Shadowmagic - Sons of Macha

by John Lenahan

  ‘Following the predictions of Ona has proved a folly for you before, Lord Cialtie,’ Jesse said. ‘What makes this time different?’

  Wow, that snapped me out of my reverie. I take back what I said about Jesse being too green. Cialtie gave the Brownie prince a look that almost made me duck. If my uncle could shoot daggers from his eyes, then Jesse would have been a pegboard. Bringing up Cialtie’s unsuccessful tenure as Lord of Duir was either stupid or brave. I previously would have said that Jesse was being stupid but his recent behaviour was changing my opinion of the shoe thief.

  After an interminable length of time Cialtie bowed his head as if to say, ‘Fair enough,’ and composed himself enough to answer. ‘It is true that Ona’s predictions are often obtuse but tonight you will see for yourself the fruit of our research.’ He turned to the Banshee sorceress and said, ‘Taline, is all prepared?’

  ‘Yes my lord,’ the witch answered.

  ‘Then begin.’

  Taline let loose a modulating scream that made all of the non-Banshees in the room wince. From the corners of the chamber servants appeared carrying bowls. Five bowls in all were placed on the floor in a cross pattern. After the servants left, Taline walked to the centre of the receptacles. For a split second I thought I saw a woman walking with her but decided it was a trick of the gauze mask I was wearing. She began to speak in a Banshee dialect I did not understand. Periodically I almost caught a word that sounded like something my father had tried to make me learn as a child. She reached into the bowl in front of her and took out a small glob of sap. Then I heard her use the Ogham word, ‘Iodhadh.’ My heart pounded in my chest. She was using Shadowmagic and the sap she was using was yew.

  I remembered overhearing my mother and Fand speculating about the kind of raw Shadowmagic power that might be attained using yew sap. They had both smiled at the thought of it then stopped themselves as if talking like that was too frightening a prospect.

  The Banshee sorceress fanned her hands over the bowls to her right and left – pale Shadowflames sparked to life. Like Mom’s Shadowflames, these gave off neither heat nor light but unlike Mom’s Shadowmagic, these seemed to suck the light from the room. All around there were candelabras and chandeliers. None of the candles had gone out but it was noticeably darker in there – and colder. Maybe it just seemed colder because of the shiver that was running down my spine as I started to realise what I was witnessing.

  When Taline closed her hand around the sap and placed her fist into the Shadowfire and incanted, ‘Duir’ – I was then sure she was doing something I thought only my mother and Fand could do. This was a Shadowcasting.

  The Banshee sorceress rolled her head and warbled as if in a trance then opened her hand and dropped a translucent rune onto the floor. Emblazoned on its surface was the major rune of Duir. While continuing to moan and writhe she picked more sap from the bowl and began the long process of creating a shadow of all the major runes in Tir na Nog. ‘Fearn, Saille, Nuin, Tinne, Quert, Muhn, Ur, Nion, Gort, Getal, Straif, Ruis, Ailm, Onn, Eadth, Iodhadh, Beith, Luis’, and finally my mother’s rune – ‘Cull.’

  When the formation of the Shadowrunes was complete, the sorceress then placed them in a grid on the floor in front of her and ignited them with Shadowflame. Then began the process of sorting the runes into the proper order for casting. This took longer than when Mom did it. The Banshee didn’t really know what she was doing. She looked like some old biddy wondering where to put the next piece in her jigsaw puzzle. That scared me most of all. It felt like I was watching a monkey spinning dials in a nuclear power plant.

  All the while she moaned and rocked. The Shadowfire travelled up her hands and then engulfed both of her arms to the shoulder. She tore off her cloak and threw it into the corner where it continued to burn with a pale blue Shadowfire. I was tempted to go over and stamp it out. I wondered if that would even work.

  This was taking a long time. I looked around the room. The Turlow and his guards, who had never seen anything like this before, looked on with a mixture of repulsion and anticipation. Jesse was successfully standing expressionless but I knew he was terrified. Lugh and Grandma held maniacal expressions but maybe that was just the way I will always see them now. Cialtie seemed to be getting impatient and then proved it by shouting, ‘When will you be ready?’

