Got Hope

by Michael Darling

  The king gestured again, and the glass case closed itself around the crystal. Then the silver box closed itself around everything else and the whole assembly dropped back through the floor. The King said, “Oscail Tairseach-Cosantóir.” A bolt of power shot from his hand in a gout to the ring of silver on the ground. The bolt split to follow both sides of the circle and the power met itself on the opposite side with a roll of thunder.

  The stonework in the floor evaporated and the elegant silver gate began to tilt.

  The misty deamhan figure continued to grow, seeping through the bars, creating a massive figure in spirit form. It towered over the assembly, nearly touching the ceiling fifty feet overhead. It raised its narrow head and roared a soundless roar, exulting in its newfound liberty. Its wings opened and flared, taking a few practice beats that didn’t move the air but the wings were muscular and broad.

  Through it all, Nathair giggled. I knew I’d be hearing that awful laugh again in my head when the night was dark and sleepless.

  Chapter Five: Carnivorous Bunnies

  Holy H-E-double-hockey-sticks.

  As the silver gate tilted slowly down, Nathair’s giggles turned into a full-throated laugh. The cage didn’t roll yet. The wheels were locked to the gate, waiting for the gap to grow wider. A shaft of orange light shot up from the gate as it connected with the netherworld. The light erupted from the circle of the gate, creating a column to the ceiling. The room filled with the smell of molten rock.

  The girl had lost her mind now, cackling psychotically, and she twitched as her eyes darted all around, assessing her imprisonment. The spirit deamhan caressed the girl’s shoulders. Its fingers were tipped with nails like daggers and those daggers penetrated Nathair’s flesh. She arched her back as the deamhan’s spirit fingers took physical form. The deamhan fed on the girl through its talons. I watched in morbid fascination, unable to tear my eyes away.

  Bit by bit, the girl became the monster inside her. Somehow, as the deamhan fed on her, the mass of her body grew until she filled the cage. Iron bars pressed against her skin and smoke rose from her wounds. The girl/deamhan shrugged her bulky shoulders and the cage broke apart, pieces tumbling to the tilting gate. Nathair the girl was gone. In her place, a regal and terrifying creature reared on crooked, back-bent legs and bellowed.

  Honey, I’m home.

  She remained incomplete. Black smoke curled around her neck. The smoke drew ash from the air of the Deamhan realm and links of a chain forged themselves from the bits of dust and dirt. The chain hung around her neck, decorated with round, polished stones that resembled oversized pearls. Then I saw the eye sockets and realized they weren’t pearls, they were skulls.

  The skulls of infant children.

  I hadn’t heard the reading of Nathair’s crimes. Seeing the skulls, I didn’t want to know. The black smoke forged metal spikes that drove themselves into Nathair’s shoulders, pinning the chain to her body. She roared with each thrust and tried to pull the spikes out. The spikes were unmovable. They weren’t just physical hunks of metal. They were her punishment.

  The necklace of skulls would be a reminder of her guilt and the pain would be her penance, forever.

  The gate tilted past forty-five degrees. The column of orange light intensified, and a rumbling sound that could have been a massive engine or a hurricane or an earthquake or all the above hit a crescendo.

  With a crack, the cart, the light, the deamhan, everything was sucked into the void.

  Nathair threw her head back and roared farewell.

  The silence that followed in the dim gray light was stunning. No one spoke. Small torches, extinguished in the tumult, sprang back to life. The members of the tribunal glanced sideways at each other. Or me. Scrolls were re-rolled. The gate finally scraped softly, silver-and-stone, as it tilted back up.

  When a hand landed on my shoulder, I didn’t jump. Nope. Not even a little.

  “Art thou well?” the guy in the robes asked.

  “Fine,” I replied.

  “Thou art a shade pale, dude,” Siorradh whispered.

  Whatever. I remembered Hope. “I really need to get out of here,” I said.

  Robes guy cleared his throat. “We must ask our leave from the king, highness.”

  Great.

