Sons of Macha

It was a tight fit in the car. I got stuffed in to the back and we broke all Pennsylvania speeding laws. After my incarceration I needed some air, so I reached into the front and pulled the latch for the convertible top. The wind took the roof and ripped it right off the car.

‘Oops,’ I said with a smile worthy of Fergal.

‘Yeeha!’ Essa whooped.

I laughed and shouted over the sound of the rushing wind, ‘Where did you learn to do that?’

‘Isn’t that what you and Fergal used to do when you were excited?’ Essa said, her grey hair swirling around the car.

‘It is – well remembered.’

Brendan was tearing around the back country road at an alarming speed. I would have thought that Essa would be terrified but she loved it.

‘This is like being on dragon-back,’ she shouted. ‘Can everybody go around in contraptions like this?’

‘If they go this fast they get in trouble from the police,’ Brendan answered.

‘But it’s OK because you are police – right?’

‘Not any more,’ Brendan said, ‘I handed in my badge the instant the FBI man hit the wall.’

Brendan slowed a little bit as we turned onto the narrow roads that led to his house. At last we skidded around a corner and saw Brendan’s mother and daughter waiting for us at the exact place where Brendan and I had arrived from Tir na Nog a week earlier.

It was the first time I had ever seen Brendan’s daughter. She stood there in a purple tie-dye tee-shirt, a small pack on her back, a white stick in her hand and classic full-sized Ray-Ban sunglasses that took over her whole face.

Essa quickly busied herself opening the portal. Brendan’s mother, Nora, said, ‘It is very nice to see you again, Conor. Are you OK?’

‘I’m fine, Mrs Fallon.’

I crouched down and addressed Ruby. ‘And you must be Brendan’s little Gem?’

Ruby straightened up and said, ‘Only Daddy can call me Gem.’

‘Oh, sorry. It is very nice to meet you, Miss Fallon.’

She shot her hand straight out in front of her. ‘It is nice to meet you, Mr O’Neil.’

We shook. ‘Call me Conor, Mr O’Neil is my dad. Can I call you Ruby?’

‘You can call me Miss Fallon.’

‘That’s my Gem,’ Brendan said smiling.

‘Well, Miss Fallon, I like your shades.’

Ruby adjusted the huge sunglasses. ‘If they’re good enough for Ray Charles,’ she said, ‘then they’re good enough for me.’

‘Indubitably,’ I agreed.

The sound of distant sirens pulled my attention away from the undersized child in the oversized sunglasses. Essa had started the portal to Tir na Nog – there was an outline hanging in the air but it didn’t look like anything I wanted to step into.

‘Pick up the pace, old lady,’ I said. ‘We’ll soon have company.’

‘You want to do this, Duir Boy?’ she grumbled. ‘Stepping through an unstable portal is almost as dangerous as calling me “old lady”.’

‘Seriously,’ Brendan said. There was concern in his voice. ‘How long?’

‘It could be soon if you would allow me to concentrate.’

Brendan and I left her alone. The noise of the approaching sirens meant the cops were almost there.

‘We’ve got a problem,’ Brendan said.

‘You think?’

‘Essa wields our only non-lethal weapon and she’s busy opening the magic thingy.’

‘You missing your bow and arrows?’

‘If the cops get here before she finishes they’ll shoot you.’

‘Me?’ I said. ‘What about you? How about when they get here, I tell them that this is all your fault, ’cause now that I think about it – it is.’

‘I’ve got an idea of how to slow them down,’ Brendan said, ‘if Ruby is game.’

For the record I thought it was a dreadful idea. And it certainly made it so I can never return to the Real World. When the two cop cars screeched to a halt in the gravel road, Brendan and his mother stood in front of me frantically waving their hands. Three policemen and Special Agent Murano all got out – guns drawn.

‘Don’t shoot,’ Brendan shouted. ‘He’s got my daughter.’

What the cops saw was me holding a knife to little Ruby’s throat. Actually it was the nail file from Brendan’s Swiss army knife but hopefully none of the cops’ eyesight was good enough to notice that.

‘Stand back coppers,’ I said in my best Jimmy Cagney voice, ‘or I’ll let the girl have it.’

That was Ruby’s cue to let loose what her father called one of her ‘migraine screams’. Despite the name, I was unprepared for the ear bleeding, high-pitched volume of the screech. I almost dropped the knife and I’m sure that every dog in a five-mile radius ran underneath a sofa.

