Prince of Hazel and Oak (Shadowmagic Book 2)

by John Lenahan

  I scoured my dictionaries and allowing for slight changes in spelling I translated tughe tine into ‘red eel’.

  I had been at this manuscript for well over my allotted time. Twice I told the Imp scholar who was scheduled for the slot after me to go away and have a cup of tea. When she came back a third time I could see she was just itching to get stuck into more gardening tips but I told her that I was keeping the Shadowreader and went in search of Mom.

  I found her in the canteen sitting with Spideog. When she saw me holding a manuscript she stood. ‘What have you found?’

  I handed her the manuscript and gave them a brief summary of what I had discovered. It occurred to me that I might be telling a tale that everyone except me knew by heart but judging by the expressions on both of their faces, I was surprising them a bit.

  When I had finished Mom said, ‘I always suspected that my father had secret manuscripts that he only allowed certain people to see. I remember Banshees coming to the Hall and my father being very secretive with them. This story is amazing.’

  ‘So you have never heard this before?’

  ‘Well, I have heard of “the Grey Ones” of course but I assumed that that was just an old tale to warn us about going too far out in boats. I never heard that they were Banshees that wanted to leave. And there has never been an explanation as to why Banbha left.’

  ‘How about this tughe tine?’

  ‘I have never heard of it. Have you, Spideog?’

  ‘No, my lady.’

  ‘But if we could get some of this eel blood then it might reset Dad and the hand will stop killing him.’

  ‘It’s a very old manuscript and it doesn’t even say if red eels exist. This is an exceptional find, my son, but I wouldn’t get too excited.’

  ‘What about this Mount Cas? We can at least check if this sorcerer guy is still there.’

  ‘Conor, this was the first millennium, there will be no sorcerer there now.’

  ‘Actually, my lady, that may not be entirely true.’ Mom and I both snapped to attention as the old archer continued. ‘The last time I saw Cialtie was not long after Oisin disappeared. I was travelling cross-country and at the base of Mount Cas I saw someone coming down from the mountain. I set camp and waited for the traveller, hoping to swap a meal for information about this mountain that I had never explored. As he approached I was very surprised indeed to find that it was Cialtie. The Prince accepted my hospitality but gave away little of what he was doing on the mountain except that he had been visiting a very old Oracle. A year later I travelled up Mount Cas in search of this man. About two thirds of the way up I found a house, made entirely out of yew wood, built into the mountainside. I knocked at the entrance but was told by a voice on the other side of the door that only those who are worthy eive an audience there. I left and never returned.’

  ‘We should go,’ I said, standing.

  ‘Hold on, Conor,’ Mom said. ‘Let us stop and think about this.’

  ‘What’s to think about, Mom? We have been ploughing through these scraps of paper night and day for almost two weeks and what have we found – zip. This is our first good lead. Let me look into it. I’m going crazy around here. Please,’ I said, sounding like a ten-year-old asking if he can go to the park by himself.

  ‘It may be too late,’ Spideog said.

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Winter is close here but it may already have arrived on the mountain. The pass may be impassable.’

  ‘Then we have to go now,’ I said, getting to my feet. ‘Mom, you said yourself that maybe the gods want me to find a cure for Dad, well maybe they wanted me to read this manuscript. Look, Mom, I don’t want to defy you but I gotta talk to this Oracle guy.’

  She stood and I braced myself. It’s never a good idea to get into a conflict with my mother. She hugged me and said, ‘Promise me you won’t do anything foolish.’

  ‘Who me?’ I said, flashing a House of Duir smile.

  ‘And dress warm.’

  Araf, Brendan, Spideog and I set off at dawn. It was freezing out but I didn’t complain. I was excited to be doing something other than just reading. Brendan and I spent all of the previous night trying to borrow warm clothes off my students. I felt sorry for a few who gave us wool underwear. Tomorrow they would find out from Dahy that I didn’t have the authority to give them vacation. I may have looked like I got dressed in total darkness but I was toasty. I tried to dissuade Brendan from coming, on the count that it might be too dangerous, but he insisted. ‘I’ll be right by your side,’ he said. I was a touched by his loyalty until he continued, ‘I go where Master Spideog goes.’

