by Kevin Hearne
“Okay. Should be good to go,” Connor announced. “It’s completely filled in.”
“Nobody move yet. Let me test first. Safety protocols still apply.”
Nadia took two tentative steps across the line, and the ground held. She raised her boot for a third step and then froze, stepping back instead.
“Nope. This is double-trapped. Something magical on top of the mundane. There’s another hook binding a few steps ahead that will summon something fiery from hell.”
“No shit? Wow.” Connor looked up again and spied a eucalyptus branch this time that was home for the hook binding. “Yep, there it is. Give me a sec to unbind it.”
He muttered a stream of Old Irish and gave the okay, and Nadia took a few tentative steps forward again.
“Huh. Looks like we’re clear for a while. We might be through it all, but I don’t trust that. I bet this is to give us a false sense of security. So keep in order as before, stay right behind me, and we’ll do this.”
We made much better progress after that, but the scale of what we’d come through was sinking in, as was how utterly doomed we would have been without Nadia leading us through it with her foresight.
Once we reached the bottom of the wee valley and started to climb up again, she had us execute an abrupt left turn to avoid another pit trap, but she had us heading uphill again in no time. We dodged two more traps like that, but since they weren’t packed together like they had been on the opposite slope, they weren’t so difficult to avoid.
Just before we reached the top of the ridge we’d been aiming for, Nadia stopped and turned around. “Good news, everybody! We’re past all the traps. Only dangers I see ahead are things that actively want tae kill us deid, rather than sitting there passively waiting for us tae trigger them. So that’s refreshing, in’t it? We don’t need tae go single file anymore, but let me go first, awright, and watch me for developments. Adjust yer expectations accordingly.”
“Thank Christ,” Officer Campbell said. “Just gimme something to hit already.”
I find it significant that of all the varied ingredients required to make magical inks, not one of them, in either the Chinese system or the Irish, is blood. Other bodily fluids of animals make frequent appearances, but never blood. Once I noticed this curiosity as an apprentice, I asked my master, Sean FitzGibbon, about it while he had me scaling skins to make fish glue. It was a nasty, smelly, and necessary business, conducted on a foul patch of land on his estate outside Dublin, which he had set aside for the more toxic and odiferous aspects of inkmaking. Normally he was dressed in a white suit of some kind, signaling that he had no intention of getting dirty and was above all manner of labor, but today he was in a dark-green Aran sweater that suggested he could at least think about work but probably wouldn’t do any. And if he did manage to find himself in a situation where work was unavoidable, he’d be sure to do it quickly and efficiently so that not a single sandy hair on his head was displaced. His Irish accent had an amused lilt to it as he answered.
“Ah, good question, Al. That’s going to require a pipe to answer,” he said, which is precisely what I’d been hoping for, because then he added, “Leave that business for now and come back to it later. Let’s go to the library.”
I paused inside only to wash my slime-covered hands, and when I joined him in his library, he was already lighting his pipe.
I never took up smoking myself and can’t really abide the stench of cigars or cigarettes, but the blend of pipe tobacco FitzGibbon used was a cherry vanilla that I always found pleasant, and his study smelled of it, along with ink and paper and glue and the collected energy of ideas waiting to be absorbed. He gestured to a comfy brown leather chair opposite his and waved out his match before depositing it in an ashtray resting on an end table at his elbow. He puffed a few times, collecting his thoughts, and I waited patiently, because once he’d performed his ritual, he’d explain at length, provide examples, and make sure I understood before leaving.
“Blood magic is powerful stuff. It’s full of energy, at least shortly after it’s spilled, and very much tied to life force and so on. The fact that someone would be willing to sacrifice a bit of life force to achieve a magical goal is part of what makes it powerful and also a bit taboo. Because the kind of magic one performs with blood has to do with summoning unsavory beings or soliciting favors from the same, it’s also frequently used in curses and hexes and whatnot. The whole spectrum of dark magic, in other words, is often achieved with the aid of blood. We therefore don’t use it.”
