by John Lenahan
‘You never studied with Dahy, did you, brother?’
‘I’ve always hated that pompous blowhard,’ Cialtie said.
‘I thought not,’ Dad said, disengaging.
That’s when Dad started an attack I was very familiar with. He came at his brother with a high downward swipe. Cialtie parried it off to his right – exactly as Dad expected. Then Dad did the move he always called, The Dahy. His sword kept going to the right. Cialtie fell for the fake. His eyes followed the blade when they should have been looking at the arm. Dad clocked him high in the cheek with his elbow and Cialtie went down. He raised his sword while lying on his back but Dad swatted it out of his hand.
If Cialtie was expecting mercy from his brother, he was mistaken. The time for mercy was over. Dad placed both hands on the hilt of the Lawnmower and came down on Cialtie like he was going to split him in half. Cialtie raised his right arm and the blade slammed into his stump and then notched into the silver cuff that encircled his wrist. Blood shot from his stump as Cialtie let out a painful grunt – then he whistled twice. The rope around my chest tightened with such a force that I screamed. Dad turned to look at me and that was all the distraction Cialtie needed. Life slowed down as I tried to warn Dad but the rope made it so I couldn’t even catch a breath. When Dad’s eyes turned back at his brother he saw him holding a knife. Before he could even react, Cialtie pushed the blade into Dad’s chest.
I had been fighting the pressure on my ribs but when I saw that I shouted, ‘NO!’ As the air left my lungs the rope took up the slack and blackness crept into my peripheral vision. The last thing I heard, or should I say felt, was Mother Oak in my head saying, ‘Oh no, not Oisin.’
Chapter Thirty-Three
Mother Oak
For the second time today I came to from unconsciousness without opening my eyes. This time I didn’t want to see what was out there. Make it a dream, I said to myself, make it a dream. Let me open my eyes and see my father sitting on the edge of my bed brushing the hair out of my eyes.
But the chest pain that came with every breath proved to me that this was real. I touched the rough bark at my back to see if Mother Oak was still there. She was and she was … she was crying.
I opened my eyes as leaves fell around me and saw Dad face down on the grass. His chest was tilted up at a strange angle because of the knife still sticking out of it. Another pain hit me in the chest and this pain had nothing to do with the Brownie rope. Daddy.
‘Conor, be sharp,’ Mother Oak shouted into my head. ‘He comes.’
Cialtie staggered into my vision. His right sleeve was torn off and wrapped around his bleeding stump. He plopped down on the ground cross-legged in front of me like he was drunk. Then he leaned in and said, ‘Tears for your father, good.’
‘You bastard,’ I said without looking at him – I couldn’t.
‘I’ve been a bastard since the day I was born, nephew, but I was genuine when I said your tears were good. He was a man worthy of tears.’
I looked up and saw tears in Cialtie’s eyes. It’s a rare thing to see a grown man cry but my uncle’s crocodile tears didn’t induce any sympathy in me. ‘Go to hell,’ I said to his face.
‘Hell is where I have been,’ he replied, standing. ‘I have been in a living hell every day since I read Ona’s prophecies. I have been marching to the rhythm of her maddening tin drum all of my life.’
‘Oh shut up,’ I shouted. ‘I am so tired of your “this isn’t my fault” speech. Save it for someone who doesn’t know you.’
‘I thought you at least would understand.’
‘Oh I understand, Cialtie – I understand that you are an idiot as well as a sadistic bastard. You think because something is written it’s done. Well, give me a pen and I’ll write – Drop Dead. You did what you did. No one made you do anything. You killed your brother, my father – you. Your son ran to you and instead of hugging him – you chose to stab him – you. I was there. There was no one behind you. You killed Fergal – you. So go peddle your sob story somewhere else.’
‘I had hoped to avoid this, nephew. I know you don’t believe me but I don’t want to kill you. I was saddened when I heard you took your Choosing. I was hoping just to take your runehand but now that you hold a Duir Rune I must kill you. Then I will finally be king, finally be safe.’
I laughed then, or at least I think it was a laugh. I was such a mess of emotions; if you were looking at me I don’t know what you would have thought I was doing.