  The sorceress held up a finger as if to say, ‘Wait a minute,’ but then her loss of concentration allowed the Shadowfire to rocket up her arms and engulf her whole body. She screamed for just a second as if she was being burned. Shadowfire doesn’t burn but I imagine if I instantly became covered with that stuff that I’d freak out a lot worse than her. She composed herself and using the palms of her hands she pushed the Shadowfire away from her face and let the rest of her body burn. She may not have been a competent Shadowwitch but no one could accuse her of being undramatic.

  At the edges of the Shadowflame that surrounded her I began to see bits of a form: a leg, a hand. Just as I had decided that it must be a trick of the light, I saw the translucent face of a woman whisper into the sorceress’s ear. She obviously heard it because she stopped, listened and then changed the pattern of her Shadowcasting runes. The runes were now forming the shape of a star. It was very different from the periodic-table-like pattern my mother used. The ghostlike face continued to appear and instruct the sorceress until finally she rocked her head back and breathed deeply. Then from the bowl of yew sap she took a glob and prepared to make another rune. As she held it over the Shadowfire and incanted, the face that had only appeared at the edges of the fire began to take form. No longer a reflection of the fire, the face grew more substantial. She still was not real, still translucent, but she was no longer a trick of the Shadowlight. A whole woman appeared before us. I had seen visions in Shadowfire before but this wasn’t like that. This was a real rooting-tooting, I’m-about-to-pee-myself ghost.

  The ghost, although insubstantial, had some power. She ran her hands over the sorceress and extinguished the Shadowfire on her head and shoulders, until only her hands once again were afire. Then she spoke into the witch’s ear. This time I almost heard something. The Banshee turned to Cialtie and said, ‘Now.’

  Lugh and Macha smiled and left. As we waited, the ghost continued to instruct the sorceress. I shot a quick glance to Jesse and then regretted it. His eyes mirrored the wrongness that we were both feeling about whatever was happening in this place but he, unlike me, had no mask to hide it from Cialtie. But the wrongness had just begun.

  I heard her before I saw Lugh roughly drag her in to the room. Little Ruby, not the obstreperous and defiant self-confident woman-child I had known but a scared and frightened blind girl who was alone and mistreated far from home. It took all of my will not to run to her. I remembered the last time I had to stand by and watch someone I love being mistreated by Cialtie. That time I had waited too long and Fergal died. This time I swore to myself I would not let that happen again. But what could I do?

  My hand reached slowly up to my neck. If I had to I could rush Ruby and activate the twin rothlú amulet that the hermit had placed around my neck. I might make it, but if I did that would leave Jesse with questions he couldn’t answer. Questions that would get him killed. I had to wait and watch.

  Lugh pushed Ruby to the centre of the flaming Shadowfire bowls. She had lost her sunglasses. Her hair covered half her face and was knotted and wild. Her visionless eyes darted frantically around the room. I so desperately wanted to shout to her to let her know that I was here and she was not alone.

  Lugh drew a dagger from his belt and placed it at Ruby’s throat. I grabbed the rothlú amulet and yanked it. The silver chain broke and clattered loudly to the floor in the pin-dropping quiet chamber. I wondered if I could get to Ruby before Lugh cut. Just when I decided that I had to risk it, Jesse spoke.

  ‘Are you planning to kill that child?’

  At first I didn’t even know it was Jesse, the voice was so forceful.

  Macha answered. ‘Ona’s p
rophecy calls for the blood of the blind child.’

  ‘What does it say – exactly?’ Jesse almost shouted. ‘Does it demand her death?’

  My grandmother was obviously not used to being spoken to like this. She replied with only an indignant glare.

  Jesse, bless him, was undaunted. He spoke like the prince that he was. Only he and I knew just how badly he was shaking under his cloak. ‘If the spell calls for blood, take some blood, but I will not stand by and watch an unnecessary murder of the child.’

  I didn’t know if it was the right thing to do or not, but I took that to be an order from my prince and stepped forward towards Lugh with my staff held ready to strike. This also got me that bit closer to Ruby if things got really sticky.

  During all of this, the ghost impatiently circled around the centre of the room.

  ‘How dare you reproach me,’ Lugh said and lifted his hand in a gesture that I knew all too well. I braced myself for the inevitable gale that was about to smash me into the next state.