  The business of condemning a wicked soul completed, my father returned to his spot. Flowers sprang up around his feet in green vines with pink blossoms that opened with small white shafts. Bleeding hearts. I found them ironic.

  I approached with a nod. He raised a hand in greeting. Or to stop me from speaking.

  “‘Tis good to see thee.” The corners of his mouth turned up but his eyes remained cool and blue and implacable.

  “‘Tis good to be here, majesty,” I replied. “I have urgent business in the mortal realm and must ask thy leave.” Thankfully, I’d been subjected to a lot of PBS growing up.

  Dad, the Alder King, looked over my shoulder and motioned to Siorradh. The knight approached, smooth as clockwork, and took a knee in front of the throne. Should I have done that? I wasn’t sure. Stupid PBS.

  Dad said, “Sir Knight. The prisoner released a teachtaire before she faced the Súilfirinne. Find out where it went, if thou art able.”

  Siorradh bowed his head. “At thy command, sire.”

  Dad turned to me. “Goethe, thou shalt return here at the time of our dawn tomorrow. Thy servants will know the hour. I have a quest for thee.” Our eyes locked. I didn’t know what he was thinking about me, but his glamour imbued me again with that sense of loyalty.

  “At thy command,” I said. A quest? What kind of quest?

  His depthless blue eyes didn’t waver, but he searched for something in mine. “Thou seest what others cannot.” he said.

  I nodded. Only three people knew I could see Stains. My father was not one of them, but he knew I perceived things deeper than the advisors in this chamber. You don’t get to be king—or stay king—without getting a feel for the strengths and weaknesses of others.

  “I’ll return at dawn,” I promised.

  * * *

  “These will bring thee back here whenever thou wishest.” The guy in the robes shoved a handful of pendants at me. He kept trying to be nice. Apparently, he was my personal valet or something and he understandably wanted to keep his job. Some people lost their jobs by way of decapitation around here, or so I’d heard.

  I stuffed the pendants into my pocket.

  “Great,” I said. “How do I get out of here?” The valet bowed. I took another look around my chambers. Might be good to come back.

  Sir Siorradh led the way.

  “I forgot the name of the man in the robes.” I said to the back of Siorradh’s helm.

  “Bromach, sire.” Siorradh’s helm tilted one way and then the other, as if he were deciding if he should say something more. “We call him Wince.”

  I stifled a laugh. Barely. The valet was so hesitant and flinchy, Wince was the perfect nickname. And it would be wrong to call him that.

  Heh heh. Wince.

  We exited the castle proper and strode across the bailey toward the gate. I remembered something I wanted to ask.

  “Was Nathair an Eternal?”

  “She was a Halfling, sire.”

  “I’d think a trial here would go pretty quickly. The Fae can’t lie and they usually know if Halflings do, right?”

  “True,” Siorradh replied. I was impressed that he could stomp around in all that armor all day and never get tired. He wasn’t even winded, although I’d started breathing heavier and I was wearing lightweight clothing. “However, it’s against the law for someone to incriminate themselves. Like mortal law. If they don’t confess, we shan’t coerce them.”

  “So, you’re required to get testimony and evidence and have a prosecutor, like mortals?”

  “Precisely.”

  “You know a lot about the mortal realm, for a knight.”

  Siorradh chuckled. “Dude, you have no idea.”

  I
laughed.

  “May I ask a question, sire?” Siorradh turned his helm in my direction.

  “Shoot,” I said.

  “You had a run-in with the one known as Caimiléir.”

  If I had any celebrity in the Behindbeyond, save for my being the son of the king, it was thanks to Caimiléir, my cousin and possibly the most psychotic individual I’d ever met. I said, “That didn’t sound like a question.”

  “True. Here’s my question then: did Caimiléir control people with magic?”

  I winced myself. I’d witnessed people suffer under Caimiléir’s control. People close to me. It had been ugly. “He did.”

  “You can see how that might create a dilemma at a trial then. And there are many ways to control someone.”

  I got it. “If someone had control over another person and forced them to commit a crime, they’re still innocent, right?”