‘I’m surprised you find that funny,’ Cialtie said.
‘You really are an idiot,’ I said as I reached in to a small pocket on the side of my tunic. Cialtie raised his sword and stepped back but when he saw what was in my hand he stopped dead in his tracks.
You see, almost immediately after I completed my Choosing all hell broke loose and I never had the chance to talk to anybody about what happened. Since everyone assumed I would pick Duir and inherit the Oak Throne, nobody asked to see my new rune. I hadn’t even told Dad. I was worried he was going to be disappointed, so I was waiting for a quiet moment alone to tell him but I never had the chance and now I never will.
I held up my new rune for Cialtie to see. On it was engraved the major symbol of – Cull. ‘I’m not the new king – you are,’ I said. ‘I’m the new Lord of the Hazellands.’ I thought of what Dad would have said to that. After the disappointment, he would have laughed at the thought of me being the new Dean of the Hall of Knowledge. I tried to laugh, too, but couldn’t.
‘You chose Cull?’ Cialtie said, stepping forward for a closer look.
‘Yes.’
‘Then … then I am king.’
‘Don’t expect me to bow.’
‘I’m safe. It is … it is over.’
I held out the rune. He sheathed his sword and came towards me to take it. I don’t know what possessed me to do what I did. It might have been some sort of subliminal message from Mother Oak but I think it was just me remembering what she had said earlier about giving Cialtie ‘a piece of my mind’. All I know is that at that moment I needed Cialtie to talk with the family tree. As he reached for my rune I dropped it, grabbed my uncle’s wrist and pushed it against Mother Oak’s trunk. Both he and I stuck to the bark like we were steel touching an electromagnet.
I recognised the sensation instantly. It was identical to the attack of the oak tree at the perimeter of Castle Duir. The difference was that this time the attention was not directed at me. This time the guy in the hot seat was Cialtie.
The first thing I saw was the circular tree amulet. I had seen a template of it made in silver but I had never seen the one made of gold, the one that was used to obliterate a town. I had watched Cialtie place it on the stump of a tree he had just chopped down. In the centre he placed a small glass bottle, and stopped inside the bottle was a moth. Then he hopped on his horse and galloped out of there. Mother Oak’s vision showed both of us what no one had ever seen – no one who lived, that is. Cialtie’s amulet bomb went off and the destruction rippled out from the stump. The eerie thing about it was the sound – except for the crashing stones and the screaming people it was silent, even though it looked just like a shot from one of those ground-zero cameras at atomic blasts. It was hard to watch, no … not just hard, it was almost impossible. Admittedly these images were horrible but I was feeling them at a gut level that … I don’t know how to describe it. It was so intense, I wasn’t sure I could stand it. I screamed and then I heard Mother Oak in my head say, ‘Oh I’m so sorry dear, that was not meant for you.’ Swiftly the overpowering intensity lifted. The vision was still forced on me and it was still tough to watch but I was saved the gut-churning emotional power – Cialtie was not.
The destruction of the village of More was followed by Cialtie’s seduction of Mná, the Banshee sorceress who became Fergal’s mother. I watched with nausea as Cialtie purred while he lied to the poor girl. He promised her he loved her – he promised her she would be his queen. Then I had to watch as h
er screams of labour were cut short by Cialtie beheading her.
Next came a string of murders: the cowardly attack on my grandfather’s horse as he stepped through the portal to the Real World, Ona being smothered by a pillow, the killing of four striking Leprechaun miners as an example to the others.
Then I saw something that really surprised me. A Banshee carrying Dad’s severed runehand through the Choosing. Cialtie had been too cowardly to attempt that himself so he promised the Banshee great riches for the attempt. When he succeeded in getting a Duir Rune he was rewarded only with death.
Hundreds of indecencies ranging from rudeness to inflicting debilitating pain flashed by, each one painting a portrait of a poisonous life. In the end Mother Oak did to Cialtie what the oak at Castle Duir had done to me. She showed him what his life could have been like if instead of killing Fergal he had accepted him. She showed a Cialtie walking along a beach with his boy. She showed him hugs and handmade presents and bedtime stories. She made him feel the joy of parenting, the swell of pride, the unconditional love. Then she showed him the truth. I heard Cialtie moan as he relived the stabbing of his son. I moaned with him as I again watched the blade enter Fergal’s chest.
