by Kildare
After several more blocks, Niamh slowed to a walk. “I think we lost Scorpio’s men. Now it’s important to avoid drawing attention to ourselves. News of the Imperator’s death won’t have reached this far yet. Still, we must be careful. Any of the city’s soldiers could be part of Scorpio’s plot.”
Niamh peeked her head out into the street at the next intersection. Seeing no danger, she waved Cillian to follow. A few people were in the street, and though they stared at Cillian and his sword, their looks held no suspicion. Some even recognized him and called out his name. He waved in response. He didn’t want to attract action to himself, but didn’t want to arouse any suspicion by ignoring them, either.
“Take off your hat,” Niamh ordered in a hushed tone. “They recognize you by the hat more than your face.”
Cillian pointed at the duster. “How about this?”
“You weren’t wearing that at the triumph so it’s fine. The rest of your clothes don’t help, either, but not much we can do about that right now. Smile and nod.”
“What’s your rank in the military?” Cillian asked, realizing for the first time that every time he’d seen her, she was wearing a different military uniform.
“Commander of the Imperator’s Guard.”
“Oh, hell. You can’t hide from the soldiers at all.”
“No. Every soldier in this city knows my face.”
They entered a busy market where they had to push and needle their way through the crowd. Cillian felt claustrophobic. The drone of many voices vied to be heard. Strange fragrances pervaded the air, all overwhelmed by the stench of sweat. Niamh dipped into the shop of a woman peddling a wide assortment of ropes. In the space beneath her awning, Cillian had room to breathe again. Niamh bought fifty feet of rope and a sack.
“Put your hat in the sack.”
Cillian did as commanded. The lady had already recognized him and fired off a volley of questions. He answered curtly, looked over his shoulder, and tensed at the sight of a pair of soldiers. They nodded at him and walked past. He sighed deeply. They hadn’t recognized him, and had only seen Niamh’s back.
Cillian smiled at the lady as she started in on another round of questions. He leaned in to Niamh’s ear. “Two soldiers just walked past. Going the way we came from.”
She nodded, turned the other direction, dipped her head, and pushed forward. Cillian waved goodbye to the woman still talking, and followed.
“We must find General Aduro,” Cillian said.
“We can’t. Scorpio’s men have most likely already been sent to tell Aduro that we killed the Imperator. If they haven’t tried to kill him, too. That so many saw us flee from the palace won’t help the truth of our story, either. We’re on our own.”
Once they were free of the market, Niamh led them once more through a bewildering maze of streets. One apartment had recently collapsed, the former tenants digging through the rubble. Another was burning, uniformed men fighting to douse the flames and keep the fire from spreading. Did the city have firefighters? His surprise at the nitty gritty details of the city was a stunning recognition of his own ignorance about the lifestyle of ancient peoples. Maybe ancient Rome wasn’t like Siderea, but he could only guess.
They paused again at the city’s outer wall as Niamh scouted for sentries. Seeing none, she crept through a door into one of the many towers that guarded the wall at regular intervals. Cillian leaned against a pile of crates stacked against an apartment and tried to look casual. An old man tottered past and a couple of children sprinted by in pursuit of a cat, but they paid him no attention. Niamh whistled from the top of the wall and waved him to hurry up.
A wooden staircase wound up through the heart of the tower and opened onto the wall. No one moved along the rampart between this tower and the next in both directions. The wall was unguarded. Not real surprising in a time of peace. It was wide enough for two trucks to pass by with room to spare. Anyone standing on the outer edge couldn’t be seen from below. Many open windows in nearby apartments had a view of them, but even if they ran down to find a soldier, it would take a few minutes for one to arrive. If any were even close. Niamh spooled the end of the rope over the side. It ran out a few feet from the bottom.
“Cutting it kind of close,” Cillian observed.
“I’ll hold the rope as you climb down.”
“Are you sure you can hold my weight?”
Niamh rolled her eyes. “Go. Or are you afraid?”
“How will you get down?”
