The Last Days of Magic

by Mark Tompkins

  The English soldiers, joking and laughing in anticipation of a good show, followed Alrik’s instructions.

  . . . . .

  Early the next morning, Jordan emerged from sleep knowing that it was not yet dawn even before he opened his eyes, knowing that Najia was no longer pressed warmly against his skin in their small cot. His body was still exhausted, heavy. The screams of the prisoners from the night before had returned in his nightmares, along with the disembodied laugh of Richard. Jordan, when he was a condottiere, had always killed quickly, turning down any job that required a slow death for the victim, as torment reminded him too vividly of his plague-riddled childhood.

  Opening his eyes revealed Najia, fully clothed, standing in the light of one lamp she must have lit. Something was wrong. Jordan eased himself into a sitting position.

  “Are you ready for the English to win this war? For Irish Ardor to be snuffed out? Is that not why you’re here?” demanded Najia.

  “No. I don’t know,” mumbled Jordan. “I’m starting to think I never should have come here. I need more time to figure out how I feel, to decide what to do.”

  “You’re about to run out of time. Unless you intervene, the English may end this war this morning when they capture the Celtic high king.”

  Jordan swung his legs over to sit on the edge of the cot and tried to rub the sleep off his face with both hands. He noticed there were twigs in Najia’s hair and dirt on her shoes. “Tell me what’s going on. Where have you been?”

  “I’ve been exploring the Sidhe witch paths, and I’ve learned that the Celtic high king—”

  “Art MacMurrough,” interrupted Jordan, yawning.

  Najia continued, “—has stopped at his lover’s cottage, hidden with enchantments in the great wood of Leverough, but Kellach has revealed its location to Nottingham. He rides there now with a company of his men.”

  Jordan rose, walked over to the small table, and studied the precious map of Ireland, provided yesterday by their new Viking allies. “How long ago did he leave?”

  “Two hours.”

  “And you’re just telling me now? I’ll never catch up with him.”

  “I can show you a faster way to Art’s cottage. There are many paths for someone like you to travel in Ireland.”

  Jordan pulled on leather trousers. “You could’ve stayed away. You didn’t have to come back here. I’m sure the Celts would have welcomed someone with your talents.”

  Najia stroked Jordan’s face, interrupting his buckling on of a sword belt. “Our fates are locked together. It would be foolish of me to anger God by leaving you.”

  Najia led him a short way out of the English encampment and into the woods. They came to a fat old oak tree on the top of a small mossy mound with a wave of roots exposed down one side. She indicated an opening between two particularly thick roots.

  “That hole isn’t much larger than my head. I can’t fit through there,” said Jordan. “What is it, a tunnel?”

  “Just go,” said Najia.

  Jordan got down on his hands and knees. He reached into the hole and felt around. It seemed to be larger on the inside, as he could feel nothing past the throat. He pushed in his head, one shoulder, then the other, and slid his body in. It was not nearly as tight as he had expected. Suddenly he realized that he was not climbing into a hole, he was climbing out of one, on the side of a mound with an oak tree perched on top. A hint of deep blue in the sky spoke of the sunrise to come while the moon made for the treetops, shining in the smoke rolling from the chimney of a small stone-and-thatched-roof cottage.

  Jordan stood, brushed himself off, walked up to the door, and mumbled a brief incantation, which caused it to swing open silently. He stepped inside, where coals glowed in the fireplace and smoky tallow candles cast a yellow light throughout the room. A female Sidhe, still dressed in the mud- and bloodstained clothes she must have fought in the day before, lay curled up asleep on top of a pile of covers on the small bed. Art, bent over a bowl of stew, sat next to a human woman at a table in the center of the room. A large dog lying in front of the fire looked over to Jordan and let out a deep growl.

  Art grabbed his sword off the table and charged Jordan in a move so quick that he had no time to draw his own sword. I’m about to die, Jordan thought as Art’s blade swept down toward his neck. The sword’s momentum, coupled with the unexpected lack of resistance, carried its arc all the way to the floor, where it sparked on the stone.

