The God's Wolfling (Children of Myth Book 2)

by Cedar Sanderson

  “And when hostilities erupt again?” Granny poured herself more tea.

  Linn shrugged. “I’m a kid, they don’t talk to me about it, much.”

  “Yet you were sent to Mac’Lir when he called.”

  “Yeah, because we didn’t know what he wanted, and...” she hesitated, then decided to reveal the other part. “Something came up, urgent, and the adults had to go look into that. Bes was with me at first. I don’t know where he went.”

  Linn was still worried over that. It was unlike him to take off, and although she felt it meant he trusted her to be responsible, it was a little alarming to feel like a baby bird kicked out of the nest. She wasn’t sure she was ready to fly.

  “Mac’Lir sent you on a quest. Do you know what that means?” Granny asked, leaning back in her chair.

  Linn shook her head. “I don’t know Mac’Lir at all. He’s...” She wasn’t sure how to politely explain.

  Granny Clinch looked at Merrick. “You know.”

  He nodded. Granny lifted her eyebrows at him, and he ducked his head, looking embarrassed. Granny Clinch spoke very softly, and Linn almost couldn’t hear her.

  “Your family has served him for long and long. He has not forgotten that, nor will he. Thy great-grand’s sacrifices bled blood intermingled with all Manannan held dear. He cannot put that aside, lad.”

  Merrick took a deep breath and looked like the wolf he shifted to, alert and powerful. “He’s testing us. He doesn’t mind that Haephestus sent his granddaughter, it is blood of his blood. But Manannan Mac’Lir has always been cautious with his trust, and he cannot simply say what he needs, until he knows the messenger is trustworthy.”

  “Oh.” Linn thought of the meth lab, and the men. Of being bound on the floor along with Mac’Lir’s emissary. She’d failed already.

  Her disappointment must have showed on her face. Merrick went on, his voice gloomy. “I failed him. I let us walk right into danger without protecting you, and then I couldn’t rescue you once we were there.”

  Granny shook her head and cackled with laughter. “Young’uns, you take all this so seriously. Girl, why did you knock on that door?”

  Linn lifted her hand of the arm of the chair and looked at the perfect feather tattoo in her palm. “Well, Mac’Lir gave me this as a guide.”

  She leaned over and Granny Clinch took her hand, fumbling for her reading glasses that hung from a cord around her neck. Her hands felt leather-tough on Linn’s. Once she could see clearly, Granny looked at the feather for a long time, then closed her eyes. Linn guessed she was using the Sight to see the magical talisman.

  “You did as you were directed. Mac’Lir, hasty as ever...” The old lady sniffed loudly in disdain. “Had he scryed the calling first, he would have seen it was a foolish child calling as he had done for years, and his father before him. A call meant to be used only in extremity, perverted to a good-luck chant.”

  “Oh.” Linn really wasn’t sure what to say in response to this. So the feather had worked, and she had gone where she was supposed to. Into a danger unseen.

  Merrick was the next target. Granny Clinch shook one bony finger at him. “And you, you need to learn to treat your gifts as that, not curses. Nothing wrong with who you are born to be, stop trying to be normal, child!”

  Merrick squirmed. Linn looked away, the only thing she could do to give him some space. Granny Clinch went on, inexorable.

  “Both of you are being silly. You didn’t need rescuing. I was on my way as soon as I got the distress call, but had I been five minutes later you would have been out of there. You...” she pointed at Linn. “You were prepared, and kept your head under fire.”

  She turned the finger on Merrick again, who flinched a little. “And all you had to do was take wolf-form, and the bindings would have dropped away. Work on keeping your cool, lad. It’s the best weapon, keeping your head.”

  Now Linn could feel herself blushing. Blackie interjected, shyly. “And me?”

  Granny Clinch got up and hugged him. “You called me. Good lad for not charging into a situation half-cocked.”

  “Come on, then.” The old woman walked through the open door. “Lunch. I remember that age...” her voice trailed away as she got out of hearing range.

  Linn was hungry, so she followed, wanting to help in return for her meal. Just like before, Granny Clinch put all three of them to work. Linn was peeling apples, and she focused on her task, but started to talk.