“I’m staying in the city.”
“Then I’m staying with you.”
“No, you have to leave. I must stay. There’s something I must do first. You must leave now. We can’t let that sword fall into Scorpio or his men’s hands. Cillian, you must get Anbhás out of Siderea.”
“How will you get out?”
“Don’t worry about me. Now go.”
“I don’t even know where I’m going,” Cillian protested.
“Head for the woods. I’ll try to meet up with you.”
“And if you don’t?”
“Then go to wherever it is you go when you disappear. Now go. We don’t have time for this.”
Cillian grabbed the rope and looked over the edge. It was sixty feet to the bottom at least. He braced his feet against the edge, leaned out, and pushed off, repelling to the ground. When he touched down, Niamh coiled the rope back up, dropped the sack with his hat, waved goodbye, and vanished. He looked around. Saw no one. He was all alone.
V
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12
Cillian began walking, leaving the wall behind. Ahead lay open green fields, the dark eaves of a forest beyond. In fifteen or twenty minutes he could make the woods—if he wasn’t stopped first. He saw a farmstead a little out of the way, and changed course. Maybe he could find matches or flint or something to start a fire, though sleeping in the dark might be a better idea. Then again, he didn’t know what kind of beasts lurked in this forest. The memory of the bear that had charged him in the mountains swayed his decision—he wasn’t getting mauled or eaten by one of those.
At the farmstead, he crawled beneath a cart, half buried in the grass, and scouted the place. Yellow light glowed from compact little windows in the house. A small barn stood nearby, both built of stone and gray-thatched roofs. No one moved outside. A pair of work horses and a dairy cow were locked in the corrals. The clop of hooves approaching on a nearby road pushed him deeper down into the grass. Four soldiers on horseback rode into the yard. One dismounted and rapped on the farmer’s door. A short, stout man greeted them. Too far away and too much grass in his vision to make out much of any of them, but he could hear everything they said.
“Good evening, sir,” the rider said. “If you haven’t already heard, the Imperator has been murdered. We believe the Tuath Dé Cillian and one of the Imperator’s own guards, a woman named Niamh, carried out this vile the deed. Have you seen the Tuath Dé or a suspicious woman?”
“No one has come around here all day,” the farmer said.
“Good. We thank you for your assistance. If you see either of them, or anyone strange, immediately inform the city guards. Both should be considered extremely dangerous.”
The rider mounted his horse and they hurried on back down the road toward the next farm, a fleck of brown in a sheet of green. The door clicked shut. Silence settled over the farm again.
Now what was he to do? He didn’t dare ask the farmer for help. The sun had already set and the wisps of clouds along the horizon were losing their flushed color. The yellow sliver of a moon shone in the east, too little light for safe travel through the forest, even a little ways. He wanted to reach the forest before dark, but with a manhunt underway, being seen was a huge risk. Each moment the clouds lost a little more fire and the east turned a little darker shade of purple. He needed to make a decision, and quick. The thought of another bear was too much. He would try to find shelter in the forest before nightfall. Even climbing up a tree would be
preferable to stumbling about in the dark.
Seeing no movement inside the house, he crept to the fence and squeezed through. The corral wrapped around two sides of the barn, which had a gate allowing the livestock to go in and out. He quietly released the latch, opened the gate, and ducked in. The windows were all closed and the only light to guide his search streamed through the open crack left in the door. A heavy wooden railing split the room. Half was shelter for the livestock, and half for equipment. After stumbling into what seemed like every object in the barn, he found a bridle and a saddle in a tack room.
One of the horses had pried open the door and followed him in, probably looking for a handout. A volunteer. He slipped on the bridle, quickly saddled, and led the mare back outside. If he followed a line that kept the barn between himself and the house, he could reach the forest without being seen by anyone in the house.
