The Bloodline Inheritance

by Brad A. LaMar

  “Hey, now, Bid. We will do what we can, you know, hold the fort down until Brendan, Dorian, and the others get back.”

  “We don’t know if they are even alive, Rory. We may be it,” Biddy pointed out.

  “If that’s true, then we’ll go down swinging—together.”

  “Hello?” Sinead called from the kitchen in the front of the house. “You guys here?”

  Rory and Biddy walked into the front room and greeted Sinead, Sierra, and Fynn. “We were just finishing up our packing for the trip north. Are you about ready?”

  “Well, that’s what we came to talk about,” the beautiful Dryad said. “I’ve been speaking with the tree spirits and they are talking in circles about what’s happening up north, clamoring on about this Emerald Crown of the World, wherever that is, and some disturbance.”

  “Didn’t we already know that?” Biddy asked, recalling their first conversation about the mysterious situation. Word came to them that trouble was brewing surrounding some place called the Emerald Crown of the World. The timing was frightening to Biddy since she had no idea if that meant that Dorian and Brendan and the rest had already been vanquished or if there was some other tormentor on the loose.

  “One moment they’re crying for help, claiming that they can’t hold out much longer—from what I can’t say—and then the next they are silent,” Sinead said.

  “Hold on,” Rory said, raising his hand. “I’m confused. I know I should have asked earlier, but how is it that you can communicate with them exactly? I know you are a Dryad and all, but how does it work?”

  Sinead thought for a minute. “Well, you see all things in nature have a spirit, some sort of life energy that connects us, and my people were able to tap into this long ago on Otherworld from what my mum would tell me, and we can become privy to their thoughts when they have them, their feelings, and their health.”

  “And how exactly do you do that?” Rory asked.

  Sinead shook her head and said, “I just can and right now we don’t have time for this.”

  Fynn stepped forward. “We feel it’s best that Sinead and I go north ahead of any others. Being a small group we’ll be able to move around more quickly.”

  “What? You want us to sit this one out?” Biddy asked.

  “You’re needed here, Biddy,” Sinead said. “These people are scared and need your leadership.”

  “How are you going to get north?” Rory asked.

  “Sierra said she would take us,” Fynn replied.

  “Let’s say you find the Crown, but then something bad finds you. How is that going to help us?” Rory wanted to know.

  Sierra cleared her throat. “I’m going to help with that, too. I have the ability to do magic, though not quite the same way as Garnash.” She closed her fist and brought it up to her mouth where she whispered softly in between the spaces of her fingers. When she opened her palm a small shimmering butterfly was revealed. “Go,” she whispered.

  The butterfly bounced into the air flying a somewhat scattered pattern until it settled in on Rory’s shoulder and flapped its wings hard. Rory and Biddy strained their ears, and in the quiet of the strokes they heard Sierra’s voice saying, “No matter how far apart we are my message will get to you, and you will know what we know.”

  “We’re going to leave Tevis and Fergus in your capable care since this particular task requires stealth.” Fynn smiled appreciatively. “Thank you for taking us into your village.”

  Rory nodded, and just like that Sinead, Fynn, and Sierra walked away into the obsidian megaliths—oddly placed in the center of Corways—and in a flash they were out of sight.

  Biddy hugged into Rory and squeezed him tightly. “And what if something happens to them before she sends us a message? What then?”

  “I don’t know, Bid. I just don’t know.”

  …

  Pain. That’s all Arawn felt.

  His body was lying prone on a cold, hard floor with his head throbbing and his lip split. He tried to move his arm to push himself up, or at least raise his head, but his skull felt like it weighed a metric ton. Arawn forced his eyes to open, but they couldn’t open farther than a slit. The world was fuzzy around him like he was trying to look through mist.

  Is this what death feels like?

  He blinked a few times, if it could be called that. Finally, his vision was clearing and he realized he was back in the familiar confines of his trilithon prison in Elathan’s mountain castle.