  “Granny, what is your connection to Mac’Lir?”

  “Stories after meal,” that personage replied, stirring another pot of tea with ice.

  This meal was quicker: sandwiches, tea, and the fruit went into pies for later. Granny led them all back onto the deck, and when they were settled, she began, gazing out into the green forest below them.

  “In the time of the Tuatha De Danaan, the gods ruled over mortals. In time, the humans grew strong, and saw that this was not the way they wanted to continue on. While all, mortals and the ever-living, gathered at the great Fair on the banks of the River Blackwater, the mortals drew their hidden weapons and drove the ever-living from the face of the earth. The Tuatha De Danaan withdrew into the sidhe, and ere long, from the memories of the mortals. Only the legends lived on, and they became changed from tellings and retellings.

  “In the sidhe, which you younglings know as the High Plane, and apart from this world, the ever-living hid. There, the immortal beings drew inward, hurt, and their politics grew ever more complex. Into this, Manannan Mac’Lir, the god of all oceans, was drawn as into a whirlpool. His family suffered for it. His wife, Fand, wanted to desert him for another. I will draw a veil over all that happened then, for the sake of your young ears.”

  Granny chuckled, and Linn decided she really didn’t want to know. She knew all about sex, but it didn’t interest her in the slightest. Some things were just gross.

  Granny Clinch went on, her eyes dreamy with long-ago memories, and Linn realized that she had a melodic Irish accent now, while she was telling the old tales. “After that time, Manannan returned to Earth, but lived in secret, the last of the ancients in the Isles once so beloved of them who had now become Sidhe. Even though he was meek and mild - saving only for releasing his anger into the sea, to rise as storms - the island where he dwelled became known by his name.”

  “The Isle of Man.” Linn murmured. Granny nodded and took a drink.

  “There were a few more adventures, and the legends always lived on. But with the coming of Christ to the Isles, and Mac Cuill’s conversion, Mac’Lir retreated again from Earth. In time, tired and worn, he went to a secret place only he knew, and slept, with his wife and children beside him.”

  Granny closed her eyes, her face slack and grey, and Linn wondered if she herself had dropped off into a nap. She looked at Merrick, and Blackie, who had been as interested as she in the old woman’s tales of Mac’Lir.

  Granny sighed, and opened her eyes again. “You asked about me. I am one who was of Aoife’s blood, one of the swan maidens. When the ancient ones passed from the face of the earth, not all of the ever-living chose to follow them into the sidhe. Still others were expelled from that refuge, or fled its oppressions and conflicts to wander Earth once again.

  “I am one of those, and connected to Manannan by the swan’s blood, so I may call on him, and be called in return. My family, those who were born of my blood, can as well. Which is how you came here. Do you know the tale of the swan’s skin, child?”

  This was directed at Linn, who shook her head. She hadn’t paid a lot of attention to the Celtic tales, except the bits about coblyns, goblins, and brownies, because of her friends.

  “There is a terrible tale,” Granny began.

  To Linn’s surprise, Merrick made a little growl in the pit of his throat, and a thundercloud look came over his face. Granny laughed.

  “Wolfling, be not so hasty to wrath! Let me tell the tale, and perhaps you will learn a thing or two about the king you love all unknowing
.”

  Merrick subsided, still frowning, and Granny grew serious again.

  “The tale goes that Mac’Lir, in a fit of wrath, killed his wife. She was in swan form, they say, and when she was dead, he was seized with a fit of remorse. He wept over her body for days, and then he skinned her and cured the skin. Finally, he made a magical bag from the swan, in her shape.”

  Merrick wriggled in his chair, and Linn could see he was trying not to explode in anger. She could see why, this was a horrible story.

  Granny’s voice went all soft. “It wasn’t true. Mac’Lir could no more kill his beloved wife than he could himself. And he tried that, often enough, before Niamh of the Fair Hair got through his thick skull.”

  Now her voice was back to the soft southern accent Linn had first heard from her. “His daughter was the one who pointed out that the body had not been found, only blood, and the swan’s skin cape we all used to conceal our true forms from mortals when we wished.”

