The Last Days of Magic

by Mark Tompkins

  “Lasirfhionamhnán, we also cannot tell if the Morrígna can ever return,” said Rhoswen softly. “Anya’s heart was missing a piece, the small segment that King Kellach inherited and hid. That segment survives, which gives us hope in our sadness. A future Ceremony of Hearts may be possible.” Rhoswen dropped her head to the side and closed her eyes. Reaching out, Brigid caressed her green-and-brown cheek. Black-painted tears flowed across Brigid’s ivory hand and dripped onto the grass.

  Fearghal spoke up. “Our nobles are unanimous in their belief that Kellach was behind the attack.” There were nods of approval along the Sidhe table, the Pixie queen offering that this sort of atrocity could be perpetrated only by a Skeaghshee.

  “The Sidhe are prepared to assist the Celtic forces in his capture,” continued Fearghal, “so long as he is not executed. I propose lifetime imprisonment on Great Skellig. Its being a treeless island, that will be appropriate punishment.”

  . . . . .

  Kellach tried to resist the mounting pain as flames roared through the grove of sacred woods. He dropped his sword, clasped his head with both hands, and fell to his knees. Through the flames he could see warriors circling the grove—Celts, Gallowglass, and Sidhe—preventing any escape by his own forces.

  “How could you do this?” he shouted, without knowing if his voice would carry to those Middle Kingdom dwellers who had betrayed him. “We could have taken all of Ireland back! The Morrígna is half dead! I made victory possible for you!”

  Even without the rest of the Sidhe clans, Kellach had tried to defeat the Celts after Anya’s death. For five months his forces, brave hearts all of them, had battled. Now, making this last stand, his warriors gathered around their king. A tongue of fire lashed out toward Kellach but was diverted by a loyal Skeaghshee who called it to himself, breathed it in, wailed in anguish, and died. Others moved to protect their king, to their death.

  The agony of his trees overwhelmed Kellach, and he fell squirming to the ground. He caught a glimpse of Liam walking through the flames, protected by a sphere of cool air generated by the four Fire Sprites with him. Liam bound him with a thin iron chain and hefted his convulsing body over a shoulder. As Liam carried him out, the final sounds Kellach heard before he lost consciousness were the screams of both the trees and his warriors.

  . . . . .

  Once Kellach was imprisoned and most of his followers reduced to cinders, Aisling no longer took long walks in the forests around Tara. It had been the only purpose in her days, a secret hope that somehow Kellach would find a way to kill her, even with Liam and a troop of guards trudging along beside her.

  Thereafter she usually stayed in her chambers. Some days she rose, dressed, and sat by the fire; some days she did not. The Celtic and Sidhe conclave had refused to recognize Aisling as the Morrígna, so the Druidic Council had appointed her high priestess of Tara; however, in her depressed state, when her duties required an audience, her acolytes would bring the petitioner to speak with her through a screen.

  On the day Lord Maolan entered with her father and mother, eleven months after the death of Anya, Aisling was dressed and waiting, the screen folded against the wall. She knew why he was there. Realizing he would never be elected high king, or even king of Meath, he was seeking another way to obtain power and have influence in the highest echelon of Tara.

  “Lord Maolan has asked us to present a five-year-and-a-day marriage contract to you,” said Quinn, referring to the longest initial marriage contract permitted under the Brehon laws.

  “I’ve made it clear to him and your father that I’m opposed to this idea,” said Una.

  “Perhaps a year-and-a-day contract, to see how it goes?” Quinn suggested, more to Una than to Aisling. Aisling’s human parents had been trying to reconnect with her since Anya’s death, the results awkward at times, disastrous at others.

  Maolan moved next to Aisling. “My only wish is to care for you,” he lied. “You know of my loyalty.” He extended his left hand, palm up, showing the scar along the base of his fingers that he had received during her Test.

  Aisling looked into his eyes and saw the cruelty there, saw the pain and unhappiness that awaited her if she became his wife. With a thin smile, she said, “Yes. Five years and a day.”