  Arawn’s body was in shock from the trauma it had received at the hands of Elathan and Camulos. Once Lir had captured the Celtic warrior, he had been subjected to mind and body-numbing torture in the same cell with the goal of beating Caoranach’s location out of him. If he would have given that up then he knew that the Earth and all of her people would die. He had held out through all of the pain. He even held out when his one true love was being electrified. It killed him to watch Argona suffer—even if she had left him all those years ago to side with Elathan. The good in her would always stay in his heart.

  After a few conscious moments Arawn was finally able to push off the ground and roll over onto his back. That’s when he saw her lying next to him. Argona was bruised and bloodied, but she was breathing. He painstakingly reached his hand over and touched his fingers to hers.

  “Argona, are you conscious?” he asked.

  She moaned and stirred for a moment before she lay still, her chest still rising and falling with each shallow breath. Arawn wrapped his pinky finger around hers and closed his eyes again. For the first time in a long while, he was happy.

  …

  “I should have killed him,” mumbled a tall, slender, gray-skinned being as he used his mechanized right arm to knock a thick tree trunk out of his way. The wood cracked and snapped under the being’s powerful blow and crashed to the ground nearly crushing a helpless squirrel-like creature that just managed to scamper away. He stepped over the remaining stump and tromped on a small patch of orchids that were unfortunate enough to be in his path.

  Bodach stood on a hillside after emerging from the forest in the western side of Tech Duinn, the Realm of the Dead, and looked out at the field of overgrown grass that danced lightly on the warm breeze. The sight of the field, though a beautiful image to many, infuriated the Bogle to no end. His plans to unleash the Sloughs—the unforgiven human dead back on Earth—had been undone by what he came to understand as a multitude of factors. Oscar O’Neal had been able to blast Bodach’s arm away from his body and his dog had sacrificed itself to send him to Tech Duinn, but there were other players in the cataclysm. O’Neal had only been an instrument in a much grander scheme, and in hindsight so was Bodach. A snarl etched its way onto the Bogle’s thin, gray lips.

  As Bodach looked out at the field he spotted what he had been waiting for—three distinct lines of movement cutting a quick, sharp path through the tall grasses on a direct route to his position. He brought his mechanical hand up and clinched the fist, testing the artificial tendons. The digits sparked and crackled under the pressure of the command. He unconsciously checked the series of tubing that fed a life-blood of magic to the appendage. Bodach allowed the arm to drop down so that the tips of the fingers barely touched the hilt of his sword.

  A few moments later three Dunters emerged from the sea of grasses and ran to Bodach’s feet where they bent into a respectful bow.

  “Master Bodach,” the bulkiest of the Goblin clan said. “It is true. The rumors are true.”

  Bodach looked out into the distance as if he expected to see her waving to him from across the field. He looked back down at the Dunter. “What proof have you, Zat?”

  “Stories, mostly, but the Dryad we captured says the tree spirits know much more than what’s been whispered.”

  “How could we not have known about her presence until now?” Bodach asked.

  Squig cleared her throat. “Master, no one knows the reasons, but it is said that she has been here ten Earth years. She’s gone unnotice
d all that time.”

  Bodach turned away from Zat, Squig, and Raffun and scratched his chin with his natural-born hand. “All this time she’s walked among us, and all this time we were blind to her. Find her. Bring her to me.”

  “Are we gonna kill her, Master?” Raffun asked greedily.

  “Not until he comes for her,” he said as he turned back to face the Dunters. “Then they can die together.”

  …

  A Niseag’s call from the distance caught Faolan’s attention. He perked his pointy ears, swiveling them in all directions, trying to pinpoint how far out the nasty beast was. He gazed out over the ocean from a safe distance tucked on the side of an inactive volcano hidden in the lush foliage. He wanted to gain a little height and quickly moved up the trunk of a thick tree by driving the strong claws on both his hands and feet into the hard wood and pulling his body further into the treetop.

  As Faolan neared the top he heard the cry of the Niseag again, only this time he recognized that the call was indeed coming from the direction of the open sea.

  “How unusual,” he said to himself.