  “And that is what he made into the bag where anything desired could be drawn forth.” Merrick’s voice was a little rough, like he had been crying, but Linn hadn’t seen tears. She sort of understood that, though. It was a terrible thing to think about someone you respected as much as she had seen Merrick act toward the king.

  Linn wrinkled her forehead in thought. “Wait a minute. I thought you said that Mac’Lir’s wife had gone to sleep with the rest of the family in the secret place.”

  The oven timer for the pies went off, startling all of them. Linn felt herself jump, even though she knew immediately what it was.

  Chapter 9

  When Granny had vanished into the house, Linn looked at Merrick. “You okay?”

  He nodded. “Yeah. I didn’t know... I was afraid she was going to say it was true.”

  Merrick got up and leaned on the railing. “If she said it was true, I was going to have to believe her.”

  “Oh.” Linn tried to think about this applied to Grandpa Heff. “What did she mean about your great grand’s blood, this morning?”

  He looked at her. “It’s how my family came to be in Mac’Lir’s service. When his first wife died, his second wife resented the children he already had, even though they were her nephews and niece. So she started trying to come up with ways to get rid of them. There was a wolf-pack that roamed near the castle, and she told Mac’Lir she was living in fear of the wolves attacking. So he allowed her to bring in two great hounds to stand guard in the nursery.

  “He was away one day, and when he came back, he went straight to the nursery, as was his habit. To his horror, he found blood spatter on the stairs up to the tower where he’d left the children playing. He raced up the stairs, finding more and more blood, then the broken body of a wolf. Mac’Lir drew his sword, and leapt through the open door into the nursery. What he found there turned his blood to ice.

  “The two hounds were in pieces, strewn about the floor. Four wolves were in the room, dead, or dying. Blood dripped from the ceiling, falling into Mac’Lir’s eyes, but his tears cleared them again. There was no sign of his children anywhere, except the carnage that might have been their blood as well. He saw the largest of the wolves lying on the floor move a little, and he lifted the great sword he carried, the one which could cut through anything, and prepared to drive it into the beast’s heart.

  “The blood dripped in his eye again, and as he brought the sword down, he missed entirely, and only cleaved the thick boards of the floor. Then the wolf staggered to his feet, and Mac’Lir saw that the gray beast had hidden the children beneath him, and they leapt up now, seeing they were safe, and hugged both their father, and the wolf, pleading Mac’Lir not to kill it.

  “Later, the story they told him while the wolf was carried to the Great Hall and had his wounds tended delicately, was of the hounds setting on them. They hid under a bed, and peeping out while the dogs scratched and raged in vain, being too large to fit under, they saw the wolf-pack charge into the room. The wolves fought valiantly, until they too were killed. In the battle, the bed was upset, and the great wolf lay over them protecting them with his own body. When he went limp, the children were sure he was dead, and then Mac’Lir had come in.”

  Merrick fell silent, looking off into the distance. The day had grown hazy with the heat of the sun, and the hills had gone from green to shadowed blue. Granny Clinch spoke behind them.

  “You tell the story well, lad. That wolf was your ancestor, and your family has been devoted to Mac’Lir for centuries.”

  Linn had guessed that part. “But why did they protect the children?”

  “The wolves had a geas set on them. They were in the area to watch Aoife, Mac’Lir’s new wife.”

  That was Granny Clinch. Merrick turned around and stared at her. “How do you know that? They didn’t even know that until much later, and we are forbidden to talk about it.”

  “I knew who put it on them.” She answered calmly. “Who wants more tea?”

  Blackie, who had been curled catlike in his chair, long legs half-pulled up, stretched. “May I...” He stopped, as they all looked at him. He looked flustered. “I need...”

  “Ah. Yes, yes, boy, go do what you need. We’ll keep the juicy stories for when you get back.”

  Granny settled back into her chair with a sigh.

  Linn came and sat on the deck by her, looking up at her. “I have a question.”

  Granny raised her eyebrows. “Full of them, I’d imagine. And why are you cozying up to me?”