‘Ow,’ I said.

Brendan turned around and whispered, ‘Told you so.’

‘Take it easy, O’Neil,’ one of the policemen shouted.

‘I don’t want to talk to you. I want to talk to The Shrink.’

‘OK, O’Neil, we’ll get you a psychologist,’ the cop replied. ‘It’s just going to take a little time.’

‘I don’t want to talk to a psychologist, I want to talk to THE SHRINK aka Agent Andy. Didn’t you guys know? That’s what they call him at FBI central.’

‘Don’t hurt the girl, O’Neil,’ Murano shouted.

Ruby let loose another one of her sonic screams that made us all tilt our head a bit until it was over. I was surprised that the lenses in her Ray-Bans didn’t shatter.

‘This is your fault, Shrink,’ I shouted. ‘I was a mild-mannered fantasist before you tied me to a chair and tortured me. You turned me into a child killer.’ I gave Ruby a shake for effect and she bit my arm. It really hurt. I lowered the knife and I saw the cops levelling their guns.

Brendan stepped in front fast and said, ‘Don’t shoot,’ while I repositioned the nail file. I whispered to Ruby, ‘What you bite me for?’

She whispered, ‘I’m trying to make it look good.’

‘Well, ow,’ I said and then got back to work on the FBI man. ‘So is attacking a shackled man in the FBI interrogation book?’

‘I never …’

‘Don’t make me do it,’ I shouted. ‘You know what you did. You tortured me and wrote out a fake confession.’

I was stalling for time but I also wanted Murano to feel a little bit guilty about all this. I’m sure in his mind he now felt exonerated about how he treated me. After all, I wasn’t being very chivalrous – I had a knife to the throat of a young blind girl – but I hoped that someone would investigate his actions and get him busted to airport bathroom security.

‘Almost there,’ Essa shouted.

‘Thank the gods,’ I said.

‘O’Neil,’ Murano said, ‘what is the old woman doing?’

The familiar ring of an active portal reached my ears as Essa said, ‘Who you calling old?’

Mom, Dad and Nieve burst through the portal on horseback. Mom threw two of her Shadowmagic exploding light bombs at the two cops on the left and Dad and Nieve threw what looked like small knives at the other cop and the FBI man. The knives swerved directly into the chests of the cop and Agent Murano.

While Mom’s victims were blown off their feet, the cop and the FBI man just looked at the knives sticking out of their chests and fell over backwards.

‘Hi, son,’ Dad said casually as he rode over to Murano.

‘You didn’t have to kill them!’ Brendan shouted as he ran to the FBI man and reached for the knife sticking out of his chest.

Dad stopped him. ‘It’s not a knife.’

‘I can … I can’t move,’ the Fed said.

‘It’s a knife handle but no blade,’ Dad explained, ‘instead of a blade it has one of Nieve’s paralysing pins in it. Pull it out.’ Brendan pulled the knife blade out of the FBI man’s chest and looked at the gold pin.

‘Cool,’ Brendan said and handed it to me.

Murano sat up and felt his chest. ‘I can mo—’

I stuck the pin/knife back in his chest and he fell over like a stuffed teddy bear.

Nieve rode over and while hanging dangerously low to the side of her saddle, gave Brendan a long kiss. When it seemed like it would never stop, Brendan’s mother gave a discreet cough. Brendan looked up to see his mother staring at him with her arms crossed.

‘Oh yeah. Um, Mom, Gem, this is my … friend, Nieve. Nieve, this is my mother Nora and my daughter Ruby.’

Nieve replied, ‘It is very nice to meet you, I’ve heard so much about you both.’

‘We’ll have plenty of time for niceties once we are back in The Land,’ Mom said, riding by. ‘Let us leave this place.’

Brendan turned to his mother and daughter. ‘Are you sure you want to do this? You might not ever get to come back.’

‘We have already discussed this,’ Nora said. ‘What you did today was right and I am proud of you but your actions mean you can no longer stay here.’

‘We want to be with you, Daddy,’ Ruby said taking her father’s hand. His mother took the other and the three of them walked through the portal.

Mom was next. I asked her to relay a message to Tuan for me when she got back to Tir na Nog then I cuffed the cop with his own handcuffs and hog-tied the FBI man with his belt. I took back the paralysing throwing pins and made sure that Murano could see both the portal and his car. The Fed was obviously very shook up and when he finally could find his voice he asked, ‘Who are you people?’