  Art looked at his sword in surprise—he could not have missed. He then stared at Jordan as if he expected Jordan’s head to topple from his shoulders. Jordan, also shocked, felt his neck, and then, leaving his own sword sheathed, he opened his hands, palms toward Art. The Sidhe woman leaped from the bed and gathered up a dense golden ball of light that hissed and sparked in her right hand, preparing to hurl it at Jordan.

  “Hold!” cried Art, still staring at Jordan. “Who are you? What are you?”

  “I need time to figure that out,” said Jordan. “I need it not to end like this.”

  Art stepped back. “End like what?” Behind him the human woman was brandishing a knife.

  A horse whinnied outside. There were the faint clinks of riders in mail and plate approaching. Jordan spun around and shut the door. “Nottingham’s here. Is there a back door or a window?”

  “After a fashion,” said Art. The Sidhe made her threatening orb disappear and walked to the center of the room. Reaching down with her delicate arms, she inserted slender fingers into a seam and tilted up a four-foot-square flooring stone that must have weighed twice as much as she did. The human woman jumped into the hole that the stone had been covering. Art motioned to the Sidhe to enter next.

  She shook her head and said, “I want to kill some English first.”

  Art nodded and said to Jordan, “If I can get all the Sidhe to think like that, we’ll butcher the invaders.” Then he jumped into the hole.

  Jordan followed him, expecting to be instantly jumping out of a hole somewhere, but instead he found himself standing in an ordinary dirt hollow with a tunnel leading off. Total darkness engulfed him as the stone was pivoted closed. He felt his way forward, trailing the sounds of the other two.

  . . . . .

  Nottingham burst through the door of the cottage, followed by three mail-clad men.

  “Welcome to Ireland!” shouted the Sidhe as she hurled a sparking ball of light at him. Nottingham ducked, and it struck the man behind him, who fell to the ground screaming, snakes of golden light eating away his flesh. There was a flash, and a second man fell. Nottingham dived back outside. Another flash and more screams followed.

  The Sidhe woman risked a glance around the doorframe. Nottingham shouted to a pair of Grogoch that were just trundling up, “Seal her in there! She must not escape!” A faint song began to rise from deep in the throats of the Grogoch. The door slammed shut. The Sidhe heard Nottingham shout again: “Burn it down!”

  She bent down and heaved on the stone covering the tunnel. It did not move. Through the window she could see fire arrows flying toward the thatched roof. She closed her eyes and held her hands out over the stone. Strands of light dripped from her fingers and crawled along the edges of the stone. She tried to lift it again but failed. She screeched in frustration as flame started to lick down through the thatch above her.

  . . . . .

  Sunrise was streaming through the trees when Jordan climbed out from the tunnel. Art was standing next to a horse. A quarter mile off to the right, the cottage was engulfed in flames.

  “What’s your name?” asked Art, his hand ready on the hilt of his sword.

  “Jordan d’Anglano, marshal of the Vatican.”

  “Does this mean the Vatican wants to join our side?”

  “No. This means that I’m not yet ready to see you captured or killed.”

  “Why?”

  �
�This land isn’t as I expected. There’s much I’m struggling to understand, and I need more time. Now you had better go. We’ll meet again, then we’ll either fight, or . . . well . . . only time will reveal what is to come.”

  “Until then,” said Art, untying his horse from a tree. “But don’t expect any leniency if we cross swords.” He swung up, followed by his lover, and rode quietly off.

  Jordan turned and looked at the burning cottage in the distance, hoping the Sidhe had made it out. Then he crept around to the tree on the mound and climbed into and out of the witch path to where Najia was waiting.

  . . . . .

  The sun had risen high in the sky when a small Irish company including Conor, Liam, and Rhoswen rode over the crest of Linsigh Hill, ten miles south of Tara, and down its gentle slope, where they found Fearghal squatting at a spring beside the road. He had stripped to the waist to wash, the icy water leaving his pale skin pink, his new wounds bright red, though none appeared deep. The stump of his right wrist had already sealed over with fresh skin.

