeakable torment and pain. The Gallownog can negotiate its horrors because they are a different breed entirely—fierce warriors who are trained from birth to endure severe hardship and suffering. Without one of them to protect and guide you through Tir Na Mairg, your spirit will become just another one of the damned walking between this world and the next.”
“Listen to me, Cleona,” Father said, taking her hands. “I am engaged at present on one mission and one mission only: to find Excalibur and defeat Prince Nightshade. Until then, everything else is irrelevant.”
“Promise me, then, will you? Promise me you’ll never journey into Tir Na Mairg.”
Father heaved a heavy sigh. “I promise,” he said quietly, and a wave of relief washed over Cleona’s face.
/> “Thank you,” she said, hugging him. Without a word more Cleona floated upward and disappeared through the ceiling. Father sighed and removed the Black Mirror from its case.
“Will you show me now what I wish to know?” he asked. The mirror flashed ever so briefly and Father frowned. “Temperamental as always.” He tossed the mirror back into its case and hung his head in his hands.
My heart sank in pity, and yet I just stood there watching, searching for a sign that Father’s promise to Cleona had been insincere. I hated myself for being suspicious of him; but more so, I hated myself because, despite everything I’d heard about Tir Na Mairg, part of me hoped that Alistair Grim was planning on traveling there after all.
I gazed up at the portrait of my mother above the hearth and a sea of questions began tossing about in my head. Why did you run away and leave me with the Yellow Fairy? Why didn’t you tell Father of my birth? Didn’t you realize what both our lives might have been like had I lived with him instead of Mr. Smears?
“Tir Na Mairg, lad,” I heard Lorcan Dalach say in my mind. “All your questions shall be answered in Tir Na Mairg.”
Just then, the secret panel to the spiral staircase opened in the wall beside the lift. I darted back into the shadows, and a pair of samurai stepped out—coming down from the roof, I knew, to make their nightly report. Since our flight from London, the samurai had been keeping watch round the clock in the event the prince should try to sneak up on us—not to mention Mad Malmuirie and Mr. Smears and anyone else who might be looking for Alistair Grim now that his likeness had been in the papers.
I moved aside to let them pass, and the samurai marched into the library without acknowledging me.
“Everything all right?” Father asked. I could not see them from my new position, but the samurai must have nodded yes, for a moment later they marched back through the parlor and out the secret panel.
“You may enter, Grubb,” Father called. My stomach lurched—the samurai must have told him that I was waiting outside. “Please, son, I haven’t got all night.”