“But surely someone does?”
“Oh, aye. Blood inks do exist. Blood itself, raw and undiluted, is famously used to sign infernal contracts. But blood isn’t used for any of our sigils.”
“Would our sigils be more powerful if the inks included blood?”
“That’s a fair question. I don’t know for certain, because of course we have no way to find out. The Druidic bindings that sigils form simply don’t occur unless the proper ink is used to draw the proper sigil. Alter the chemical composition of an ink by adding blood, and the whole batch will be ruined, and any sigils drawn with it will just be inert symbols. The only way to find out would be to have Brighid make the same sigil and allow it to activate with a recipe made with blood. There is zero chance she’d do that. But, if you’re wondering on an apples-to-apples basis if an effect similar to what sigils accomplish is more powerful when created with blood magic, I can answer that.”
“Yes?”
“In some cases, they are. Vampires are the easiest example. They’re practically made of blood magic. Their strength and speed are still greater than ours when we have sigils in effect. So good for them—they’re more powerful than a rhino on the run, aren’t they? But the benefits of their blood magic sure come with a high price tag, if ye ask me. An undead existence. Profound lack of sunlight. A liquid diet and, if the rumors are true, an eventual discharge so foul that it’s very clear that they offend the everloving fuck out of God. Nay, lad, I’ll take sigils any day over blood magic. The cost-benefit analysis is much better for one’s health. That’s not to say we might not get our arses handed to us by an angry god someday, but at least we can walk around in the sun until then. The thing to remember about blood is that any additional strength it gives you is counterbalanced with a weakness. It’s potent, but it stains, ye get me?”
“Aye.”
“Good talk, lad. Now get back to making that fish glue.”
We topped the ridge that fell away into a valley that more than likely contained a creek, and quite probably the creek we were looking for, since the approach to it had been so heavily defended. The trees and scrub were no different from what we’d seen so far: plenty of conifers mixed with eucalypts, ferns and shrubs growing between tree trunks and fallen logs. Plenty of birds calling out to warn others of our presence or else shrieking for companionship in the avian equivalent of a singles ad. Nadia paused, held her fist in the air to halt us, then turned.
“Huddle up here for a chat. There are many targets below. From what I can tell, this valley is full of them. I don’t recommend sending the dugs ahead.”
We gathered together and looked down, but our visibility was limited to fifty meters or so, since the vegetation obscured whatever waited below.
Connor said, “Maybe a stealth recon would be best. But I worry about something down there smelling us before they see or hear us. We shouldn’t spend too long here before moving, but I think we should leave our packs. Take only what you need for a fight.”
I shrugged off my pack and gave Nadia a Sigil of Agile Grace from one of my pockets, which she accepted with a nod. I plucked out another for me, plus a Sigil of Muscular Brawn. If we were going to start a rammy, I wanted to be prepared this time. I noted that Ya-ping was doing the same, and Connor unhooked his hatchet from his pack and dropped the latter to the ground as Officer Campbell hefted h
is baton.
“I feel a bit left out here, ol’ man,” Buck said. “Ye know those bits in action movies where the testosterone is climbing an exponential curve and a bunch of tooled-up sweaty bastards start cocking their weapons and aggressively tying their combat boots? And then the people go, Aw, yeah, it’s gonnay kick off now, and start frantically stuffing popcorn in their holes? I cannae do that. I have no weapons save for ma legendary wit and smoldering good looks. But there’s also a lot of grunting in those scenes. Maybe I can do that for ye. Unngh. Hurrgh. Oomf. Hnnngh.”
[Enough, Buck.]
“Aye, that was the perfect amount of grunting. Think I nailed it.”
My eyes slid over to Roxanne. She was looking at Buck, a faint smirk of amusement on her face, but I noticed that she did not ask for any weapons or sigils. Whatever waited ahead, she was ready to face it. Which, now that he thought about it, Connor found odd.
“You’d best stay up here, Roxanne,” he said to her.