  Dahy saw us off. Before I mounted Acorn he whispered in my ear, ‘If you get into trouble, trust Spideog. He is arrogant and annoying and he talks nonsense and I really do not like him – but he is a good man under pressure.’ He gave me a leg-up. As he guided my foot into the stirrup he lifted my trouser cuff and strapped a leather sheath, containing one of his knives, to my leg. Then he pulled down the cuff, patted my leg and winked at me. I saluted the Master with a nod of the head.

  Araf and I wanted to bring half a dozen soldiers to help pitch tents and cook and maybe set up a base camp but Spideog said we had to travel light and fast. ‘If we beat the snows it will only be by days,’ he said, ‘and it will be a good thing for you two princes to go without your handservants for a while.’ Dahy was right – he was annoying.

  We travelled hard and while the sun was in the sky we took no breaks. On the morning of the third day we saw the peak of Mount Cas. It looked close but it took two more days to get to its foothills. On the fifth day we found a field and set up a base camp where we left the horses to graze. After that we went on foot. It took a day to reach t of se of the main peak and then another day of circling the mountain to find the trail up. The days were cold and the nights freezing but there was no imminent threat of snow. The night before we started our ascent Spideog disappeared and came back with a couple of pheasants that he had convinced to give up breathing so we could eat. There was little talk over dinner. Araf and Brendan turned in early but something in the old archer’s eyes made me think that he was troubled, so I just sat with him by the fire and matched his silence. Finally he blurted out, ‘I want to know why.’

  I waited for him to say more but when he didn’t, I asked, ‘Why what?’

  He didn’t look at me; he just kept staring into the fire. ‘Why I was unworthy.’

  ‘Who says you are unworthy?’

  He pointed up the mountain. ‘The Oracle. The last time I was here he told me that I was unworthy. I didn’t ask him why, I just accepted it. This time I want to know.’

  ‘Well, I think it’s probably ’cause he’s nuts and has been breathing thin air for too long. One thing you are not is unworthy. Even Dahy respects you.’

  He looked at me. ‘How do you know that?’

  ‘He told me.’

  That brought a crooked smile to Spideog’s face. ‘It must have pained him to tell you that.’

  I laughed. ‘I think it did.’ I stirred the fire with a stick and felt the extra warmth on my face. ‘I found a letter of yours in the library.’

  ‘Oh yes?’

  ‘Yeah, it was a letter you wrote to Dahy after the Fili war.’

  ‘Really? Oh, I think I remember someone collating material for some sort of an archive. Good gods, that was so many years ago.’

  ‘It seemed to me that you and Dahy were friends.’

  After a sigh he said, ‘We were. More than just friends, we were comrades in arms.’

  ‘What happened?’

  ‘What else? A girl. I thought he stole her from me. He thought I stole her from him. In the end we fought. She said that she loved each of us equally and it was tearing her apart. She left us both and I disappeared into the Real World. Dahy always said he wasn’t mad about the girl, he claimed he was really mad about me leaving my duties but that is a false memory on his part. It was the girl. I needed to get away
from him but more importantly I needed to find some peace of mind. I went to the Real World which was a pretty barbaric place back then. I didn’t discover what I was looking for until I travelled east. In Asia I found that the answer lies within, and as a bonus I learned their way of fighting. It was exciting and it changed my life. Everyone thinks that fighting is about brawn but in the east I learned that success in a battle comes from thinking.’

  ‘Dahy says that you know.’

  ‘I’m not surprised; Master Dahy is the most natural fighter I have ever known. He didn’t have to study to be as good as he is.’

  ‘It sunds to me that you two still like each other.’

  ‘Maybe.’

  ‘What happened to the girl?’

  ‘She found another, a man better than both of us.’

  ‘Well, I think you are both great men,’ I said, standing. It was time for bed. ‘It sounds to me that this two-timing woman screwed up a great friendship.’