  Linn felt her cheeks heat up. “You remind me of the other grandmother. Not Pele... she’s...”

  Her maternal grandmother was as volatile and fiery as her persona of volcano and war goddess would imply. Linn didn’t remember her father’s mother well, but she did remember playing with dolls, at Nona’s feet, while Nona dozed. She would waken abruptly and tell Linn a story, then nod off again. She had died when Linn was ten.

  “I know Pele. I’m not like her, you are right.”

  Linn supposed she shouldn’t be surprised that Granny Clinch knew Pele. The immortals were a small community, she was discovering. “I wanted to ask why you seem so ordinary, if you are immortal.”

  “I’ve been Granny for so long, child, they all know me as this, and just this. By being ordinary, they forget just how long Granny has been...”

  Linn told her, “I teased Bes into youthening.”

  Granny cackled. “Bes is a good-for-nothing with a wicked sense of humor. You tell him I said that.”

  Linn smiled, then frowned. “I don’t know where he went. He left us at Mac’Lir’s castle without a goodbye.”

  Granny stopped laughing. “Here and I have been wasting time with stories. Bes left you alone when you were in his charge?”

  “Well, I’m not a child.” Linn objected. “I’m sure he was just called away by an emergency,” she added with a surge of loyalty.

  “And who else was in your retinue?”

  “Retinue?” Linn echoed, confused.

  “The group sent by your grandfather. I’ve been remembering the past too much.” Granny reached out and patted Linn on the head.

  “Well, me, and Blackie, and Spot... that’s Blackie’s brother. And Deirdre. Spot stayed with Deirdre, because she wasn’t ready for an adventure.”

  “Is she younger than you?” Granny asked.

  “Yes, a little. Spot and Blackie are only two, but, well...” Linn looked toward the house. Blackie hadn’t come back yet.

  “God’s children develop differently.” Granny nodded wisely. “None of mine had enough god’s blood to show.”

  Linn got back up and went to her chair. “So we were all old enough to look after ourselves, you see.”

  They could hear running steps coming through the house, and all three of them stood up. Linn and Merrick were at the door ahead of Granny, who was spry, but no match for their youthful enthusiasm. Blackie burst through the door and grabbed Linn.

  “We have to go! Something’s wrong with Spot.” />
  “What?” Linn was confused. How would he know?

  “Wait a moment.” Granny Clinch took his shoulder. “Don’t go off half-cocked, boy. You can’t possibly get there fast enough to make a difference. Now, what do you know?”

  “I don’t get anything like clear words or pictures from him, you know.” Blackie’s speech was so fast it was slurred. “Just that he’s in danger, and afraid for Dee...”

  “Dee?” Granny asked.

  “Deirdre, the coblyn girl.” Linn supplied, since Blackie appeared to have lost the ability to speak entirely.

  “She’s a coblyn?” Granny let go of Blackie’s shoulder, and he started to pace.

  “Yes, didn’t I say?” Having Granny Clinch in your face, Linn was discovering, was a scary experience. Her eyes were remarkably sharp and piercing, like she could see inside your head.

  “No, you didn’t. Coblyns mature very slowly compared to humans. She may seem your age, but she is still a child. Blackie.” Granny reached out and caught his hand. He came to a halt, quivering slightly.

  “Yes’m,” he responded miserably.

  “What was your brother’s impression of the danger?”

  “Under attack...” Blackie shivered. “Little people, like Dee.”

  “Little people attacking right after Mac’Lir’s return? I think I know what you will face. It won’t be pretty. Perhaps you should wait, while we call for help.”

  “No!” all three of the young people spoke at once. Granny looked from face to face.

  “You don’t know what you are facing,” She pointed out gently.

  “These are our friends,” Linn started.

  Merrick interjected, “and family. We need to go now, please.”

  “Bes may have been lured away. I think you will find that a goblin swarm attacked the castle, hoping to catch Mac’Lir weak and vulnerable before he called all his people back together again.” Granny patted Blackie’s hand and let go of it.

  “If you insist on going, use your strengths, children. Don’t lose your heads and jump right into the fire.”