Prince of Hazel and Oak (Shadowmagic Book 2)

by John Lenahan

  He had a point. I would have shrugged in agreement if I could have moved my shoulders. It was amazing how calm I was about all of this. Maybe ’cause last night I had already decided that I had failed, this was just the icing on the cake.

  ‘How did you get one of my aunt’s paralysing pins?’

  ‘I have a bag full of them. Cialtie stole Nieve’s recipe book and he still has a couple of Leprechaun goldsmiths under his protection – so to speak. I’ve been aching to use one of these on you for ages – if only to shut you up. I didn’t know what I was going to do when I lost them and Essa’s slate on the bottom of the sea. It took me all night to convince Red to get them for me.’

  ‘How did Red get them?’

  ‘Your uncle is right about you – you’re not very clever. You know so little about Red he might as well be your invisible man. Now quiet, I have to finish this before he comes back.’ Turlow bent back down to the slate and asked, ‘How do you spell mortals?’

  ‘What did you tell Red?’

  ‘I just pointed out how you and that traitor Pooka over there destroyed the Tree of Knowledge, marooning all of the Pookas in their fur and then I told Red how you were planning to butcher him, so you could use his blood to bring an army of mortals over from the Real World to take over The Land.’

  ‘Red’s blood?’

  ‘Like I said, Conor – there is a lot you don’t know about our host.’

  ‘And did he believe you?’

  ‘Well, he hasn’t talked to many people in a long time and I do lie particularly well, so yes, he did. And when I show him this letter here that you wrote – then I’m fairly sure he’ll kill you. It would be better if Red kills you. That way I don’t have to lie to Essa when she asks me if I did it – in case she uses that Owith glass she has. I’ll tell you what, if she doesn’t use that pesky truth crystal, I’ll tell her that you died saving my life. Don’t say I never did you any favours.’

  ‘I wouldn’t want to be you when she finds out.’

  ‘She’ll be dead before she finds out – along with everyone else in the Hall of Knowledge. The army of the Banshees and the Brownies will see to that.’

  He finished forging the message and said, ‘Time to meet Moran.’

  ‘Who’s Moran?’

  Turlow let out an overly dramatic sigh as he stood up. ‘Red is Moran.’

  Moran, where had I heard that name? Yes, I remembered, he was the Pooka that left to start the colony of mermaids – the Mertain. Queen Rhiannon had said he was maybe the smartest Pooka that ever lived and that he could change into any animal.

  ‘So what – does Red change into a worm?’

  ‘Well well,’ Turlow said as he grabbed me by the hair. ‘The Faerie can be taught.’

  Aunt Nieve’s paralysing pin only meant that I couldn’t move – it didn’t mean that I couldn’t feel pain. Turlow dragged me out of bed by my hair and then bumped me like an ironing board over empty bunks. My heels hit the floor hard as I was dragged backwards at a forty-degree angle through The Digs. Just inside the front door I saw Araf, Brendan and Tuan all vertical and propped against the wall. Araf was still curled up like he was asleep. Brendan had his arm outstretched as if to stop an attacker and Tuan looked like a toy soldier who had fallen backwards against the wall while at attention. As I was dragged past, their eyes frantically dashed back and forth in their sockets, but they couldn’t speak. Turlo must have pinned them very high on their necks.

  ‘Red is Moran,’ I shouted over to Tuan. I saw his eyes widen just before the sunlight blinded me.

  My heels slammed painfully into each of the steps that led down from the porch. It hurt like hell but I refused to let the Banshee hear me yelp. He finally propped me precariously up against a tall stump. When he let me go I slid and fell nose first into the hard ground. He didn’t even try to catch me. When he propped me up again I spat in his face.

  ‘Ooh,’ he said, wiping his cheek with his sleeve, ‘I was wondering when you would get a little fight in you.’

  ‘Wouldn’t you really like to fight me yourself – man to man? Take this pin out of my shoulder and grab a sword. Only lackeys use lackeys to do their dirty work for them.’

  ‘Conor, I am The Turlow, I do not need to prove my manhood to anyone. I have long ago discovered that it is not the way of winning that matters, just the winning.’