  “What’s that, dear?” Aine, his wife, called from the base of the tree.

  His blue eyes cast a glance in her direction and he gazed upon his stunning bride. She was in her human form at the moment, but it didn’t matter to Faolan if she were in her werewolf form like he was at that moment or her human body because to him there was none who possessed as much elegance and beauty in either. He gave a quick thanks to the Morrigan of whom legends tell granted the Ossorians the ability to choose their form. The curse was such that that was all of the relief that she could offer them.

  “I was just saying that it is unusual for niseags to travel that far out over the open ocean, that’s all,” he replied, looking back at the water. “Dragons, sure, but niseags, well that’s rare.”

  Aine forced her body to morph, and in a few moments her appearance more closely matched her husband’s. She climbed up a neighboring tree in seconds and together they took in the sight of a Niseag flying in the distance, a speck among the clouds. Niseags were never fun to deal with, but what caught her eye was a pair of dots bobbing on the water’s surface.

  “What do you make of those?” she asked, pointing out the dots.

  Faolan didn’t answer at first. He watched the dots grow in size as they floated closer to where he and Aine were perched. “Ships? They look like ships to me.”

  Aine watched as the Niseag circled over top of the ships for a few cycles, and then it slowly descended and landed on the deck of one of them. The whole scene was too far away to see who was manning the vessels.

  “Who are they?” Aine questioned.

  “I’m not sure, but we need to find out,” Faolan said.

  He began to release his hold on the tree when Aine reached out for him and touched his shoulder. “Remember what the council of elders said? We are not to look into this. We could bring something horrible on our Ossorian kin.”

  Faolan drew closer to his bride. “The days of the Banshees, Aine, that’s all that needs to be said.” He scanned her deep eyes and knew that she understood. She always understood him. “Our kind sat by and watched Mag Mell rot under their despicable rule, only to be bailed out by a god. No, if this ship has something to do with that wave of golden energy and the changes that have occurred here, then we owe it to all the beings of Mag Mell to investigate. No god is going to help us now.”

  She nodded, and he dropped away from the treetop. Aine sighed when the familiar knot of anxiety twisted into her gut. “I hope you’re right, my love,” she said as she followed him to the forest floor.

  Chapter 2

  The Morrigan

  A storm rolled in over the golden god’s castle. Water ran down the sides of the mountain only to evaporate above the heat of the fire lake causing a wall of steam to sit above it. Elathan ignored the storm and concentrated on searching for his servant.

  “Crannog?” Elathan whispered to the tether between Otherworld and Earth.

  “Yes, Master,” came a reply deep within Elathan’s mind.

  “Have you found your way into the Emerald Crown?” Elathan asked.

  There was silence. “Not yet. The Crown is elusive, but it will not stay hidden long.”

  Elathan cut the connection and looked up from his obsidian throne to see Caoranach staring at him. The mother of demons didn’t say anything, her yellow orbs glowing in the darkened room as she relaxed on a black dragonhide chaise lounge. There was iciness in Caoranach’s aura that Elathan both admired and felt apprehensive about. It was true that he had transformed into an ultragod by amassing control over the six realms of Otherworld through the dominion pulses, but the demon mother was a far older being, one of truly unknown power.

  “And what of the Crown?” she asked, trails of smoke trickling out of her mouth. “You made a promise to me when you freed me from my prison. I need the Crown if our plans are to be realized.”

  Elathan shifted subtly in his seat. “Precisely, Caoranach. I always keep my promises.”

  Caoranach’s eyes revealed nothing, another reminder that while she was patient, her patience was finite.

  “I have a gift for you,” Elathan said, getting to his feet. “Follow me.”

  Caoranach rose into the air and made her body vertical. Her feet hovered a couple of inches above the floor like always. Elathan gestured toward a corridor and then walked stride-for-float with the demon mother. They finally came to a stop outside of a set of trilithons where a blue-and-golden energy crackled in the empty space between the large stones.