‘We’re Faeries from Pixieland and you, Agent Andy, are a jerk, but you were right about one thing – I’m not crazy. I really did ride a dragon and to prove it to you …’ I grabbed his hair and turned his head towards the portal. Tuan in all of his dragon splendour popped his head through and Agent Andy gasped.

‘I was thinking about having him eat you,’ I said as I walked over and gave Tuan a rub on the snout, ‘but then I had a better idea.’

I whispered into Tuan’s earhole and stepped back. He gave a shrug that meant, ‘If that’s what you want’, and puffed a perfect little ball of fire directly at Agent Murano’s precious Porsche. The car exploded and as the radiator ruptured it gave out a little squeal like a dying mouse. The look on Murano’s face almost made this whole debacle seem worthwhile.

Chapter Three

Macha

Ruby stood in the centre of the Hall of Spells. She tilted her head and spun, dragging her stick on the tiles that represented all of the major runes. ‘We’re not in Scranton any more.’

‘How can you tell that?’ I asked.

‘I’m blind, not stupid.’

‘Ruby!’ her father and grandmother shouted simultaneously.

The young girl shrugged, turned to me and said sorry, but it didn’t seem like her heart was in it. I laughed.

‘Don’t encourage her,’ Brendan said. ‘We are working on Ruby’s rudeness.’

‘Well,’ I said, ‘it sounds like frankness to me. If I need an honest opinion I will know who to ask.’

‘See?’ Ruby said to her father.

‘Ruby’s opinions tend to be too honest.’

I looked up to see Mom and Dad standing waiting for our discussion to end. I cleared my throat and pointed to Brendan’s mother and daughter.

‘Nora and Ruby, may I present to you Lord Oisin of Duir and Princess Deirdre of Cull – my mom and dad.’

Nora bowed then whispered to Ruby who bowed too. As she did, Ruby’s huge sunglasses dropped from her face. Her eyes were dark blue and seemingly unharmed but scars were still visible high on her cheeks where the shards of glass had entered her face and ruined her optic nerve.

Mom stepped up and took Brendan’s mother by the shoulders. ‘It is I who should be bowing to you,’ she said with a nod of the head. ‘You risked your lives today in aid of my son.’

‘I would hardly say our lives were at risk, Your Highness,’ Nora said.

‘You went toe to toe with the FBI and the Scranton cops,’ Dad piped in, ‘I’d say you were risking something. Welcome to Castle Duir. This is our home and for as long as we live here, it is your home as well.’

I leaned in to Nora and whispered, ‘And people live a long time around here.’

‘Daddy promised me a huge bedroom,’ Ruby announced. ‘I’d like to see it now.’

‘Ruby,’ Nora and Brendan again admonished in unison, but Mom, Dad and Nieve just laughed.

‘Of course,’ Mom said. ‘You must be tired. Let me show you to your rooms.’

As Mom and Nieve escorted the Fallons to the west wing, I looked about for Essa and Tuan but they had left.

‘I think she is off with Tuan getting a dragon blood youth tonic,’ Dad said.

‘Who?’ I said nonchalantly.

‘Who?’ Dad scoffed. ‘Essa, the princess that you are looking for.’

‘Who said I was looking for Essa?’

‘Oh, my mistake,’ Dad said sarcastically, ‘maybe you were looking for Graysea? By the way, how are the princess and the mermaid getting along?’

‘You’re enjoying this, aren’t you Dad?’

‘Oh yes,’ Dad said over his shoulder as he ran to catch up with Mom.

Dad came into my room as I was practising my knife throwing. He gingerly pulled the dagger from the wall and inspected the woodwork. ‘Don’t do that.’

‘Mom and Aein told me that you used to do it.’

‘Yes and I got in trouble with my father for it too. I’ll get you a dart board or something. Just go easy on the walls. It probably took an elf fifty years to carve this little section.’

‘OK,’ I said, ‘sorry.’

Dad laid the knife across his palm, feeling its balance. ‘You’re not using one of Dahy’s gold-tipped specials?’

‘No, it’s too easy. Also I don’t like seeing the way the knife swerves in the air. It … it reminds me of how Spideog died.’

‘Oh, of course,’ he said, handing me back the knife, ‘I was sorry to hear about that. You really liked him, didn’t you?’

‘Yeah, I did. You didn’t though, did you?’