  “Where is the high king?” asked Fearghal.

  “Art will meet us at Tara,” replied Liam.

  “Tell him that King Murchada is captured and his entire force slaughtered.”

  “Even the Gallowglass?”

  “The English sent death on black winds of iron. Kellach was too strong, his followers too fanatical, for loyal Sidhe to stop them. Many of my Sidhe fought to the death alongside the Celts. In the end no quarter was given.”

  Fearghal addressed Conor. “I would be dead myself if I did not need to deliver this message. Our only hope is the Morrígna. Has Aisling reconnected with enough of the Goddess’s power?”

  “Aisling will be enough,” said Conor. “She defeated the demon Semjâzâ. She can handle Kellach.”

  “When her powers return, now that the twins are born,” added Liam.

  “Let us hope her powers return before Richard reaches Tara,” said Fearghal. “Let us hope the new twins do not keep the powers for themselves. I will return to the Middle Kingdom and gather what forces are still loyal to Ireland, still true to their vows. We will join you at Tara when it is time.”

  Rhoswen dismounted and handed the reins of her horse to Liam. “I will see you again on the battlefield.” She held his gaze for a long moment.

  “Count on it,” said Liam. In her eyes he saw a look that reminded him of the one his Sidhe mother gave his father. Under different circumstances he would be drawn to Rhoswen, he thought, as he watched her and Fearghal disappear into a nearby Sidhe mound.

  Turning to Conor, Liam said, “You might as well split off here to Dunsany. Tell Aisling that I need you back as soon as possible.”

  . . . . .

  Richard had established his quarters in Reginald’s Tower, named after the Viking who had founded the fortified port of Waterford in 914. In the great hall, Oren sat propped up at the end of the lunch table. A purple robe draped over his shoulders fell all the way to the floor, a fool’s hat cockeyed on his head, as Richard had taken to dressing up the Tylwyth Teg for meals.

  Richard abruptly stood, causing his chair to tumble behind him, and shouted at Nottingham, “Art was not there? How could he not be there?”

  De Vere put down his wine goblet.

  Nottingham shifted uncomfortably in his armor. “The only occupant of the cottage was a female Sidhe, whom we burned.”

  “We do not give a damn about burning another faerie.” Richard leaned forward with his fists on the table, glowering at Kellach, who sat without plate or goblet in front of him. “You said the high king would be there.”

  “He was there. He must have slipped out when Nottingham arrived,” said Kellach.

  Nottingham stiffened. “We had the cottage surrounded. And you assured me all the passages in the area to the Middle Kingdom were sealed.”

  “They were sealed,” said Kellach. “However, if he was escorted, he might have used a witch path.”

  “Witch path! Witch path!” shouted Richard, now pacing around the table. “There are witches as well as faeries in this country?”

  “Among the Sidhe, powers vary,” said Kellach. “Sidhe who dedicate themselves to the study of the old ways can become very powerful witches, able to travel between worlds and within worlds in ways others cannot.”

  “Well, it does not matter, a minor irritation,” said Richard, his pace increasing, with arms swinging and hands clenching, releasing. He looked toward Oren. “Do We still need that faerie?” he asked to no one in particular. Striding over to Oren, he asked, “Do We still need you?”

  Oren turned his blind face up toward Richard, causing the fool’s hat to slide off. “No,” he replied. “You no longer need me.”

  “Good,” replied Richard. He pulled Nottingham’s sword from its scabbard and took a wild swing at Oren, catching him in the shoulder. Oren gave no cry, a look of peace on his face. Richard changed to a two-handed grip on the hilt. With three more swings, Richard had Oren’s head off.

  “There, let no one say We do not keep Our promises. Now, put it on a spike somewhere.”

  23

  Trim Castle, Ireland

  October 31, 1394

  Next to a giant bonfire on the bank of the river Boyne outside Trim Castle stood Turlough, king of Meath. It was the eve of Samhain festival, marking the beginning of winter, halfway between the autumn equinox and the winter solstice. Tonight the veil between this world and the After Lands would thin, and feasts and sacrifices would need to be dedicated to ancestors to avoid suffering a visit from their annoyed ghosts.