“I’ll decide what’s best for myself,” she replied, not making eye contact, and he let that settle into silence and then shrugged.
“Let’s go down, quietly as possible,” Connor said, “and hold up if you see something.”
There was nothing but the soft rustle and crunch of our passage for close to a hundred meters through the bush, but we stopped once we heard some growls and snorts below and spied some movement between the tree trunks. The hounds lifted their noses to the air and snuffled. In a whisper, the Iron Druid reported what they sensed.
“The dogs hear water down there. There’s definitely a creek. And something large is sloshing about in it. They smell weird things but also smell humans that are not us.”
“My foresight is useless right now except that I know there’s a fight wherever I go. Where is the large thing in relation to us?” Nadia asked. “Straight down, to the left, or to the right?”
Connor consulted with Oberon and replied, “A bit to the right.”
“And the humans?”
“The dogs think maybe they’re a bit to the left.”
“If we can go that way, then,” Ya-ping whispered, “I’d really like to see if it’s Sifu Lin or the others.”
Connor gave a thumbs-up and led us straight left, maintaining our altitude above the valley floor. The dogs stayed near him, their noses in the air, and at some signal from them, after perhaps fifty meters, he halted us again. “The dogs think the humans are directly below us from here.”
“Oooookay,” Nadia said. “Let’s take it dead slow and stop. Couple of steps at a time, wait and listen and see what can be seen.”
It was extra slow, but gradually we heard and saw more. And some of what we heard was snippets of Mandarin.
Ya-ping flailed to get our attention. “That’s Sifu Lin and Sifu Wu!” she whispered excitedly. “They’re alive!”
I checked my phone. We were still close enough to a cell tower somewhere that I got a signal, which meant their phones must have been lost or taken from them.
Ten steps more and we could see the floor of the valley pretty clearly. There was indeed a creek, and on the far bank stood a stockade of sorts, pillars of pine with some space between them but never enough to squeeze through. There was plenty enough space to see through, however, and I recognized Shu-hua, Mei-ling, and Hsin-ye. All were alive and well.
I also recognized that they were pretty heavily guarded by a seething mass of chimeric Fae. They milled about the makeshift prison like the undead, except without the moaning for brains and such. Considering that the ones we’d met prior to this had been keen to slaughter anything human, I thought this behavior to be out of character.
“This is a good time tae grunt again, eh? Uggh,” Buck said.
“What do we do?” Officer Campbell asked, wisely ignoring him. “Go down there and start something?”
“Not yet,” Connor replied. He laid down his hatchet and curled a finger at me. “Al.”
Buck and I kept low and duck-walked over, and the dogs made room as we took up positions on either side of Connor. He pointed down at the captives.
“There they are. Still alive and well after, what, five days? They’ve been fed and tended to. The question is why. They want you, Al,” he said. “This is all to lure you in. Maybe you’ll find out who cursed you.”
[I think it’s far more likely they want you,] I replied.
Connor frowned. “How so?”
[If they wanted me, they could have come for me in Scotland. No, they took Shu-hua and Mei-ling hostage to attract bigger game than yet another sigil agent. They want to bag a Druid, and not just any Druid: They want the Iron Druid.]
“Me? Why?”
“So many reasons!” Buck said, spreading his arms wide but keeping his voice low. “A lot of human violence is committed over the idea of proprietary sex partners. Could that be it?”
“…Nnno.”
“Huh. This doesnae have the feel of a holy mission, so religion is out. Maybe ye have secrets they want?”
“I have plenty of secrets, but apart from the secret of brewing Immortali-Tea, I don’t think I know anything worth killing for. They’re more like secrets that would make really interesting history documentaries.”
“Ah. It’s money, then. Either ye owe somebody or they owe you, and they’d rather no have tae pay.”
The Druid snorted. “Nobody owes me—oh. Wait. Somebody owes me something that’s not money. A favor.”
[Those kinds of arrangements can be dangerous,] I noted.
“Indeed. It makes a bit of sense….That could be it, the more that I think about it.”