‘Oh, I wouldn’t say I didn’t like Spideog, it was just … well, now that I think about it, I really didn’t know him very well. You have to realise that I was Dahy’s student from a young age so I just took my master’s side. I never really knew what those two guys were feuding over until you told me. It makes sense now. Dad never talked about my mother much. Most of the things I know about her are from what Dahy told me.’

‘Don’t you remember Macha at all?’

‘Oh, I have a memory of smiling eyes, but maybe it’s just a false memory that my child mind conjured up while looking at her portrait.’

‘Is there a picture of her in the castle?’

‘Sure – in the north wing.’

‘Can we go see it?’

‘Now?’

‘Why not?’

We walked through the castle together. Jeez, I thought the bowing and scraping was bad with me but for Dad it was just short of grovelling. He didn’t try to discourage it. It was the way I was dealing with it too. You just can’t spend all day saying ‘Stop that.’

Even though Dad looked like my fraternal twin he was starting to regain the grown-up manner that I remembered. When he first regained his youth by drinking Tuan’s dragon blood he acted exactly as he looked – like a teenager. He still drags Mom giggling into private corners of the castle but he doesn’t do it all the time and he has stopped challenging me to wrestling matches.

‘So how’s the kinging going?’ I asked as we walked.

‘To be honest, it’s a lot of paperwork,’ he said. ‘All of the kingdoms are kicking up a fuss about the volatility in Duir and especially how unreliable the gold stipends have been. Mom’s been a huge help. She has been holding them off while I was … resting – but now everybody is looking for stability. I’d like a little stability myself but I think pretty soon my brother is going to do some serious destabilising.’

‘He told me he wants the throne.’

‘Not surprising. Once a guy like Cialtie gets a taste of power – it’s hard to let it go.’

‘I don’t think it’s that,’ I said. ‘I mean it’s not just that. He told me that if he became king he would be safe.’

‘I wonder where he got that idea.’

‘Ona’s book.’

That stopped Dad in his tracks. ‘What book?’

‘Cialtie showed me a book that he found in Ona’s bedroom the day he killed her.’

‘He told you that?’

‘Yeah, but he wasn’t bragging. He really believes that he can do nothing except what she wrote in that book.’

Dad started walking again. ‘And she wrote that he would be safe if he was king?’ When he spoke it was more like it was to himself than me. ‘If he had just told me that, maybe I would have renounced the throne … but I did renounce the throne. He had the throne. Why did he insist on trying to blow things up?’

‘He told me that he wanted to free The Land of Ona’s prophetic chains.’

Dad snorted with derision. ‘Freeing The Land by destroying it – typical Cialtie.’

We rounded a corner and entered the north wing’s portrait gallery. Pictures lined the walls stretching into what seemed like infinity. That’s the funky thing about living in a huge castle. You think you have explored every nook and cranny and then you come across an amazing place you have never seen before.

‘Wow,’ I said, ‘Who are all these people?’

‘These are portraits of all of the major and minor rune holders in The Land, and all holders of a yew wand.’ Dad pointed far into the distance. ‘Your grandmother is over here with the House of Nuin.’

As we walked I asked, ‘Can I get one of these?’

‘I’d love to have a picture of you if you would ever hold still long enough to sit for one, but I can’t hang it in the north hall until you have taken your choosing. I don’t have a portrait yet either. Tell you what, after your choosing we should get our pictures painted together.’

‘OK,’ I said, but didn’t relish the idea of having to have to sit still for hours while Dad bestowed his pearls of wisdom.

I spotted the portrait of Macha before Dad pointed it out to me. She had amber hair like Nieve and Dad’s long face but her eyes weren’t dark like her children’s. Her eyes were clear blue – like mine. She was portrayed sitting astride a black horse holding the reins with one hand and her yew wand in the other. Behind her was a hawthorn in full bloom.

‘She’s definitely your mother,’ I said.

‘Yes,’ he said dreamily like he was lost in the picture.

‘You once told me she went on a sorceress’s quest and never returned.’

‘That is what my father told me but I had a talk with Dahy recently and he says one day – she just vanished.’

‘You talked to Dahy about her?’

‘How could I not? That’s all he wants to speak about since you came back from Mount Cas with that knife.’

I smiled at the memory of the helpful message that had been hidden inside the gold-tipped knife and thrown at us on that mountain pass. ‘He thinks Macha is up there with the Oracle?’