  Caoranach’s tongue hissed and shook at the sight of a prison similar to her own. Elathan raised his hands to calm her.

  “Inside this cell lie the ones who imprisoned you so very long ago. I bring them to you as a gift.” Elathan bowed his head slightly, affording her the respect that she deserved.

  Caoranach casually turned and glanced in at the two prone bodies. She shrugged.

  “Were these not your captors?” he asked.

  “Do you know nothing, Elathan?” she asked. “These two were puppets. Give me the opportunity with another, and then I will accept your gift.”

  Elathan raised his head knowingly. “I’ll see what I can do.”

  “No,” she said, turning on him with yellow vapors escaping her lips and her sick yellow eyes pulsating. “You promise.”

  Elathan had never been one to take orders, but she was too important to his plans to ignore. “You have my word.”

  “Besides, we have other business to attend to, Elathan,” Caoranach said. “When your servant finds the Crown, you are going to have to know how to open it.”

  Elathan smiled. “You have my full attention.”

  …

  Toren’s emotions had gone on a whirlwind tour of extremes over the last few weeks. His friend’s status had been fluctuating between conscious and unconscious, apparently riding the waves of chaos caused by Elathan’s takeover of Otherworld. But mostly, Nuada had been growing weaker, fading away from the conscious world and from Toren’s care. Just when Toren had thought the silver god was about to lose his immortal life, the pale god shot up in his bed and screamed “Caoranach!”

  That got Toren’s attention. He had turned to Bibe, the wise goddess, for answers since she was also confined to Nuada’s realm between realms. Her expression spoke volumes. At the time, Bibe refused to talk about it, but after Nuada had fallen back into his coma, Toren approached the subject again.

  “Who is Caoranach, Bibe?” Toren asked.

  “She is something more than the immortals of Otherworld—something older and more deadly.”

  Toren knitted his brow. “More dangerous than Elathan or Camulos?”

  Bibe began to shake as she thought about it. She nodded slowly and looked up at Toren with somber eyes.

  “How? What is she capable of?” Toren demanded.

  Bibe hugged in on herself and looked away. “Terrible things, Toren. T
errible things.”

  …

  Dorian and the others waited for Brendan to make his way to the door of the phantom Ewen’s pub in the Chamber. He glanced back at the others indicating that they had better be ready for anything. Brendan reached out his hand and twisted the rusty knob. The door was thrust open like a strong draft had gusted. The knob had slipped right through Brendan’s grasp and the hinges snapped off at the doorframe as the wooden door tumbled into the darkened space and out of sight.

  “Didn’t expect that,” Brendan said to Dorian.

  They tried to peer into the darkness beyond the doorframe, but it was nearly impossible to see anything in the thick blackness.

  “What happened to the pub?” Frank asked.

  “That’s the thing about a Neither Corridor,” Garnash said. “Anything that can change probably will—and that means anything.”

  “So, what do we do now?” Ken asked quietly.

  They stood there in silence thinking and watching the darkened space, not really knowing what to expect if they entered.

  “Look!” Rohl said, pointing into the darkness at a small pale light in what they perceived to be the distance.

  “What is that?” Frank asked.

  “Probably something comin’ to kill us,” Patty responded off handedly.

  “Mmmmm hmmmm,” Wanda agreed.

  “No,” Brendan said as he studied the pale light from afar. “This—that thing is from the Morrigan.”

  “The Morrigan?” Dorian strained to see the light more clearly but failed. “How do you know it’s from her?”

  “And, more to the point, how do you know that we can trust her, Brendan?” Garnash added.

  “Sometimes you have to follow your heart,” he said with a small smile as he held out his hand for Dorian. “The rest of you stay here. We’ll be right back.”

  “Wait. Shouldn’t we talk about this?” Lizzie asked, though she should have known better than to be taken aback by her brother’s rashness.

  “I think this is what’s supposed to happen. We cannot stay together and stop Elathan. He’s got evil things happening on multiple fronts, Lizzie. We have to separate if we have any chance of stopping him,” Brendan concluded decisively.