Ronan Boyle and the Bridge of Riddles

by Thomas Lennon

  One villager came up with a plan to trick the magical fish, and the whole town played along. At the sacrifice ceremony, the villagers wept and keened as they handed over a pink little baby wrapped in his basket. The mother was beside herself. The magical salmon ate the baby, then burped it out whole. The baby hissed and scrambled around the dock and then climbed straight up a pole with his little claws, because of course he was an adult badger that had been shaved and put into a onesie.

  The magical fish was not fooled and was, in fact, very annoyed. She also happened to be an evil queen of the merrows named Bébinn. Merrows love to shape-shift. They will turn into singing fish just to test the resolve of humans. Why? I do not know, except that it must get dull down in the depths of the ocean, and according to the World Wildlife Fund, great white sharks eat twelve hundred merrows a year, so they’re looking for a bit of fun wherever they can find it.

  Bébinn shape-shifted back into her merrow form. She splashed her tail, blinked her black eyes, and swept the entire town up with a huge wave. As the villagers clambered onto their rooftops, she set a curse upon them, saying:

  Since ye do not keep your bargains,

  A mighty curse upon yer noggins,

  Pucker yer lips, kiss your arses goodbye,

  From this day on, you’ll just have to fly.

  And with that, she cursed them with a humongous spell, turning them into the first known flock of harpies. Winged creatures with the faces of crab-apple humans.

  Today harpies are flown for sport in the Shousts, which are illegal jousting tournaments in the Undernog. Leprechaun riders fly on them in a thatched-roof coliseum in North Ifreann. Two riders try to knock each other off their harpies with sharp shillelaghs. It’s a brutal sport that injures many leprechauns and kills some harpies. Most of the leprechaun riders come from the lower classes, looking to the Shousts as a way to a better life. The harpies are caught in the wild and forced into the Shousts. Many of the harpies who compete are served spicy okra vindaloo before each match, to make them extra-aggressive. Like many parts of the underbelly of Tir Na Nog, the Shousts are controlled by the wee gaiscíoch, the weegees.

  In 1906, McSheehy submitted herself to direct harpy bites for ten days straight in a laboratory. Her notes were meticulous, and they can be read in the library at Trinity College in the bottom of a tuba filled with enchiladas, per her instructions.

  This is because harpy bites give you terrible ideas. Ideas that you cannot unthink.

  “Bad ideas, Ronan Boyle?” you ask. “What’s the big deal? I’ve heard some bad ideas in my life.” Well, I’m talking about the worst ideas you’ve ever heard.

  McSheehy spent the rest of her days trying to make a Volvo-sized cat out of spaghetti that could also be used as a flotation device.

  Why? What would this even be? Would you eat it later? Why did it have to float? Why was it the shape of an animal and a car?

  No one knows. That’s harpy poison.

  Everyone around her knew this was a terrible plan and also pointless. But a human poisoned by a harpy cannot tell the difference between the good and bad notions in her head. McSheehy died, crushed by her own failure and a massive debt to the Barilla pasta company. Also by the force of two tons of dry noodles falling on top of her.

  The two garda on the beach who were both named Danny were in quite a state. They dabbed at the cuts to their foreheads, panic in their eyes.

  “A huge bird! With the face of a witch with very dry skin!” said the taller Danny.

  “Talons like razors. The shrieking . . . like a thousand souls in pain. That’s when we called you!” said the rounder Danny.

  “Well done, lads. We’ll take it from here,” said the captain. “Where did you last see the creature?”

  “It flew into the lighthouse—and the keeper’s in there,” said taller Danny. “I, for one, think we should wait and see if the creature turns into butter.”

  “NO, I’VE GOT IT!” said the rounder Danny. “We take the harpy to London, work on some demos, and get it a deal singing at a major record label. After building up a fan base, playing some shows, she’ll be famous!”

  “Yes!” interjected the taller Danny, his eyes now insane with the bad ideas of harpy-bite poisoning. “This sounds like a plan! Take the harpy to London, get a record deal, then invest all the money we make into cryptocurrencies!”

  “Why did we never think of this before?!” screamed rounder Danny, smacking his own forehead so hard that he knocked himself to the ground.