  Spideog rose, his face grimaced in the firelight. ‘You really shouldn’t speak that way about your grandmother.’

  Chapter Fourteen

  The Yew House

  Spideog would say no more that night. I went to bed trying to remember what Dad had told me about his mother. It wasn’t much. He once told me that she left on a sorceress quest when he was still a baby and had never returned, but that was all I could recall. It was well into the next day, after the camp was packed and we were hiking up the trail, that I got a chance to speak to Spideog in private. It turned out that the love of his and Dahy’s lives was indeed my grandmother, Macha the Sorceress Queen, the Horse Whisperer, Mother of the Twins of Macha – Dad and Cialtie.

  ‘By the time I had come back from the Real World she had married Finn,’ Spideog said.

  ‘How did you deal with that?’

  ‘I had found peace in Asia. She was my queen and Finn was my king – I re-entered into the service of the House of Duir.’

  ‘But you never took a wife after her.’

  ‘No,’ he said. There was so much emotion in that one word I didn’t have the heart to ask him any more.

  The path up got steeper and narrower. By midday I was exhausted and ready to stop but Spideog was not a ‘stopping for lunch’ kind of guy. He was a ‘one foot in front of the other’ kind of guy. We walked into the night until we found a place where the trail widened enough to make camp. It was cold and windy but dry and we all went out like candles in a hurricane.

  The trail got ledge-like on the morning of the second day. Around one bend a small stream had frozen where it crossed the path. It was nothing too dangerous but Spideog lashed us together with ropes. He said one can never be too careful and it would be disastrous if he lost one of the two princes, to which Brendan replied, ‘What am I, chopped liver?’ We camped well before dusk on the second day. I would like to think it was because Spideog’s muscles were howling with the altitude and the cold as much as mine, but it was probably because we came onto a place that was wide enough for all of us to sleep safely.

  It was not a comfortable night. The thin air meant that even though we had stopped climbing my legs still ached. We made a small fire to brew willow tea but we didn’ have enough wood to build one for warmth. The wind whistled around so that we almost had to shout at each other.

  I sat next to Brendan with my back against the mountain and said, ‘Are you enjoying our vacation?’

  He did a strange thing then, he turned completely away from me and presented his other ear and said, ‘Say that again.’

  So I did. ‘Are you enjoying our vacation?’

  He sat back down and asked me to say it again so I said it a third time.

  ‘Well I’ll be damned,’ he said.

  ‘What?’

  ‘About five years ago I went to the rifle range to test some experimental ammunition. The officer in the firing stall next to me was a quick draw. I thought he was finished so I took off my ear protectors just as his gun misfired. I have only had about 20 per cent hearing in this ear ever since.’

  ‘Sorry to hear that,’ I said, wincing at my accidental pun.

  ‘Don’t be. The weird thing is, I can hear perfectly now. This place is astounding. If I wasn’t so worried about my daughter and the junk my lunatic mother must be filling her head with, I’d think I was in paradise. I’m climbing a mountain without even breaking a sweat. Back home I could hardly walk up three flights of stairs without wheezing. And my accuracy with a bow and arrow is almost better than with a gun. This place is amazing.’

  ‘As I recall, I told you that a long time ago.’

  ‘Well, I’m starting to believe you, Conor.’

  After half an hour of walking on the third day of the climb, we spotted the Yew House above us. Five hours later and after completing almost two circumnavigations, the sun was high in the sky and I was actually working up a good sweat despite the cold. We came to a sharp bend in the path that was covered by another one of those frozen fords and Spideog once again made us rope-up and don crampons and ice picks. I remembered laughing at the old guy when he made us pack all of this stuff, but not now. The wet ice in the noonday sun would have been impossibly treacherous to traverse without crampons.

  Spideog, in the lead, had just rounded the corner when his rope went slack. Then Brendan, in front of me, disappeared around the bend, stopped and said, ‘Oh my.’ Rounding the bend myself I saw what had stopped my fellow mountaineers. Standing on the path just past the ice floe were two tall thin men dressed in tight woolly brown tunics and trousers – Brownies. They stood there with one fist on their hip. They would have looked just like an illustration in an old copy of Peter Pan, if it wasn’t for the cocked crossbows in their other hands.