Cillian rubbed the mare’s neck. “I hope you have better luck than the the last horse.” He didn’t want to steal the farmer’s horse, but had little choice. To ask the man for aid was an invitation to betrayal, and he didn’t dare walk to the woods on foot. He wanted to get as far from the city as quickly as possible. Stealing the horse was a matter of survival. Once he safely reached the woods, he would release her, and hopefully she’d return. He was borrowing, not stealing.
The mare was tall and broad across the hip, built for pulling a plow, not for running. He needed a sports car, but got a van, instead. So he put the heel to her without mercy. As long as they were out in the open, his life was in danger, even if he was carrying Anbhás. The sword was useless against arrows, as his shoulder could attest. Nor had he forgotten the warning of the archangels. Death was a real possibility.
There were few roads in the area, so they trampled a slash through a field of green wheat probably owned by the same farmer, an insult to the injury. Except for a few stand of trees that sheltered farms, the land lay flat and without mark. From this rose Siderea, an island of red-tiled roofs stacked in levels climbing ever higher, the faint smear of the bronze roofs around the plaza, and the two domes anchoring each end, blue and gold. The whole scene had a fairy tale quality, more like a painting of a city than an actual city. The neat, crisply defined border, so different from American cities sprawling everywhere, a frayed, disintegrating sheet at the edges. Squinting, he could make out a vague impression of the palace rooftop. Quite a change of events in just a few hours, his departure from the city so different from his arrival. It was still hard to believe. A dreamlike quality to an already dreamlike experience.
Cillian spotted three riders a half mile away, and moving quick, first parallel to him, then veering, angling to intersect his path. He spurred the horse harder even though she could go no faster, already it seemed she was losing steam. Even if he beat them to the trees, he could never outrun their lighter, faster mounts. Standing his ground was the only real option.
The riders dipped down into a swale and disappeared. When they climbed back out, Cillian was reaching the edges of the forest. He leapt down, turned the horse back toward the farm, chased her off, and drew out Anbhás as he retreated. There was no place to hide, the woods too open, ground too flat, grass too short.
The three riders slowed at the edge of the woods, searching for him in the gloaming. They weren’t soldiers. Looked more like mercenaries, gray tunics under light, leather armor. Carried swords and no bows. The odds shifted heavily in Cillian’s favor. Though likely no match as a swordsman, the bite of Anbhás more than compensated for any deficiency in his skill. They spotted him and fanned out to encircle.
“You’re surrounded,” one of the men said. “You have nowhere to go. Surrender now and you won’t get hurt.”
“I doubt that’s a promise you have the power to make,” Cillian answered. “Here’s my counter offer: Leave now and I promise I won’t kill you. However, should you continue on this suicidal mission to capture me, I can’t assure your safety.”
The men looked at each other warily. Cillian’s brashness had achieved its affect. They were no longer so sure of themselves. Sensing their caution, he pressed his attack. “Don’t you know who I am? Are you so ignorant to not recognize one of the Tuath Dé? I’m Cillian Rysgaard. Didn’t you witness my triumph, or hear about my deeds? Do you really think I’ll be so easy to capture? Or kill? If it’s blood you wish to spill, I’ll accommodate you, but it won’t be my blood the grass drinks.”
“He is who he says,” the man to the right said. “I recognize him now. I saw him in the triumph. He passed by no more than twenty feet away.”
“What of it?” the man in the middle asked. “We’ve been commanded to capture or kill him.”
“How do we do that?” the first asked. “Three isn’t enough. Doubtful ten is.”
“I agree,” the third man said. “We’ll never kill him, and he doesn’t look like he intends to be captured.”
“A wise man,” Cillian said.
“If you won’t help us capture him, we’ll kill you,” the middle man said to the third.
“I won’t be helping you,” the first man said.
“Then I’ll kill you, too, you coward. We have our orders.”
They had closed ranks—voices rising as their tempers heated—and were almost within striking distance. Cillian continued backing away, watching for any opportunity to pounce.
“You going to kill both of us?” the third man asked, a thinly veiled threat lacing the words.
“You’re both cowards. If they find out we allowed him to escape, they’ll execute us for sure.”