  ‘Father,’ Cialtie shouted. It was maybe the first time I had ever been glad to hear that voice. ‘The Brownie is right. There is no need to kill the child. She still may be of use to us.’

  Lugh still didn’t take the knife away from Ruby’s throat. ‘Once we have the Shadowwitch we won’t need this child.’

  ‘You are probably right, Father, but why chance it? You of all people should know how swiftly winds can change.’

  ‘Very well,’ Lugh said and removed the dagger from Ruby’s neck. I relaxed then and stepped back into the room. That’s when Lugh grabbed the girl’s hand and in a flash ran the edge of the blade across Ruby’s palm. Ruby screamed and tried to pull away but Lugh held her wrist firm. Blood dripped from her hand as she stopped squirming and fainted dead away. The Banshee sorceress picked up a bowl and let the blood drip into it. The blood continued to drip as Lugh held Ruby’s pale lifeless body by her hair. I had to get her out of here. The sorceress held up a finger indicating that she had enough blood. One of the servants was called and Lugh handed Ruby over like she was a rag doll left after play.

  ‘Make sure her wound is dressed,’ a voice said, saying what I would have said if I could. It was the new Turlow. The Banshee servant bowed her head yes. I had assumed this Turlow was just a Cialtie lackey; maybe there was hope for him.

  Lugh and Macha backed into their original positions as the ghost sat cross-legged across from the Banshee witch. Who was this ghost? Lugh said something about a Shadowwitch? I was pondering this when the Banshee finally opened her hand and revealed the last rune. It was less substantial than the others and was clearer than the blueish Shadowrunes that were scattered around the floor. It looked like it was made of the same stuff as the ghost. Then, proving that it was, the ghost picked it up. That’s when I came very close to giving myself away. An audible gasp left my bandana-covered mouth. Luckily only Jesse seemed to notice. He gave me a hard disapproving stare. The reason for my surprise was the rune. It was identical to the one my mother made when she undertook the Rite of Choosing using Shadowmagic as opposed to real magic. Mom for the first time ever used tree sap to fuel the changing as opposed to gold. The rune she received for her efforts was transparent and contained a rune that no one had ever seen before. No one knew its meaning and there had never been anything like it – until now.

  The ghost held this new Shadowrune on the palms of her hands. Taline pushed all of the remaining runes into a pile underneath the hands and ignited them with Shadowflame. The ghost threw back her head in a silent scream – could the Shadowfire be burning her? Taline then poured Ruby’s blood from the bowl into the cupped hands and onto the rune. Smoke immediately poured up from the hands but then dissipated – there was no scent. Then the changes began in the ghost. First there was red. The major arteries began to form like those see-through pages in a biology book. Then the major organs darkened at the same time as the skeleton. Finally flesh began to appear as the sound of a faraway whine grew into a full-blown scream of agony.

  When it was done a naked woman lay still, kneeling with her head in her lap like she was praying. Black hair fell in front of her face. My grandmother stepped forward and took the cloak off her back and laid it over the former ghost’s shoulders. Then she shushed the Banshee sorceress away and knelt across from the prostrate woman. She reached over, pushed back her hair and then placed her hands on each side of the woman’s face and lifted it to hers. I was amazed that the woman’s black eyes were open. My grandmother leaned in and stared directly into the woman’s eyes and said, ‘Welcome back, Maeve.’

  Chapter Fifteen

  Maeve

  Maeve – the first Shadowwitch, the inventor of Shadowmagic, the mad Druid who had decimated half of her people’s rowan forest in a maniacal quest for power. The leader who swore an oath to overthrow the House of Duir. The Fili Queen who attempted to harness a power so strong that it destroyed her and her army. She was back, and so was her army.

  Outside, hundreds of soldiers suddenly appeared, naked and screaming. Cialtie, it seemed, had anticipated this. Banshees were ready, passing out cloaks and boots. Then they led the dazed Fili into the Lodge where they found their old yew bows hanging. Even though the bows were all almost identical, the proper owner walked straight up to his own weapon and picked it out like it was a son or daughter.

  Maeve and her Fili army were back and in league with Cialtie, the Banshees and the Brownies. Cialtie was right. This was the ally that ensured his victory.