‘He does,’ Dad said.

‘But you don’t?’

‘Actually I’m starting to think that Dahy and Spideog are right. Well, maybe not right but that knife of yours and the message you found with it raises enough doubts in my head to make me think we should find out for sure.’

‘Wait,’ I said, ‘we’re gonna storm the Oracle’s Yew House?’

He didn’t answer at first. He just kept looking at the picture of his mother and then, as if he was making the decision right there on the spot, he said, ‘Yes.’

‘How? That guy is seriously bad ass. He took out Spideog with a flick of the wrist. And I have no doubt he could drop half of that mountain on your head if he wanted to.’

‘Dahy thinks it can be done. There is planning to do. I’ll keep you posted.’

Dad ruffled my hair in a way that he knew really annoyed me and rushed off for a meeting with some runelord who I’m sure had a good reason why he needed more gold in his stipend. I was left alone under the dark stare of yet another grandparent I never knew. As much as I didn’t want to face the Oracle guy on Mount Cas again – I sure wanted to meet my grandmother. Well, if anybody could come up with a working plan of attack, it was Dahy.

I arrived back in my chamber to find Ruby waiting for me. She sat almost swallowed by an overstuffed chair, her feet sticking straight out, her stick folded across her lap. I don’t know if it’s the huge sunglasses or just her general demeanour but every time I saw this kid I got the distinct feeling that I was in trouble.

‘Where have you been?’

I was a bit shocked by the abruptness of the question and when I didn’t answer right away, Ruby said, ‘You were probably smooching with your mermaid girlfriend.’

‘I was not,’ I said and sounded to myself like I was ten years old. ‘I was in a meeting with the king.’ I thought that sounded better than ‘I was with my daddy.’

She seemed to find that acceptable.

‘How do you know about Graysea?’

‘My father brought her to me to have a look at my eyes. She cooed and ooed and cried and kissed me. She’s not very clever, is she?’

‘Graysea has other talents,’ I said.

‘Yeah right. Well, she said she couldn’t fix my eyes. That I had waited too long.’

‘Oh, I’m … I’m sorry.’

‘It’s nothing I haven’t heard before,’ Ruby said dismissively as she stood. ‘Now, I would like my pony.’

‘I beg your pardon?’

‘My pony. Father said I would have a pony when I came to Tir na Nog. When I asked him about it he said he had to talk to you. Since he hasn’t yet, I am. I’d like my pony please.’

‘I … I don’t know where I’d get a pony at this time of day.’

‘I would assume,’ Ruby said as she opened the door for me, ‘that we will find one in the stables.’ She motioned me out of my room like it was hers. I started to protest but then just decided that getting her a pony was probably the path of least resistance.

‘I feel sorry for your future husband,’ I said.

‘Funny, that’s what Father says.’

Ruby grabbed my arm and then swung her stick back and forth as she walked so fast I thought we were going to break into a jog.

‘You know, Ruby,’ I said, ‘I’m not sure if I can get you a pony.’

‘Why not?’ she asked without slowing down in the slightest.

‘I don’t think they’re just going to give me one.’

‘Your father is the king – right?

‘Yes but …’

‘And you are a prince?’

‘Well, yeah.’

‘So just ask for a pony. What is your problem?’

The stable master saw us coming and greeted me at the entrance. He was an old one. It had gotten to the point where I could spot one from a mile away. ‘I am Pilib,’ he said without bowing or even offering to shake my hand.

‘Hi, I’m Conor.’

‘I know,’ he said. ‘You have your grandmother’s eyes.’

‘Oh, did you know Macha?’

‘Of course, she held the Capall yew wand. She had the supremacy over horses. When she lived in Duir she was only ever truly happy when she was here.’

As he spoke Pilib’s eyes glossed over lost in the memory. I remembered Spideog telling me that my grandmother loved him and Dahy at the same time. I wondered if I should add the stable master to that list.

Ruby hit me in the shin with her stick. ‘Ask him.’

‘Ah … Master Pilib, I was wondering if I could have a pony.’

‘Certainly. Am I safe to assume that it is for this little lady?’

‘I’m not a lady, I’m a young girl.’

I looked down at Ruby, astonished. ‘You speak Ancient Gaelic?’

‘Grandma taught me some words.’

‘OK,’ I said turning back to Pilib. ‘Can we get this young girl a young-girl-sized pony?’