  Since we had traveled by sylph, we were lacking our panini press and could not make these officers an Irish Goodbye sandwich, which would wipe their minds clean of this traumatic incident.

  Captain de Valera’s hand reached for the smallest flask on her belt. “These lads have some amazing ideas, don’t they, Boyle?” she said. “Let’s have a toast to celebrate.”

  “Indeed!” said the rounder Danny, snatching the flask from the captain. “And then let’s mail our shoes to Belize. We’ll be rich!”

  “How?!” I blurted. “That makes no sense whatsoever.”

  “Now, now, Boyle,” said the captain, winking the green one of her two available eyes. “You just don’t understand. Let the boys have a drink.”

  The Dannys laughed, and each tossed back a shot from the flask. A millisecond later, they had collapsed onto the rocky beach. The captain picked up the tiny flask and clipped it back onto her belt.

  “Black Anvil. Clurichaun-made whiskey from Oifigtown Harbor, distilled exclusively for the Leprechaun Royal Navy, ten thousand proof. That’s five thousand percent alcohol. Illegal almost everywhere since 1800. It gets its name because it’s like having an anvil dropped on your head. Don’t worry, they’ll be awake in four weeks,” said the captain.

  After a moment, I said the thing we were all thinking.

  “There’s a leprechaun navy?”

  “Yes. Probably the least reliable fighting force in the known world,” replied the captain. “The leprechaun navy is basically a heavily armed musical-theater troupe with two boats. Now let’s get this bird contained.”

  From the back of her belt the captain pulled out two harploons, which is the slang term for a Handheld Harpy-Catching Harpoon Launcher. The device is an explosive cardboard tube about nine inches long. It’s packed like a flare and shoots a thin but very strong net that can contain a harpy.

  “AWAY WITH YOU, BEAST!” came a shout from the lighthouse. With each pass of the light, I could see a man in silhouette fighting off a winged creature with a wrench. The image would appear, then be lost as the light in the tower spun around.

  “We must get to him,” said the captain, looking for the door into the lighthouse.

  “I think he’s going to come to us,” I replied, as my new glasses were starting to adjust and I could see that the window was spiderwebbing behind the man.

  “I’ve got him!” I shouted out for no particular reason as I ran.

  The lighthouse window exploded above us, and the man tumbled out into the air.

  My vague plan was to somehow catch the man, but I could now see that he was far bigger than me, and this would be like trying to catch a rhino on a lollipop.

  But as I had no backup plan, I was going to try.

  I arrived at the base of the lighthouse just as the falling keeper arrived from the air. I certainly would have been killed by his velocity if not for the quick thinking of Lily, who knocked us to the ground at just the moment he hit my arms, breaking both of our falls.

  I was so happy that I kissed Lily directly on the snout, not even caring that she smelled like a pint of Neighbor’s Sweaty Butt.

  “Boyle, look out!” shouted the captain.

  Above us, a female harpy stretched her wings and howled. The mouth of a harpy is comprised of razor-sharp teeth, and this one still had almost all of hers intact, which is rare, as harpies do not floss. In the raging storm, her wings spanned almost nine feet across. It created a terrifying tableau.

  T
he harpy swooped down and landed on my right arm, knocking me down again. She tried to take a bite out of my midsection. I owe a lot to the cadet jacket and its military-grade lining. While the harpy made contact, she couldn’t pierce the material, leaving only several deep bruises around my middle. I swatted her away with a satisfying crack from my shillelagh. She ascended into the rain above us.

  The man who had fallen on me was the lighthouse keeper. He had several bites on his arms and face. I picked him up, trying to shield him with my body in case of another swoop.

  “Bless you, lad,” said the keeper. “If we get out of this mess, I want to take you out to a new restaurant I’m going to open called Let’s Go Dutch. It’s Dutch food in Dutch ovens served under Dutch paintings.”

  “Ugh. I mean. Oh. Sure. Sounds fun, brilliant,” I replied, trying to hustle the man to safety while the harpy circled in the air above us, regrouping.

  He wiped at the bites on his face as he continued his terrible restaurant pitch: “At Let’s Go Dutch, you’ll smile Vermeer to ear!”