  The next month, with a sliver of crescent moon hanging in the midday sky of her fifteenth birthday, Aisling left her chamber for the first time in months and made her way into the high king’s private meeting chamber for her wedding. Only a handful of people awaited her.

  . . . . .

  Liam watched Aisling unceremoniously approach the druid and Maolan. “I’m not going to sanction this,” he said to no one in particular, and stormed from the chamber. Striding across the great hall, he stopped in front of a fireplace where Rhoswen stood staring into the flames.

  Before he could begin, she said, “You spent fourteen years forcing her to abandon her humanity, and now you expect her to act rational, when she has become ensnared in a void between human and Goddess.”

  “You think you understand her?” he snapped. “She may not be fully human, but she’s not Sidhe at all.”

  “Is she not?” Rhoswen asked.

  Liam wished he had someone to kill.

  Rhoswen said, “In your heart she is still the young girl you have been training and protecting. She is no longer that, nor is she the Morrígna. Both of those lives have been stripped from her. Look into your own half-Sidhe nature and you may begin to understand.”

  “But why Maolan?” Liam’s raised voice echoed in the hall.

  “I suspect she is so full of darkness that it seems like the only source of wholeness to her, that pain and humiliation are the only ways for her to feel anything,” replied Rhoswen. “Possibly she sees Maolan as the next best thing to death.”

  “So she’s lost, to herself and her people,” said Liam. “Kellach might as well have killed her.”

  “Impossible to say. There has never been a being such as she is now. Some new light may emerge into her life. But she has a wound that cannot be completely healed. Nothing exists in this world that can fill the space Anya left. I believe that even if she pulls herself out of the darkness she is drowning in, she will live on a knife edge the rest of her life.”

  They stood together, staring into the fire.

  “I have been trying to see the impact of the missing heart segment,” Rhoswen said. “Perhaps it would have afforded Aisling enough strength to overcome Anya’s death. Given the potential I sensed in the twins on their birth, it is more likely that it would have brought them too close to being a Goddess, leaving Aisling with too little humanity to fall back on, and she would have died with Anya or become completely insane.”

  Liam was in no mood for useless conjecture; however, Rhoswen’s earlier comments were beginning to sink in. He turned and reluctantly walked back toward the marriage ceremony.

  . . . . .

  After the ceremony Aisling avoided the small feast and hurried to her own chamber. The moon had set by the time Maolan entered. Aisling rose from her chair in front of the fire, slipped from her robe, and lay passively, silently on the bed as Maolan took her. When he was finished, she turned on her side, looking away from him.

  Maolan reached down and touched the blood, her blood, on him. He examined his wet fingers, the sight arousing him again. Pushing Aisling onto her stomach, he grasped her hair and pulled her head back. “You will do everything I tell you to do, as high priestess and as my wife,” Maolan hissed in her ear as he began to roughly sodomize her.

  Afterward, having dressed, Maolan walked toward the door. Before he reached it, it swung inward, revealing Brigid holding a basin of warm, scented water and a stack of towels. She ignored him as he slipped past her. Closing the door with her foot, Brigid placed the basin on the bedside table, then began to clean the prone Aisling.

  “My sweet girl. None of this will distract y
ou from your emptiness.”

  Aisling did not respond.

  Continuing to gently clean her, Brigid said, “You still have great power sleeping inside you. Are you going to just give that to him?”

  “What choice do I have? What choice have I ever had in what happens to me?” mumbled Aisling.

  “Start by choosing to get up and get dressed. To leave this chamber and come with me to my temple, where you’ll choose a novice priestess to show you the pleasure a new husband should have shown you tonight,” Brigid replied.

  Aisling propped herself up on one elbow and turned to face Brigid.

  Brigid took Aisling’s face in both her hands. “You must learn to bring forth the Morrígna’s power again. It will be harder than before, but I’ll help you. You must do this, because one day you will face stronger, darker forces than Lord Maolan.”