‘You could have stopped all of this at any time,’ Mother Oak said. ‘Shame. Shame on you.’
Mother Oak let us go. I almost blacked out from the emotional roller-coaster I had just been through. Then a sharp pain shot through my broken arm as the Brownie rope was ripped away from me and the tree. I was free. I tried to stand but found out, by falling, that my leg was definitely broken. I fell on my broken arm and once again my brain threatened unconsciousness. I looked across the field and saw the Sword of Duir lying about twenty-five feet away. I looked to Cialtie – he was down on his knees with his face buried in his hands. I started to crawl; it was agonisingly slow and painful. I didn’t dare look behind me. I knew as soon as he saw what I was doing I was a goner. I finally got my hand on the pommel and turned to defend myself. I didn’t need to.
What I saw was my uncle throwing the end of the Brownie rope up into Mother Oak where it attached to one of her higher boughs. Then he wrapped the other end around his neck and simply said, ‘I’m sorry.’ He whistled twice and the rope instantly halved in length, breaking his neck with an audible snap. I watched him twitch for a few seconds then slowly swing in the breeze.
Cialtie was wrong. The age of Ona wasn’t meant to last for ever. It was meant to end today. Ona’s final prediction finally came true. It was written that Cialtie would be killed by the Lord of Duir. The day Cialtie became king was the day he killed himself. We were finally free of Cialtie and Ona – but at what cost?
I crawled over to Dad and pushed him over onto his back. I pulled the knife out of his chest. It wasn’t one of Dahy’s knives – it was mine. ‘Oh Dad, I’m so sorry,’ I said as I dropped my head on his chest. A sob sent so much pain through my body I don’t remember much after that.
I remember waking up still in the field and Mom was next to me. That was nice. She asked me what had happened and I told her in a dopey matter-of-fact way like it was some TV show I had seen years ago. It felt a lot like that time I killed that guy in the Fililands – my lights were on but nobody was home.
Next thing I remember I was under bedclothes in the infirmary. It was dark and I wondered where I was. A failed attempt to sit up made me realise that my arm and leg were encased in splints. I wondered what had happened to me. Did I fall out of a tree? I looked to my left and saw Tuan in the bed next to me. I was with Tuan, wasn’t I? We crashed … Where were we going? Then the memory of the events in Glen Duir flooded back.
‘Dad,’ I said aloud.
Grief is a leash. I remembered this feeling after Fergal died. My thoughts would drift to the mundane things, the normal stuff of life: idle chat, food or laughter – then I would remember and the leash would stretch taut like a dog in the yard being pulled back by the neck – a crushing sadness and loss would snap me back into that place where my stomach would hurt and laughter was a foreign language. I knew from experience that the leash would grow longer each day but at that moment I found it hard to imagine life with idle anything.
The Imp-healer, the one that Graysea called the Prison Guard, shot up from her night duty desk and came over to me. She lifted up my head and held a shot glass of liquid to my lips. I didn’t protest.
As I drifted off to what I hoped was dreamless sleep she brushed the hair from my eyes and said, ‘I’m so sorry, Prince Conor.’
The next time I awoke it was daylight. I saw that Graysea was in the bed next to me. Her beautiful innocent face made me smile before the leash of grief snapped my mind back to reality. I gasped and she turned to me.
‘Hi Conor, how are you feeling?’ she asked.
Grief and pain are cousins to anger. A tiny demon in my brain wanted to yell at her and say, ‘How do you think I feel, you stupid trout’, but I remembered this from last time as well and I knew that misdirected anger only made things worse. I forced a comforting smile. ‘Like I fell off a flying dragon.’
I sat up and saw that Tuan was in the bed to my right. ‘How is the dragon?’
‘He’ll be OK,’ she said. ‘He broke a few more things than you, though. Your mom gave him something. He’s going to be like that for a while.’