  Good Lord, it was awful to hear this idea. And now puns to go with it. What even is Dutch food? The whole enterprise sounded like a black hole for someone’s money.

  The captain took off her long leather coat and put it over the shoulders of the keeper, comforting him. She clicked on her torch and waved it in the air, trying to draw the harpy’s next attack.

  “Get out of here and go and work on this amazing restaurant concept,” the captain said to the keeper, as she was out of Black Anvil and we had no panini press.

  The dazed keeper nodded and trotted off into the dark, muttering about stroopwafels, which must be some kind of Dutch food.

  “Boyle, lure her with your torch, and I’ll try to get a shot with the harploon,” she said.

  “Check,” I said, wiping my foggy glasses and clicking on my torch. Unfortunately, I had now lost sight of the harpy in the dark. Thank heavens for Lily, whose nose could not be tricked; she barked at a nearby set of rocks. I spun my torch and saw the harpy perched right there, ready to pounce, not twenty feet away.

  Captain de Valera fired her harploon just as the harpy unfolded her wings. It was a bad shot, as it managed to catch the creature’s head and one foot but left the wings completely free. This meant that the harpy could still fly, which she did, pulling the captain into the air with her.

  Lily and I gasped as the harpy took off, with the captain dangling and kicking on the other end of the harploon. The captain was towed across the sky.

  Lily and I ran after her. Faster than I ever remember running before.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  BATTLE IN DUNCANNON

  My heart was about to explode as we dashed through the fields toward the last spot where we had seen the captain. The night air was setting my lungs on fire. Lily’s nose was leading us at this point, as the captain had vanished from sight.

  We reached a ridge overlooking Duncannon town. I knew that I had to stop and catch my breath or else I would collapse. Lily, however, is one of the strongest wolfhounds you or anybody has ever seen. She did not need a rest. She nodded for me to climb onto her back, which I did, wrapping my arms around her big strong neck. She took off again after the scent of the captain, barely slowed down by the addition of one Ronan Boyle.

  We galloped through the squishy fields until we joined up with the R737 road and made a left into Duncannon. We had lost several minutes in the chase, but hopefully the impairment of the harploon and the weight of the captain had slowed the harpy down a bit. On the R737, Lily picked up a great deal of speed, as her wide paws now had a solid footing. I struggled to hold on, burying my face in her fur.

  The town of Duncannon was deserted at this hour. The only sound was the storm. The desolation made it particularly startling when a green carriage cut in front of us, nearly taking my and Lily’s heads clean off. The carriage was pulled by a massive black horse. It veered, almost tipping over, and raced on toward the center of town.

  “What eejit would be racing around in a carriage at this time of night?” I thought to myself and then said out loud to Lily.

  I would not have to wonder about this for long, as just then a brass shillelagh came out the window of the carriage and was shaken at us, accompanied by a specific filthy leprechaun gesture (see page 75 of A Field Guide to Filthy Leprechaun Gestures as a reference).

  Someone with a frighteningly familiar face was driving the coach, cracking a long whip. It was the wee woman with a nose that looked like it was put on upside down.

  The Red-Eyed Woman from Henrietta Street.

  The nose biter. Dooley’s accomplice.

  “Lily! It’s her!” I cried out as I touched the part of my chin that had once held the wee woman’s shoe print. Lily growled, even though Lily had never met the Red-Eyed Woman and did not know to whom I was referring. But Lily is so very loyal that details like this didn’t matter.

  The carriage raced up the hill toward the old fort. In gold print on its side was the coat of arms of the wee gaiscíoch—little warriors—the profoundly corrupt police force of Tir Na Nog. Of course, the Red-Eyed Woman was a weegee. She has precisely the temperament, criminal ethics, nasty smell, and violent manners of a wee gaiscíoch officer. She ticked every box. When she’d poked my eyes at Lord Desmond Dooley’s gallery, it was with a brass shillelagh—an illegal weapon carried exclusively by the weegees.

  How I was such an eejit to have not put this together before, I do not know.