“That’s why we don’t tell them,” the first man said, plunging a short sword into the second man’s side.
“Curse you,” the middle man said as he slumped forward and tipped out of the saddle. He landed with a thud and lay still.
The first man looked down at his handiwork with indifference. “A bad fate clouded him.”
“He won’t be missed,” the third said as he turned his horse around and departed. “It’s a shame we couldn’t find the fugitive. His head would be worth quite a reward.”
“Always tomorrow,” the first said, trailing after.
Cillian watched them leave. He hadn’t expected that. With the flat of his sword he rolled the stabbed man onto his back. He was dead from a well-aimed thrust to the kidney. Cillian felt no sympathy for the man. He hadn’t made a good first impression. Cillian sheathed his sword and set off into the woods.
Darkness soon wrapped the woods in its veil. Shapes blurred, became fuzzy, and his mind started playing tricks on him as it struggled to decipher what he saw. Stars shone in a cloudless sky, but little light reached the forest floor. Soon even the ground was hard to make out. He had hoped the woods would open up again, but if anything, the trees were closing the gaps. It was becoming too dark to continue, so he searched for a tree to climb and spend the night in. With no fire to ward off wild animals, the ground was far too dangerous.
The faint orb of a neon-bluish light appeared in the darkness ahead. He crept forward to get a better look. Maybe he could find a cottage and friendly owners to give him shelter for the night. Something about the light wasn’t quite right, though, almost as if it were a lantern.
A man suddenly appeared, his face and body hidden beneath a heavy cloak and hood. He leaned on a cane. Or perhaps he held it. Cillian stopped. Neither moved. Between the clothing and the gloom, he could see nothing of the man’s features. Cillian cautiously stepped forward to get a better look and tripped over a snag on the ground. It only took a glance away for the man to vanish.
Something about the man seemed familiar, but he couldn’t place what he recognized. Had he met this man before? The blue orb appeared again farther ahead. He started after it once more. As soon as he neared, the light snuffed out, only to light up once more in the distance. Each time he got close, it slipped farther away, leading him deeper into the woods. He proceeded with caution, knowing the dangers of chasing a will-o’-the-wisp. Such lights were kn
own to lure travelers into dangerous wilderness, even to their deaths. A warning blared, but curiosity proved too strong. He needed to know the identity of the strange man.
It was so dark he nearly collided with the stone before he saw it. He stepped back and saw another. In the dim light of the moon he saw two standing stones, similar to the ones at the Broken Bear Pass. The will-o’-the-wisp had deliberately led him through the menhirs. Why? Something about the sight jogged his memory about the strange figure. He had appeared right before he had met Mórríghan. This meeting hadn’t been accidental. The figure was stalking him.
There was something else he was missing. He had seen that man somewhere else. The eye! The golden eye was the key. He recalled no description of the eye in the myths, but the cloak reminded him of the attire of the Norse god Odin, who only had one eye. Legends told that the other eye had been lost in exchange for wisdom. Could this strange figure be the same person? Mórríghan, Loki, the Archangels, and now Odin. What was going on?
The blue orb vanished and didn’t reappear even after Cillian was sure he had passed by its last location. He walked a little farther, but the light was gone. Now what did he do? He was lost. Wasn’t even sure which direction he was going. As he looked around for a tree to climb, he spotted an orange light. It wasn’t the will-o’-the-wisp. It was something else.
This time the lights didn’t fade farther into the woods, but brightened—the glow of a cottage. Maybe he had finally gotten a break. Even a wooden floor would be preferable to spending the night in a tree. He wouldn’t refuse a meal, either. He was hungry, as if he hadn’t eaten in days, and maybe he hadn’t. The last meal he remembered was in the mountains. What happened to his body when he left this world? Did it go somewhere else? Cease to exist? Just asking these questions highlighted the whole absurdity of the situation. Each time he started thinking about it, he wondered how he hadn’t lost his mind already. Or maybe he had. Might explain a few things. Might explain everything.