  ‘The ends justify the means.’

  ‘Yes, well put.’

  ‘I can see why you get along with my uncle so well. Tell me, Turlow. Where were you when I cut Cialtie’s hand off? Were you in Castle Duir?’

  ‘No, I was in the Reedlands.’

  ‘You’re welcome,’ I said with a snort.

  ‘For what?’

  ‘I saved your life.’

  Turlow shook his head. ‘Cialtie told me that you would say something like that.’

  ‘Yeah, ’cause he knew it was true. He tried to kill you.’

  Turlow wasn’t listening any more. He looked past me – I couldn’t turn my head far enough to see what he was looking at. He walked towards me and stuck another one of Aunt Nieve’s pins in me. This time in my neck, then he removed the one in my shoulder. I could no longer turn my head and when I tried to speak I found that I no longer could do that either. All I could do was look straight ahead as a strong gust of wind from behind whisked my hair into my face.

  ‘Good morning, Moran,’ Turlow said as Red appeared in my peripheral vision.

  Red walked around me. All of the previous frippery in his demeanour was now gone. He eyeballed me like a general inspecting his troops.

  ‘What do you have to say for yourself?’ Red asked me. When I said nothing he asked, ‘Can he speak?’

  ‘He could speak if he chose,’ Turlow lied, ‘but he knows he is caught. I found him writing this letter to his father – the father that is supposed to be encased in glass.’ Turlow showed Red the message on the face of the emain slate.

  ‘I am sorry for bringing these troubles to your island,’ Turlow said, ‘but I must go. I must make the tide and I must warn my people of what I have just learned.’

  ‘Of course, Banshee,’ Red said, ‘and thank you for bringing them to me. I have bn away from the treachery of The Land for too long. Where is the Pooka traitor and the others?’

  ‘They are in The Digs – dead. They put up quite a struggle when I found them out. It is a mess in there, I wouldn’t go inside.’

  ‘Thank you, Banshee. It is about time I had new digs.’

  Red bowed and Turlow returned it, then with the tiniest of smiles to me he turned and jogged to the beach path.

  Red crouched down and covered his face with his clenched fists – then he stopped and stood up. ‘Have you nothing to say for yourself, tree killer, before I send you and your cohorts to the pyre?’

  From Red’s point of view I must have looked like the coldest of criminals. I just stood and stared – inside I was screaming.

  Red walked up to me. ‘Do you not even want another lesson in translation? I told you that tughe means worm but worm is an old word. Do you not want to know what worm means in the common tongue? No? Well I’ll tell you anyway – no wait, better yet, I’ll show you.’

  He took off his shirt and then the kilt-like thing he had around his waist. Even though no one could hear it and I couldn’t even say it, a wisecrack sprang into my mind along the lines of ‘What worm are you talking about?’ He dropped down on to one knee and once again placed his balled fists in front of his face in a gesture of intense concentration. I had seen Pooka changes before and it is always impressive but I had never seen anything like this. Not only did it look impressive but it sounded impressive. First he went red – not redhead red but cooked lobster red. Then fist-sized scales clinked into place as he got big. First he got bull big, then elephant big and finally dinosaur big. He raised his head at the same time that his wings fully extended. Of course, I said to myself, worm means – dragon.

  I think this would have been one of the most
magnificent moments in my life if it hadn’t been ruined by the realisation that momentarily I would be dead. I could hardly blame Dragon Red, in his eyes all he saw was a cold-hearted expressionless killer. He didn’t see my knees knocking ’cause I couldn’t move them and he didn’t even see me open my mouth in wonder ’cause I was frozen solid. I must have looked like a man prepared to die for his sins.

  Dragon Red rocked his huge spiny head back and forth then placed his snout inches from mine. Smoke seeped out from between his fangs, my eyes watered and my nose burned from the smell of brimstone. Then he cocked his head back like a snake getting ready to strike. I saw the hair that was hanging in front of my eyes curl and burn as he sent a fireball the size of a car past me. It was aimed directly at The Digs.

