by John Coyne
The boy who called himself Brian Boru dropped to one knee and clutched his injured hand. All around him flowed a stream of villagers, all crowding to the main floor of the castle now that the danger was past. He had lost his sword and now he was in pain, but they did not pause to offer comfort. No one would help him, he thought. It was like that day in the Hills of Ballyhoura, when he had had to fight the pack of Padfoot dogs alone. His sword had slid to the foot of the stairs and he ran for it, wiped it clean on his canvas pants and sheathed it. He would need more than the sword to kill the Black Annis, he thought as he ran back up the stairway. She had magical powers and would disappear in the woods, change herself into a rock or tree. Even a twenty-fifth-level paladin could not find her in a forest of other trees. At the head of the stairs he turned and began to lope down the hall toward Fergus's study. As he ran, he glanced at the glass display cases, eventually stopping at one and catching something up from the shelves. Then he continued on to the study. He would take the back stairs, the short cut to the side lawns that Conor had showed him. The Annis had to be cut off before she reached the river and disappeared for good. The Nuckelavees would help her, Brian knew. They'd set the long grass on fire to keep him from crossing the bridge and going into the woods. And the Lady with the White Hand would be dead. Before morning, they'd turn her body into stone.
On the flagstone terrace, Valerie seized the leg of a heavy lawn chair and held on. The old man stumbled against the wrought iron furniture and fell, too exhausted to drag her further. He would never get to the woods now, not without Conor to help him carry the maid. "Nuala, my love, please come along," he asked. Valerie bit his hand and the old man let go, swearing at her in Irish. She spun around, tried to find an escape. The huge terrace was flooded with lights and behind the wide windows and French doors of the ballroom, Valerie could see dozens of her classmates, their faces pressed against the glass. "Open the doors," she yelled. "Open the doors and let me in." Faces turned to Mr. Russell and the other teachers. Grim-faced, Russell shook his head. His helplessness made him sick, but he couldn't take the risk of letting the maniac back into the ballroom. He'd have to go outside himself and help the girl. Fergus seized Valerie's ankle, tugged her back into his grip. "It's all right, Nuala, it won't hurt you at all." He folded her in his arms. "Scott!" she shouted, twisting away, throwing up her arms to hide her face, to keep the old man from kissing her. "Scott, please help me!"
Brian Boru ran out through the kitchen door and raced around the mansion to the terrace. As he ran he unhooked the slingshot from his belt and made it ready. He knew now how he would stop the Annis. Leaping up on the thick terrace wall, he spotted the Black Annis. Behind the locked doors and windows the kids had seen him and begun to shout. He could hear their cheers as he whirled his slingshot in the air, whipping it faster and faster. Nestled in the leather pouch was the small glass bottle of quicklime that Conor had showed him. With a mighty battle cry, Brian Boru snapped his slingshot. The bottle flew the length of the terrace, sailing through the flood of light and smashing within a foot of the Annis. The quicklime exploded; the fumes mushroomed in its face. The students cheered. Brian could see them in the windows, jumping up and down, shouting for him. He grinned, sure of himself. He was a twenty-fifth-level paladin. No Black Annis could defeat him in single combat. Disregarding the pain in his hand, he unsheathed his sacred sword and charged the monster. Choking on the quicklime, Fergus released the girl. "Conor," he coughed, trying to speak. He fell back against an iron love seat, stumbling away from the fumes. He could see the anarchist on the wall, running toward him. Fergus grabbed a chair and raised it in self-defense. Brian Boru's thin sword struck the iron at an angle and snapped. The long blade bounced away, shattered into pieces. He halted and Fergus lunged with the chair, striking his face with an iron leg. Brian cried out in pain and covered his face. The wrought iron had dug a deep cut into his cheek. "Had enough, have you?" Fergus shouted. He raised the chair again and brought it down on Brian, knocking him to the terrace floor. The old man stumbled as well, exhausted by the fight. As he dropped to his knees, his hands reached out to steady himself and he seized the mace handle. "Ah, I'll have done