  Brigid pulled back, smiling down at her. “First, though, Maolan must learn that he may have secured a right to your bed, but you don’t need him there. Let me finish washing you, and we’ll go.”

  Aisling nodded. Once dressed, she left her chamber for the second time in months.

  THREE DAYS AFTER her encounter with Conor in the forest, as the sunrise cleared the top of the wall of the Tara royal enclosure, Aisling and Liam entered the stables to see her new horse. Quinn, upon learning that his daughter had lost one of Maolan’s horses, had sent his best to her.

  Aisling was thrilled to find a two-year-old, jet-black hobby waiting for her in a stall—her father had excelled this time. The favorite horse of the Celtic cavalry, hobbies were compact and very fast. With well-defined muscles under a velvet coat, this was one of the finest she had ever seen. So engrossed was she in examining the horse that it was not until Liam tapped her shoulder that she noticed the men in the back of the stall.

  Three sat in the shadows, bound and gagged. A leather strap was fastened around each man’s neck and tied to a ring set low on the back wall. Stacked to one side of them was a collection of swords, daggers, and bows. In the far corner, lounging on a pile of straw, was Conor.

  Rising to his feet, he said, “My lady, High Priestess, I bring you this gift”—he indicated the three men—“and humbly ask for forgiveness for killing your fine, if somewhat tough and chewy, horse.”

  Aisling dismissed the request with a wave of her hand. “He wasn’t my horse.” Studying the men, she asked, “What do you expect me to do with them? Eat them?”

  “Keep them as slaves. Or stable hands. I wouldn’t recommend continuing to use them in their current profession as assassins,” replied Conor. “Or, if you’ve no use for them, return them to Lord Maolan. It was he who sent them to kill me.”

  Aisling looked at Liam, who nodded. “You knew this?” she exclaimed.

  Liam smiled and shrugged. “I sent word to let Conor know they were coming. He can take care of himself in the woods.”

  Conor had been moving closer to Aisling. She looked him up and down. Once again she could not help but notice the abundance of life that shone in his eyes. “You weren’t hurt in this attack?”

  “Not at all. I had them before they could draw a sword.”

  “Are you sure? No injury at all? Something that’s been keeping you from bowing to your high priestess?”

  “Ha! Another misdeed that I must atone for,” said Conor, not bowing. “I offer a kiss as restitution for my lack of chivalry.”

  “Liam,” Aisling ordered, “if he tries to kiss me, kill him.”

  “Best I take my leave, then.” Conor untied the hobby’s reins and swung up onto the horse’s bare back.

  “What are you doing?” demanded Aisling.

  “Well, as the previous horse wasn’t yours, you appear to owe me one.” With that, Conor rode out of the stable.

  “He’s stealing my horse,” said Aisling to Liam. “Do something!”

  Liam bellowed for the stableboy, who popped his head out from the adjoining stall, where he had apparently been listening to the exchange. “Your mistress requires the use of Lord Maolan’s fastest remaining horse.”

  The boy gave a huge grin. “Yes, sir,” he said, and ran to the fifth stall down. He emerged leading a tall chestnut stallion and quickly belted a small padded blanket on its back, what Celts used for saddles. With a move every bit as smooth as Conor’s, even though this horse was a foot taller at the shoulder, Aisling mounted. “Coming?” she asked Liam.

  “You’re on your own this time,” he replied. Liam slapped the stableboy on the back as they watched Aisling gallop off after Conor.

  That evening, as the sun made to hide behind the far west wall of the royal enclosure, Aisling walked her new hobby back into the stables. She did not notice the stableboy running toward her; she was too busy searching inside herself for that strange glimmer and hint of warmth she thought she had detected.

  “My lady?” he called, intruding on her thoughts.

  “Sorry. Here.” She handed him the reins.

  He peered around behind her. “And Lord Maolan’s stallion, my lady?”

  “Oh. I forgot. I’ll go retrieve him tomorrow.”