  Whatever the Red-Eyed Woman and her weegee gang were doing in Duncannon at this hour would, without a doubt, fall into the category of major mischief. Where there’s smoke, there’s fire—and where there’s fire, the weegees probably started it to cover up some terrible misdeed or to dispose of a corpse they’ve left behind.

  Seeing the Red-Eyed Woman set me off, and I leaped off of Lily’s back and began chasing the carriage at a full sprint. Lily ran behind me as we spilled into the main plaza of the old fortress. The stone fort is walled all around and sits twenty or so feet above the water on a strategic point in the Waterford Bay.

  The weegees had arrived ahead of us, and the scene was unnerving. Five leprechaun weegees, four males and the Red-Eyed Woman, had emerged from the carriage.

  Captain de Valera had grounded the harpy, who was still half-caught in the net. The harpy was in a panic, attempting to fly and howling.

  The captain and the harpy were in a tug-of-war with the harploon net, and I could only hope that the captain had not been bitten. At this point no blood or bites were visible on her.

  The weegees had surrounded the captain and the beast. The Red-Eyed Woman was now using her whip on the harpy, which was cruel and disgusting. The weegees had come after the harpy as well—only we were in the Republic of Ireland, and clearly this was our jurisdiction. The weegees had no reason to be operating in Duncannon on a random Tuesday night. Unless they were illegally capturing a harpy to return it to the suffering of the Undernog Shousting tournaments.

  My mind flashed back to the large birdcages in Dooley’s gallery on Henrietta Street. The strange droppings. It was all starting to add up. If Dooley dealt in stolen treasures and mummies like the Bog Man, why wouldn’t he also sell a harpy or two?

  “We’re just here for the harpy, Boyle. She’s worth a thousand heels1 in the fighting dome,” said the stinky Red-Eyed Woman.

  “Let us have the bird, and we’ll let you walk away from here with your knees intact,” said the Red-Eyed Woman, puffing vigorously on a clay pipe that was slightly longer than her entire body.

  On her vest she wore the badge that showed her rank as High Commandant Most Revered of the Wee Gaiscíoch. (The ranks of weegee officers are as ridiculously overblown as leprechaun names. For example, a cadet—the same level that I was at this time in the Special Unit Garda of Tir Na Nog—is called Humongous Admiral Number One in the wee gaiscíoch.)

  In my years of dealing with the weegees, I have found that they always start conversations with h
umans with something along the lines of “How would you like me to mail you and your knees to Dingle in separate boxes?” This is not an idle threat from a weegee. There is a photo collage in the astonishingly bad cafeteria in Collins House in tribute to three Special Unit officers who actually were mailed to Dingle in boxes separate from their knees by corrupt officers of the wee gaiscíoch. It’s a vicious crime, made only more shocking by the fact that the weegees are willing to spend money on postage for two separate boxes. Weegees are as thrifty as they are nefarious. All of those Special Unit officers survived, by the way, as An Post, the Irish postal system, is outstanding, and their knees arrived in Dingle on the same day as their bodies.

  Nearby, the captain had pinned the harpy to the ground in the most surprising manner.

  “Are you bitten?” I cried out to her.

  “I don’t think so!”

  The captain popped up, spitting out a mouthful of feathers. Captain de Valera was biting the back of the harpy’s neck, hard. To subdue a harpy, the only known method is to bite them first. This was discovered by accident in the Joy Vaults in the 1960s when a riot broke out and several strong harpies attacked a clurichaun named Famous Tyrone. His full name was in fact: Famous Tyrone Who Bites His Enemies Without Warning, which, unfortunately, the harpies did not know, as you have to guess the names of wee folk, and this is very time-consuming.

  The wee gaiscíoch officers tightened their circle around the captain and the confused, frightened harpy. The weegees were armed to the teeth: brass shillelaghs, cudgels, and spray canisters of military-grade hot pickle juice—which is illegal everywhere in both the human Republic of Ireland and Tir Na Nog.

  I had now known Captain Siobhán de Valera for many months, and I had a feeling what would happen next. The captain never waits to see how a situation will unfold. Instead, she strikes first. But as she was currently holding a full-grown harpy at bay with her teeth, I knew that this was my moment to act. It was up to me to fight back with a level of ferocity that would leave our opponents in a state of utter dismay.