with you for good." He pulled himself up once more and turned to Brian Boru. Using both hands, he raised the iron ball, whirled it above his head. "Here you be, you scum." The studded ball gleamed in the floodlights as Fergus stepped forward, came within range of Brian. Brian Boru had no arcane knowledge left. He could not use magic on his foe, nor roll the cube dice and reverse the game. And if he died this time, Brian Boru could never be resurrected. "Scott, look out!" Valerie shouted. She came at the old man, tried to grab his leg and stop him. Brian rolled to one side, and the ball of the mace whistled by him, shattering a flagstone. In that instant, Brian Boru jerked the knobbed shillelagh from his belt. He had never wielded it before. "Use it only in time of great danger," Conor had told him, "and your knight will be a true son of Erin." He saw Fergus kick Valerie away, doubling her over with the pain. "Run, Scott, run," she sobbed. "It's not a game this time; he's crazy!" Scott saw then that there was no Black Annis above him, but only a strange looking old man. He saw the crowd of students behind the ballroom windows, and then Valerie on her knees, only inches away from him. His mother was dead, he realized, and the Nuckelavees of Donegal had not killed her. Then the madman raised his arm once more, and Valerie began to scream. The ball of studded steel was floating toward him, straining at the end of its chain. Desperately, Scott rose up on one elbow and swung the shillelagh at the old man. The mallet struck Fergus where he had been struck before, dug deep into the old man's weakened cranium. Then the morningstar sailed harmlessly away as the dying body of Fergus O'Cuileannain fell on the golden cloak of Brian Boru, the legendary knight of Erin, the last paladin of Ballycastle.
Epilogue
April 11th
Dear Val, Well, I got to say you really made a hit at old Spencertown. About twelve guys have already asked me if you really won the Hudson Valley Hang-Gliding competition. God, did you tell that to everyone, or just the gullible types? Okay, I know some of the guys are jerks, but no worse than the crowd at Flat Rock. How is that asshole Simpson, anyway? I've been thinking over what you said, about staying at your house over spring break. I can afford the trip, I guess. I got a letter yesterday from Mr. Kyle, my parents' accountant in Hartford. He says that with the insurance settlement and everything, I can afford to finish boarding here at Spencertown and also have money for a good college, if any of them will take me. (That's a joke. I hope.) Anyway, I've got the money, and we get ten days off at Easter. And I'd really like to see you soon. I didn't tell you when you were here, but having you down last weekend was really okay. The headmaster's wife said if you wanted to come back, they'd put you up again any time. But going back to Flat Rock-I don't know. I talked it over with Dr. Frisch. He says I'm doing real well now and accepting my mother's death, and my dad's, which is good, I guess. I mean, I know it is. But it still hurts, Val. I guess what I'm saying is, I just couldn't stand to see Flat Rock, and Ballycastle, again. I'm glad you liked McNulty. He and Evans have been really great to me, especially about school. They lent me their notebooks from last term, and Evans talked a friend of his who's a senior into giving me special math tutoring so I can catch up. Between the time I spent at Flat Rock and all the time I lost after that, seeing Dr. Frisch, going to the inquest and having all those tests, I'm really going to have to work to pass the SATs. (Dr. Frisch said the state spent over $10,000 deciding I wasn't crazy after all. He said they should have asked him. He'd only have charged $5000, and split it down the middle with me.) The guys are really hot to have me play Hobgoblin again. They just started running a game after midterms, and there's a brand new monster manual that just came out. But I told them I can't. Between regular homework and extra English make-up stuff and the math tutorial, there's no way I'll have enough time to spare. But that's not really why I don't want to play. I love the game, and I loved Brian Boru. But the game just goes o
n and on; it never ends. First the Black Annis is the enemy; then the Brobdingnagians; then the fallen angels of Ireland. You go right on from one to the other, and the only thing that happens is you just get stronger. You think that fighting against evil is an Adventure. A great fantasy Adventure. But it's not. It's really not. For me, Hobgoblin was the beginning and what happened at Ballycastle was the end.