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  Graysea

  I didn’t see the fireball hit but I sure as hell felt it. It felt like d been clubbed with a refrigerator. The fire passed and surrounded me as I flew through the air like a test dummy at ground zero during an atomic bomb test. The first thing I did was to pat my head to make sure my hair wasn’t on fire and then I realised that I could. The blast must have knocked Nieve’s pin out of my neck. I turned to see The Digs completely engulfed in flames.

  I was instantly on my feet. ‘ARAF, BRENDAN,’ I screamed. I started running around to the far side of The Digs hoping that the fire was not so fierce on that side. Hoping I could get them out of there.

  ‘TUAN!’

  I looked around to get help from Red, to tell him that they were alive in there, but he was nowhere to be seen. At the rear of The Digs, flames were pouring out the back door. I took one step towards it and that’s the last thing I remember.

  The pain was excruciating. I suspected from the way it was hanging from my hip, that I had broken my left leg. My head was bleeding like a stuck pig and there was intense pain in my shoulders where the talons pierced my flesh. But the worst agony came from the sight, hundreds of feet below me, of The Digs completely and totally engulfed in flames. There was no way that Araf, Brendan and Tuan made it out. My friends had been burned alive. I retched and then watched as the contents of my stomach sailed down between my legs, then were dispersed by the wind until they landed in the sea below.

  I looked up, a painful and difficult thing to do when you are hung from your shoulders.

  ‘YOU IDIOT!’ I shouted at Red. ‘YOU KILLED THEM.’ I’m sure that with the sound of the rushing wind and considering the substantial distance I was from the huge dragon’s head, that Red wasn’t ignoring me – he simply couldn’t hear – but the memory of Red’s games on the island came to mind and made my blood boil. I kicked and screamed some more.

  ‘YOU KILLED THEM AND I’M GOING TO KILL YOU. YOU MURDERER.’

  I instinctively reached for the Lawnmower and was shocked to find it hanging at my side. I drew it and slashed at his talon. That got his attention. He screeched and let go of my right shoulder, swinging me to the left. Then he banked sharply right – this swung me up, under his underbelly. The scales there were thinner and a pale yellow-green. I knew I would never get a better chance – I jabbed the Lawnmower as I was propelled up towards Red’s belly. The sword found a spot between two scales and it sank almost half its length into the body of the huge beast. Blood spurted out of the wound. Red let go of me and I lost my grip on the Lawnmower. As I fell I saw the huge red dragon flapping away with the Sword of Duir sticking out of his belly.

  As I have mentioned before, time usually slows down for me when I’m in mortal peril but I didn’t need it in this situation. I was so far up in the air I had a lot of time to assess my dire circumstances. I was plummeting to earth at terminal velocity without the aid of a parachute or even a comedy umbrella. If the fall didn’t kill me, I was going to land in the sea about half the way between Red’s island and another island behind it. It didn’t look like a distance I could swim, even without a broken leg. The major irony was that I was covered with dragon’s blood – the blood of the tughe tine. The stuff that I had spent so long searching for, th pathat I had travelled so far for and had lost so many friends because of – the blood was all over me, in my hair, on my face, soaked in my clothes and I was about to plunge in the ocean where I would have the privilege of watching it wash away as I drowned.

  I stretched my hands out to my sides and used the air current to slowly spin me around. I took in my last look of the beautiful islands on the edge of The Land. Then I shouted, ‘I’m sorry, Dad!’ and slammed into the water.

  ‘Who is Brendan?’

  She was blurry but I could see that she had long blonde hair and was dressed all in white. I know it’s corny and clichéd but trust me, if you see someone that looks like that immediately after having an almost certain death experience, you too will think it’s an angel and like me – it’ll freak you out.

  ‘He is friend,’ I croaked. ‘There was … fire. Is he here?’

  As she came into focus I saw that she was certainly pretty enough to be an angel. Disappointingly she had no wings but I had a faint image of her floating in the air – or was it … water. Then two things happened that dispelled my illusion of being in heaven. First I tried to get up and was racked with the most enormous wave of pain and secondly my angel giggled. Maybe I could deal with an afterlife that had pain in it but under no circumstances should angels be allowed to giggle.