  “Indeed. The intent is as important as the act. And if a spell is powerful enough, the person, even an Eternal, could lie perfectly.”

  “If you thought you were telling the truth, you wouldn’t be caught in the lie?”

  “Precisely. And I speak from experience when I say we don’t compel a person to incriminate themselves with good reason.” Siorradh’s tone had a note of finality.

  “How often is someone consigned to the Deamhan realm?” I asked.

  “The last happened a decade ago. The trial usually ends with imprisonment or exile, not condemnation. The Súilfirinne isn’t used unless the outcome is certain.”

  “Are you saying there could be a mistake?”

  “Contact with the stone results in one of two outcomes. Release of the victim’s deamhan form and condemnation, or death.”

  “If there’s a mistake, it’s lethal?”

  “Yes.”

  The ground beneath us changed from flagstone to timber as we left the bailey and crossed the drawbridge, footsteps thudding on the wood like tribal messengers beating drums.

  Piddling poodles. “What does that—Sulpheryuh?—stone do?”

  “It accelerates one’s Becoming.”

  “Becoming?”

  Siorradh paused, assembling his thoughts. We cleared the drawbridge and turned down the road toward the nearby liagán circle, our feet crunching on gravel and dirt.

  “Every day we make choices.” Siorradh held a gauntleted hand in front of him, pointing. “Some choices are morally good. Other choices, morally evil. Those choices give us direction on our internal compass, if you will.” As he spoke, he moved his hand to point to the left and then to the right. “Sometimes we make mistakes, and that’s regrettable, but those mistakes can be corrected and don’t really change the course of a person’s life.

  “Contact with the Súilfirinne—or even extended exposure to its effects—moves you to the ultimate destination of the direction where you’re heading.”

  “So Nathair was going to become a deamhan no matter what?”

  Siorradh nodded. “Sooner or later.”

  “Yeah. I don’t think she had far to go. What if you’re a good person?”

  “I’ve been told it’s very difficult. The person who is essentially good and heading in a righteous direction still confronts their weaknesses and mistakes. They may become overwhelmed by their loss of potential and die of a broken heart.”

  I chewed on that for a moment. “It’s very poetic.”

  “That’s the rumor. I have not witnessed it. There have been no mistakes for centuries.”

  “I can see how it might be useful. In the wrong hands, it would be a nightmare.”

  Siorradh dropped his armored fist on my shoulder. An act of reassurance. “The Alder King has been very careful not to use the stone until he is absolutely certain of the outcome.”

  We arrived at the liagán circle. One of the stones in the circle was enchanted to take me back to my home in the mortal realm. Two men stood in front of it, wearing dark glasses.

  Huh.

  Siorradh and I stopped. We looked at them. They looked at us. The mental tape measures came out as we sized each other up. We looked ridiculous. Me in my khakis and pullover, Siorradh in full armor, and two guys in dark suits, shades, and skinny ties, standing in Stonehenge Jr. We should get a picture and send it to Barry Sonnenfeld. Men in Black: Fae Encounter.

  “Dudes,” I said.

  “Dudes,” Siorradh said.

  The dudes remained in front of my liagán stone, unmoving, to show us they could. Anger bloomed in my chest. I clenched my fists and let them see me doing it. Siorradh might as well have been carved from stone. He’d come to rest with his weight evenly balanced and his arms hanging loose but ready.

  The stare down hung on for a few more moments, right to the point I was about to go on the offensive. My blood felt hot and rising and I almost brought my fists up when the two men stepped away. As though on cue, they pivoted to the side like two halves of a gate. I’d have to walk between them, but my way home was clear.

  Whatever. Again.

  They raised their right hands with my next step. They did it slowly and I guess they were afraid of spooking me. Or maybe they wanted to spook me. They arranged their fingers in “horns,” which resembled the American Sign Language sign for “I love you.” I was pretty sure they didn’t want to tell me they loved me and anyway, their thumbs were underneath their fingertips instead of out to the sides. Maybe they were fans of rock music. Or the Texas Longhorns. Their forefingers and pinkies curved slightly and their two middle fingers and thumbs moved in a biting motion.