  Spideog spoke first. ‘Greetings. We come to speak with the Master of the Yew House.’

  The Brownies just stood there and grinned. I didn’t like it. Neither did Spideog. He raised his voice and repeated himself. Still we got nothing from the skinny guys in brown.

  Spideog planted his pick into the ice and unslung his bow from his back. He didn’t notch an arrow in it but I’ve seen the ter archer load a bow and it doesn’t take him but a second. Brendan planted his pick into the floe, mirroring his tutor. I guess I could have just stood there but the others were slamming their picks into the ice, so I did too.

  The crack started immediately. It moved like lightning from the point where my pick pierced the ice, to where Brendan’s was planted, to past Spideog’s feet. Then the rumble began as the entire ice sheet began to slide. I thought the whole mountain was about to collapse. Brendan went straight down on his nose. I managed to keep one crampon on the ice but had to go down on one knee. Spideog kept his footing and yelled, ‘Run.’

  I dug in my spikes and passed Brendan as he was trying to stand up. Spideog ran straight towards the Brownies, whom I expected at any second to shoot us but instead they just stood there looking bemused. I reached hard ice-free ground not long after the old guy. We both grabbed the rope attached to Brendan and dragged him to safety. I was just about to switch grips to the rope that went from me to Araf when I was pulled sideways off my feet and back onto the ice. As my head smacked onto the cold floor I saw the terrifying image of the Imp prince sliding off the side of the mountain. Araf let out a squeal like a little girl while I dug all ten of my fingernails into the frozen water desperately trying to get any purchase on the sliding ice.

  The rope around my waist pushed all of the air out of my lungs as it pulled tight. Brendan and Spideog were on the hard ground and had a good hold of my rope but the pull from Araf’s weight was almost cutting me in half. The ice sheet slid past me and rained down on my poor bodyguard. I could feel the impact of every block of ice as it smashed into the Imp, who grunted with every blow. I just hoped his rope would hold.

  When the frozen waterfall finished the only bit of ice left on the trail was below me. I rolled to my left and planted my heels into the hard stone.

  ‘Araf,’ I yelled, ‘are
you all right?’

  There was no answer for two long seconds then I heard him say, ‘I would appreciate it, Conor, if you could pull me up from here.’

  Apparently Araf’s mother had told him to always be polite even when he was hanging off a fatal precipice attached to a bit of string.

  After getting him on solid ground, Araf gave me an uncharacteristic emotional hug that made us both fall over. The two Brownies stared down at us with strange grins.

  ‘Thanks for the help, boys,’ I said. ‘We couldn’t have done it without you.’

  That seemed to bemuse them and I made a mental note to leave sarcasm out of any future Brownie communications.

  ‘Now,’ I said, getting to my feet, ‘I’d like to see this Oracle of yours.’

  ‘Yes,’ the taller of the two said, ‘but will he want to see you?’

  The Yew House was the most un-Tir na Nogian thing I had seen in The Land. The all-wood façade and shuttered windows made it look like some Malibu beach house you would see on a TV show about the rich and famous. The Brownies wordlessly escorted us onto the porch then told us to wait. Unlike a Californian beach house the porch didn’t have any furniture so we sat on the steps. Ages later the Brownies re-emerged and one announced that only ‘the Son of Duir’ might enter.

  I was tired and I had recently almost fallen off a cliff and these guys were starting to tick me off, so I didn’t even stand up. I just said, ‘Nope.’

  The Brownie looked beyond confused. ‘I do not understand,’ he said.

  ‘Either we all go in or we leave,’ I said, standing.

  Poor Brownie guy, he looked so befuddled I had an image of his head popping off his shoulders and a bunch of spring works and cogs shooting out of his neck. ‘Only the Son of Duir,’ he repeated.

  ‘So be it; let’s go, guys.’ I turned and started down the mountain. My companions just stared at me.

  ‘Are we playing a bit of poker here?’ Brendan asked, in English.