  Turlough remembered the Samhain eves of his youth, when he would throw the bones of livestock, slaughtered to fill the winter larder, into their bonfire as an offering. The bonfire beside him required no more bones: the pyre was stacked with burning Fomorian bodies, more than a hundred.

  Turlough ordered his captain of the guard to line the bridge with torches and secure it with fifty warriors each night. “It must be kept open, Captain,” said Turlough. “Let the creatures have the ford after dark. We can take it back with ease each morning if we have to.”

  “Yes, sire,” replied the captain, immediately making his way toward the new stone bridge, finished less than a year earlier just upriver of the ford. A steady stream of refugees flowed north across it. After the English invasion, Turlough had suspended the toll of one-half a silver penny.

  Liam and Conor rode around the corner of the castle, following the outer edge of the moat, leading a company of frayed and tired Gallowglass. On seeing Turlough and the pile of burning bodies, they reined in their horses.

  “King Turlough,” Liam said. “Looks like you had a difficult fight.”

  “Indeed,” confirmed Turlough. “The Fomorians overran the ford and the bridge. We counterattacked. It was a long and bloody night. When the sun rose, my archers on the castle walls were able to drive them off with impunity. Now that we know, they’ll not catch us by surprise again. We’ll keep the bridge open.”

  “Were many of your people killed?” asked Liam, his brow furrowed.

  “Twenty-three warriors died fighting. Most of the wounded will be ready to fight again soon,” said Turlough. “What word of the English?”

  Advancing north from Waterford, Richard was copying the slash-and-burn policy of chevauchée that his father, the Black Prince, had employed so successfully in France. Turlough last heard that Richard had skirted the Wicklow Mountains, leaving them to his Sidhe collaborators, and that he had captured and fortified Jerpoint and Kilkenny while burning all other villages to the ground along the way.

  “We just withdrew from Leighlin,” said Liam. “It’s Richard’s now.”

  Turlough nodded, watching the refugees plod across the bridge.

  Art was not making a stand in the south. Instead he was harrying the English in an attempt to slow the enemy’s advance while the
Irish armies mustered at Tara and to give Aisling time to recover her powers. Art maintained that Aisling was their only hope to defeat Kellach and the English. Meanwhile Irish casualties were mounting, mostly the result of the English longbow’s lethal reach.

  “The land will be thick with ghosts tonight,” said Turlough, inclining his head toward the line of refugees. “Few have time for a feast or even offerings.”

  “Too many new ghosts,” said Liam.

  “Do you know how long it will be until I have to move my forces to Tara?” asked Turlough.

  “The English will need to take the bridge at Carlow next. We can slow them down there for a while. And Art won’t attack before Richard moves north of Dublin, so as not to become trapped between him and his Viking allies. You still have a few weeks to finish preparations.”

  “We’ll be ready,” said Turlough. “Will Aisling be ready?” he asked Conor.

  “Yes.”

  “Tell her . . .” Turlough paused. “Tell her how much we’re counting on her.”

  “She knows,” replied Conor as he spurred his horse and splashed across the ford, followed by Liam and the Gallowglass.

  A wagon lightly loaded with supplies lumbered toward the castle gate. Tonight’s feast will be meager, Turlough thought. Still, a king owes hospitality to his subjects, and the gate would be open to all who wished to attend. A shallow smile crept onto Turlough’s face as he thought of his required, ritual intercourse with the symbolic Earth Mother—a welcome distraction, particularly with the beautiful priestess who had agreed to conduct the ceremony. His smile vanished as Mamos walked through the smoke toward him.

  As a young boy, Turlough had been afraid of the gruff druid of Trim, old and weathered even then. Time had not improved Mamos’s disposition, and Turlough hoped Mamos would not insist on being one of the witnesses at the Earth Mother ceremony. That would take all the fun from it and even risk its success.

  Without greeting, Mamos declared, “Aisling no longer brings enough of the Morrígna into this world to save Ireland from Kellach or the English.”