  I took off my masks when it was just me and Jesse in his tent. ‘I have to find Ruby and get back to Duir,’ I said, ‘but I don’t know how to do it without getting you into trouble. Any ideas?’

  But Jesse wasn’t ready for a chat about planning. He was still way too freaked out. ‘Did you see what they did?’ he asked, wide-eyed and pale.

  ‘I sure did.’

  ‘Whatever happened in there … it can’t be … it can’t be right.’

  ‘No, it was very wrong and I’m freaked out too.’

  Jesse continued to look off into nothing. I tried to snap him out of it. ‘Hey,’ I said playfully punching him on the arm, ‘you were awesome in there.’

  ‘I was?’

  ‘Hell yes. The way you stood up to Lugh. That was, like, the bravest thing I’ve ever seen.’

  ‘What?’ he said, finally looking at me. ‘Really? Gosh I almost forgot I did that. I did do that, didn’t I?’

  ‘You sure did.’

  Jesse smiled. ‘I was terrified.’

  ‘Well, you pretended not to be very well. It was – princely.’

  He looked like he’d been slapped. ‘Gosh, I think that’s the nicest thing anyone has ever said to me.’

  Jesse then burst into tears and gave me a hug. That may not be princely behaviour in anybody else’s book but it was just fine in mine.

  A Banshee guard outside the tent announced himself and asked loudly if he could speak with Prince Codna. I only had time to turn away and throw up my hood before he entered the tent. Jesse nodded to the messenger and wiped his eyes.

  ‘I have been sent to ask if you or any of the Brownies have seen the girl,’ the Banshee said, standing to attention.

  ‘What girl?’ Jesse asked.

  ‘The blind girl, Your Highness. She has powers of which we were previously unaware. She has killed two guards and escaped.’

  I almost turned then. Surely this was some kind of joke.

  ‘I find that hard to believe,’ Jesse said.

  ‘It is true, sir. She is gone and all that is left of two of my most trusted guards are their clothes.’

  ‘This is indeed very strange,’ he said in his faux-prince voice. ‘I shall assign some Brownies to help you with the search.’

  The guard saluted and left.

  Jesse picked up my bandana and eye gauze mask and handed them to me. ‘Go find her, Conor, and get her back home.’

  ‘But what about you? Won’t it be suspicious if your Shadowguard disappea
rs?’

  ‘Don’t worry about me. I’m sure I can find a new Shadowguard.’

  I put on my mask and stood. Before I left Jesse took my hand and said, ‘I remember what you once said, Conor. No one can unmake us friends.’

  Outside the tent was a disorganised mess. Soldiers were running all over the place looking into tents and under bushes. If Ruby was wandering around out here I had no chance of finding her first. Saying that, how could she have escaped? The messenger said she had killed two guards. Now that certainly wasn’t true. Maybe she had help. Maybe Mom or Araf had organised a breakout.

  I decided to risk going in to the Lodge to see if I could have a look at where she had been held. I had to risk talking to a couple of Banshee guards. I was worried that maybe speaking would give away that I was a fake Shadowguard, but I didn’t seem to arouse any suspicion.

  Ruby’s holding cell made me want to cry. There was just a straw mat and a bucket for her to use as a toilet. On the floor was a half-eaten apple. How could anybody do this to a young girl? By the door, a pile of soldier’s uniforms lay on top of two pairs of shoes. I picked up one of the cloaks and dust fell from the inside of the sleeves.

  OK, I said to myself, let’s assume she hasn’t been rescued, or worse kidnapped by somebody else – let’s assume she really did escape on her own. Where could she have gone? I imagined I was a young girl groping along these stone walls. I followed a wall out of the room and into the corridor. The roof was broken here and the wall was covered with pale ivy. I got down on my hands and knees and discovered that some of the stems were broken. Could Ruby have done that as she was feeling along the wall? Further along I found what almost looked like an ivy bush. I looked inside and found an opening in the wall behind it. Vines had grown up from below in what must have been an old dumb waiter shaft. There was still a rope hanging down. At the bottom of the shaft was daylight. There was no way I could fit in there, but Ruby could. As I was poking my head back in, I saw a clump of matted hair hanging from a thorny vine. It was black, just like Ruby’s. ‘Aren’t you a clever girl,’ I said to myself.