  7

  Republic of Venice

  The Next Month

  Jordan sent the requisition to the legate’s secretary, who showed it to the legate, who found it surprising. The legate had been expecting a request for soldiers and weapons for the mission to the island of Great Skellig. Instead all Jordan requested were twenty slaves delivered to his ship. The legate sent back a note: “Is this all you will need?” Jordan replied, “Prince Ruarc assures me all he needs are slaves for tribute. All I need is Ty.”

  Jordan’s requisition had been quite specific: Ruarc required ten women of childbearing age, four young girls, four young boys, and two men not older than twenty-five, all Muslims with swarthy skin.

  . . . . .

  Najia’s skin, usually dark olive, had taken on an ashen cast from dehydration. She felt the slave wagon slow and heard the clang of ship’s bells, the call of men working. She cocked her head, wishing that the others would stop sniveling so she could hear better. Her hands were manacled in front of her, as were the hands of all the slaves. A thin rope, in her case about six feet long, attached each set of manacles to a heavy rope that ran down the middle of the group so they could move, caterpillar-like, when the slavers needed them to walk. Unlike the other slaves, her face was covered. Even so, she thought she could untie the rope and try to run away. But that would probably lead to another beating. She needed a more certain opportunity.

  Najia’s wagon bumped to a stop. A rough hand grabbed her neck and dragged her out. The sack was pulled off her head, and she glimpsed a quay, men unloading slaves next to her, and her captor’s coarse face. She instinctively pushed her gaze inside him and saw malevolence stirring excitedly; she perceived that he cultivated that maliciousness to fend off his harsh world, and she knew he would hurt her if he could. With most of her powers repressed and her hands bound, there was nothing she could do to stop him.

  He must have sensed her fear, as a dog would, and he laughed, drew his knife, and held it in front of her face. “You scared I’m gonna cut your pretty face? Your throat? Well, I’m gonna.” He pressed the blade against her neck. “Unless you do as I tell you. Then I mightn’t cut you so bad.”

  She saw him glance around to make sure the other men were watching. “When you find out what’s gonna happen to you on that ship, you’re gonna wish I’d cut your throat through and through.” He laughed again as he kicked her feet out and she fell hard on the paving stones. “You’d do as well to enjoy this while you can.”

  “No, not that one!” shouted another man, pushing through the crowd. He grabbed her assailant’s shoulder and pulled him back. “Can’t you see she’s a witch?”

  Her assailant seemed to notice for the first time the runes that the slavers had drawn in white paint around her neck
to prevent her from working enchantments, more disappearing down the collar of her rough shift. His eyes widened when he realized that several were partially worn off, and he looked down at the flakes of paint on his hand.

  Najia saw his terror and rose to her feet, snarling, but was able to take only a few short steps before reaching the end of the rope binding her to the other slaves. The man leaped backward, then fell to his knees, praying loudly and furiously. She squared her shoulders defiantly. She needed to make these men fear her, she thought.

  His friend kicked him. “You’re stupid, that’s what you are. If the runes stopped working, she would’ve killed us all by now. Best fuck a different one.”

  “They’re not for you.” The order came from a well-dressed man walking down the quay. He was followed by what she recognized as a very large Nephilim. “Load them onto the ship. Now. Or I will introduce you to someone to be terrified of.” The men scrambled back to work.

  “Does Jordan want Ty to help load the ship?” Ty rumbled.

  “No. Let them do their own tasks,” replied Jordan.

  The group of slaves shuffled awkwardly along the quay. Najia, at the tail end, leaned forward to her sister, who was two positions ahead, weeping. “Stop that,” she hissed. “You can’t cry and think, and if you don’t keep your wits, you’re going to die on that ship.” She searched for her young brother, saw him trudging head down near the front where she could not get to him.

  She looked back at the newcomer walking behind them with his strange Nephilim companion. He was obviously in command, and there was something strange about him as well. She shuffled a bit slower, drifting to the end of her rope. She could not read him. He must be maintaining a protective enchantment, and without any visible effort.