‘As long as he’s going to be OK. I don’t think I could stand another …’ I couldn’t finish that sentence. My brave face was going to need some work. I turned away.
‘Oh, you poor sweet thing,’ Graysea said as she hopped over to my bed and hugged me. While I wept on her shoulder I was hardly aware of being transferred into another embrace. When I looked up bleary eyed, Essa was looking down at me.
‘Oh Conor, I’m so sorry about your father,’ she said.
We wept some more – she loved Oisin too.
There would be more tears later but when I finally got control of myself Araf was there with a pot of willow tea.
‘Araf hasn’t left your side since you were brought in here, except to get the tea,’ Graysea said.
‘Yeah,’ I said, ‘you mean he hasn’t left your side.’
The two of them blushed.
Essa picked up the Cull Rune that was sitting on my bedside table. ‘Your mother tells me that this is yours.’
‘I’m afraid so,’ I said. ‘The Prince of Hazel and Oak is now Lord of the Hazellands.’
‘I’m not sure what to say,’ she said, and then laughed a little. ‘Sorry.’
‘No, no, I’m there with you, Essa. This is ridiculous.’
‘It is not ridiculous, it is … just right,’ Mom said.
‘Hi Mom.’
‘Hello son.’
We locked eyes and I knew what her look meant. ‘Later,’ it said clearer than any words. ‘Later we will grieve but now I must be strong or else I won’t be able to go on.’
I clenched my jaw and nodded to her and she nodded back.
‘I always thought there was more hazel in you than oak,’ she said.
Mom sat on the edge of Tuan’s bed and placed her hands on both sides of his head. The Pooka blinked and then opened his eyes. He looked scared but Mom shushed him and told him everything was all right. The Prison Guard helped him sit up. It looked like it hurt – a lot.
When he was settled I said, ‘How’s it going, Councillor Tuan?’
Tuan tried to turn but it hurt too much. ‘Is that you, Prince Conor?’
‘It is.’
‘No more dragon rides for you.’
‘Fair enough,’ I said.
Tuan started to cough and it looked like it hurt. The Imp-healer gave him something to drink that brought the colour back to his face, then she sat on the side of his bed and held his hand.
I stared at both of them. ‘You and the Prison Guard?’
They both smiled at each other and Tuan shrugged.
I heard the tapping long before I saw the girl. Ruby came around the corner in high-speed mode, which meant she was thrashing
her stick back and forth and people were diving out of her way.
‘Where are you?’
‘I’m here, Ruby.’
She came up to the side of the bed and then hopped on, making me gasp quite loudly.
‘Careful, I broke my leg.’
‘Oops, sorry. Why don’t you get your mermaid girlfriend to fix it?’
‘She won’t let me,’ Graysea said, pointing to the Prison Guard. ‘And I’m not his girlfriend any more.’
‘He dumped you for the princess, huh?’
‘Ruby,’ Brendan admonished as he rounded the corner.
‘That was rude of me?’ she asked from under her huge sunglasses.
Her dad said, ‘Yes.’
‘Sorry.’
‘That’s OK, Ruby.’ Then Graysea leaned down and whispered, ‘For the record, I dumped him.’
Ruby turned to me with a huge smile on her face and said, ‘Ha ha.’
‘Ruby,’ her dad said again.
‘Sorry,’ the young girl said, but we all knew she wasn’t.
‘How was your stay in Connemara?’
She wrinkled her nose. ‘It rained a lot and the food wasn’t as good as here but Mícheál and his wife were nice. They taught me to play dominoes. But I’m glad to be back with Daddy and Grandma.’
‘Well, I’m glad you’re back. Shall we go for a pony ride when I get better?’
‘No trees, though,’ she said.
‘No trees.’
Brendan picked her off my bed and she swiped her way out of the room.
‘Sorry about Oisin,’ Brendan said.
My chest was completely black and blue from the Brownie rope but it didn’t hurt near as much as when people mentioned Dad. ‘Thanks.’
‘Who went to Ireland and got Ruby?’
‘Nieve and I.’
‘Did you get another Guinness?’
‘Na. Considering I’m a wanted fugitive I decided against going to a pub and anyway, Nieve had to stay on a horse.’