[Can you share the details?]
“Ogma of the Tuatha Dé Danann—the Irish god of writing and learning—owes me a favor. A pretty big one, to be honest—two favors, in fact—and I called them in last year. Since then I haven’t heard from him. Maybe he’d rather not be obligated anymore, and this is his way of solving the problem. And if you think back to those traps—the sheer number of them and the magical ones, especially, the hook bindings and that meadow of poisoned darts that got launched in the presence of cold iron—there aren’t many people besides Ogma who could have done that.”
I couldn’t figure out the connection with Caoránach but realized that perhaps I didn’t need to. All I had to do was ask the question. [What does Ogma have to do with those creatures?]
“I don’t know quite yet, but I have a suspicion. I’d like to head back in the other direction and see if I can spot where all these monsters are coming from. Will you wait here? If things erupt, the monsters will come after me, and then you can charge down and try to free the hostages. But I hope to be back to explain after I confirm something.”
We promised to wait. Starbuck stayed with us, allowing Ya-ping to pet him, but Oberon crept along the hillside with the Iron Druid, in the direction where they’d smelled something huge in the water. They moved in near silence and we could still hear the captives chattering near the creek, their words carried along the water.
A roar of discordant harmonics and splashing split the air from downstream, but the monsters surrounding the cage didn’t seem to be alarmed by this, and the Mandarin conversation resumed after only a short pause. The Iron Druid, however, had disappeared, along with his hound. Either he’d moved out of sight or he’d cast camouflage.
[Can you understand anything they’re saying?] I asked Ya-ping.
She listened for a while. “I think…they’re complaining about the food they’re being given. Worried that they’re going to get scurvy if they don’t get some fruit.”
“They’re right tae worry. Scurvy is terrible,” Buck said.
[But they’d have to go at least a month without vitamin C for symptoms to appear.]
A tear escaped from the corner of Ya-ping’s right eye, and when she saw that I spied it, she angrily wi
ped it away with a knuckle.
“I’m just so glad Sifu Lin is still alive,” she explained. “And so worried I’m going to screw this up at the last second.”
I felt the same relief and worry—not that Ya-ping would screw up, but that I would. But saying, “Yeah,” in agreement was not the appropriate response right then.
[You have done absolutely nothing wrong and won’t start now,] I reassured her. [Shu-hua should be proud of you. You are going to be an outstanding sigil agent.] Every word of that was true, and it had the benefit of leaving out my own significant worries.
Buck pointed off to our right. “Hey, look, they’re coming back.”
Connor and Oberon had reappeared and were keeping low and quiet. Starbuck quivered under Ya-ping’s hand, yearning to be reunited with them. When they finally got to us, we huddled so he could whisper what he’d found.
“Okay, it’s making at least a tiny bit of sense now. The huge thing making noise over there and giving birth to monsters is the oilliphéist named Caoránach.”
My eyes darted to Roxanne and she flashed a quick thumbs-up. He’d finally figured it out, as she’d predicted.
“Did you say ultra fish?” Officer Campbell asked.
“No, I said oilliphéist. They were great sea serpents, the kind people used to think lived at the edge of maps.”
“They’re no mere tales!” Buck said, and Connor continued.
“But this particular one is a bit different: She can stay in fresh water too and breathe air if she wishes—like the Loch Ness Monster.”
“She’s real?” Buck whispered to me, and I gave a tiny nod. The contract with Nessie stipulated that I had to deliver a metric ton of sardines once a year, and in return she wouldn’t eat people and would avoid detection. These were things she would have done anyway, because people didn’t taste very good to her and she was shy, but she wanted a treat once a year and it was easy enough to arrange. I was glad to do it, in fact, since she gave me absolutely zero headaches. She vacated the lake and hid on land whenever they pinged the waters with sonar to search for her. I tended not to think of her specifically as an oilliphéist but rather as one of the nicest monsters you could ever meet. Buck’s jaw dropped wide open, but the conversation continued on.