  She lifted my head and put a small glass of liquid to my lips. ‘You say the funniest things,’ she said as I drank. The liquid was very pleasant, which made me think that it wasn’t medicine, but when I tried to speak I realised just how wrong I was. Like with one of Aunt Nieve’s paralysing pins, I couldn’t move or speak, but unlike my aunt’s pins, this was quite pleasant. I drifted off into a dream of heaven filled with giggling angels.

  The next time I came to I was mentally in better shape. I was in a cave – a very nice cave. Bottles filled with brightly coloured liquids, as well as unusual scientific instruments and perfectly folded linens, sat on shelves that were carved directly out of sparkling stone walls. Light came from coral-looking glowing things that sat on almost every surface. I touched the one that was on the table next to my bed and I heard it (or felt it in my head) ask me if I wanted it brighter or darker. I asked it to tell me where I was but ‘brighter or darker’, was about the extent of its vocabulary. I braced myself for the coming pain as I tried to sit up and was delighted to find that I didn’t hurt that much, but then I made the mistake of looking under the bed for my clothes – all of the blood rushed to my head and my vision began to darken. Maybe I wasn’t in as good a shape as I thought. I pulled myself back, laid my head on the pillow and closed my eyes until the dizziness passed.

  I was in this position when my angel zoomed into the room. She was beyond me by the time I opened my eyes. I sat up to watch her golden hair bounce as she knelt down and placed a stack of towels on a low shelf. I was going to say something but instead I just watched her. When she stood she kept her back straight; the way she moved reminded me of a dancer. Finally she turned – and to my forever shame, as she turned – I screamed. She was old – really old. Now don’t get me wrong, I couldnn’t go around screaming at old people and she wasn’t hideous or anything, as a matter of fact she was a very attractive old person. It’s just that you get out of the habit of seeing older people in The Land and, also, I wasn’t expecting it.

  She placed her hands on her hips and said, ‘Do I look that scary?’

  I started to answer her but I couldn’t figure out how to explain why I screamed when I saw her face, so I just said, ‘Sorry.’ She walked behind me and roughly took my head in her hands. ‘What are you …?’

  ‘Shush,’ she said and I did. Then she said ‘Hmmm,’ in a knowing sort of a way that made me want to ask her what was wrong with me but before I could say anything, she left.

  I lay there for a long while listening and then dozed off until I heard the old woman saying, ‘Faerie, oh Faerie man.’

  I opened my ey
es and saw the old nurse and her twin – except maybe eighty years younger – my giggling angel.

  ‘I imagine this is the one you were expecting,’ the senior nurse said. ‘I am sure you will find that she is not as scary as me.’

  I looked up with an apologetic gesture but still failed to say anything other than ‘Sorry.’

  ‘Pathetic,’ she said, shaking her head as she left.

  ‘She is a little scary,’ giggling angel said and then giggled. ‘I do not think she likes you very much, Faerie man.’

  ‘Conor,’ I said.

  She looked confused and turned her head like a baffled puppy. ‘What does Conor mean?’

  ‘It’s my name. I am Conor.’

  ‘Oh,’ she said, placing her hand up over her face, laughing. ‘Oh, I’m very pleased to meet you, Conor,’ she said and then did a little curtsey.

  ‘And yours?’

  ‘And my what?’ she said, again with that head tilt.

  ‘Your name? What’s your name?’

  ‘Oh’ – giggle – ‘my name is Graysea.’

  ‘It is a pleasure to meet you, Graysea.’

  ‘And it’s a pleasure to meet you, Conor.’

  ‘You already said that.’

  ‘Did I? Oops.’

  ‘So tell me, Graysea, where am I and how long have I been here?’

  ‘Oh, so many questions. Which answer do you want first?’

  ‘I don’t mind, either.’

  ‘OK,’ she said. ‘Um … what were the questions again?’

  ‘Let’s start with where am I?’

  ‘You’re in the Grotto of Health.’

  ‘And where is that?’

  That question stymied her for a minute before she came up with, ‘In the Grotto of Health.’

  ‘OK, how long have I been here?’

  ‘Ever since I brought you here.’

  That was not quite an answer to my question but it was a nugget of information. ‘You brought me here?’