  Not Texas Longhorns then. Carnivorous bunnies maybe.

  Hey, I have my own hand signal. I crossed my first two fingers and waved at them. Team Hope and Luck y’all!

  Their eyes stayed on me as I stepped between them, and if I was supposed to get a message from their bizarre gesture all I got was creeped out, as attested by the small hairs on the back of my neck. Another step and they both lowered their hands across their bodies until their fists rested on their chests.

  Freak. Me. Out.

  One of the men stared me the face. His expression remained completely blank and I saw my twin reflections in his glasses, one in each lens. I looked annoyed.

  The liagán stone was designed so that only I could go through it. I could bring other people through with me, but I certainly wouldn’t be inviting anyone home today. Not even Sir Siorradh, even though he’d look great in my entryway. I checked over my shoulder and gave the knight a nod goodbye. I ignored the Twins of Terror and pressed my hand against the pattern carved into the stone. While other portals required an expenditure of will or blood, liagán stones were powered by the magic around them and opened with a touch. The center of the stone faded away in a pulse of blue light.

  I stepped into the light and home.

  Chapter Six: Indy 500

  Tapping on the door. Urgent.

  I curved my way back to the mortal realm, checked to make sure the portal was extinguished, and opened the door. Max was on the other side.

  “Is Hope okay?” I asked. “How long have I been gone?”

  “All is well, sir,” Max replied. “Ms. Hope is resting. You’ve been in the Behindbeyond for about an hour.”

  An hour? I felt the muscles in my shoulders relax a bit, the tension I carried in my body easing.

  Before I forgot, “I need to go back at dawn there. Can you remind me?”

  “Certainly, sir.” Max handed me a piece of paper. Several lines in a neat, feminine script gave me clues and my expert detecting skills began expertly detecting.

  “Hope’s schedule?” I asked.

  “As requested, sir.” Max smiled.

  I gave Max a nod. Hope had lunches scheduled, which weren’t going to happen, a dentist appointment next week, a hair appointment . . . well dagnabbit and all its little nabbits. There was a football game tonight. Of course. The only Thursday night game of the season and it was tonight. Plus, Hope’s father was going to be there with his vet buddies. She couldn’t mis
s this.

  Even worse, Hope had to check in two hours before kickoff so we only had a little time. Maybe this was a good thing. The best chance to find out who had tried to make Hope pâté in the street this morning would be to get her out in the open before her attackers had time to formulate a competent Plan B. They had to be scrambling to find out what had happened to her and they were probably watching the house. I thought about what it would take to protect her between here and the stadium and how we might safely provoke her attackers to come out of the shadows and make a mistake. If they intended to keep trying to get her. Taking action was always better than standing by.

  I went to find my quarterback.

  * * *

  Hope settled into the passenger seat of my ‘65 Mustang like she was born for speed. She dropped her borrowed handbag on the floor—the bag was Erin’s—and slid into the seat where she shifted her shoulders, fitting herself to the leather. She ran her hands over the door and the dashboard, feeling the curves. I admired anyone who admired my car.

  She drew the seatbelt around and clicked it into the buckle like she was getting ready for a roller-coaster ride. We moved into the street quickly. If anyone was going to follow us, they’d more likely make it obvious if I made us easy to follow at first and then turned on them after they got comfortable.

  The car’s customized sound system started a disc. Phil Collins. Hope listened for a few seconds and said, “How old are you?”

  I protested. “Everyone likes music from the ‘80s.” And I’m older than you think.

  Hope switched to the radio and scanned the channels, stopping on a song. I must have let a twist creep across my lip and she caught it. “Don’t you like U2?” she asked.

  “Mmm,” I hedged. “I keep trying to find a song I can appreciate. But I still haven’t found what I’m looking for.” I turned my head a few degrees and grinned.

  Hope gave my knee a pat. “I bet people think you’re really funny.”