Lenna and the Last Dragon

by James Comins

  Chapter Eleven

  Kells

  or, One of the Old ‘Uns

  A tired-looking man holding orange following-sticks led them into a stinky carpeted tunnel ramp, like a segmented series of shipping boxes, and out through a wedged-open door. They entered a small sleepy building of windows windows windows, through another security thing, and out at last through another pair of doors into the tiny lobby of the airport. There was a tacked-up paper sign above it reading WELCOME TO KELLS.

  Brugda headed away at once. Everyone stumbled sleepily after her toward an information kiosk set into the yellow plastered wall of the mortared stone lobby.

  “Do you know anybody who’d be called ‘Iascaire’ or ‘the fisherman?’” Brugda asked somebody on the other side of the wall.

  Lenna caught up with the old woman and located the wrinkly old man she was talking to. He was sitting behind the kiosk with his hairy bare feet up on a chair in the doorway, wearing a green embroidered tunic with a Chinese Mao collar and holding a floppy flat wool Ivy Leaguer in his hands. His gray hair had a monk’s tonsure hairline on top, his arms were heavy, like a blacksmith’s arms, and he wore the vacant smile of a man who sat behind a kiosk for most of the day. His eyes were blue like aquamarine. He was probably older than Brugda, drooping and plump and placid. A plaque in front of him read “Pol O’Donnell”, and beneath that, “the Talker.”

  “Do I know a man who’s called ‘the fisherman?’ ” he repeated carefully in accented English, adjusting his hat. “Is it a trick question, then? Whar is it yud said yar from, my fair lady?”

  “Iceland,” said Brugda shortly.

  “And wharbouts in Iceland?” Pol went on amiably.

  “Why do you want to know?” barked Lenna from behind Brugda’s leg. She peered up at the wrinkle-faced man.

  “Woll, it’s what friendly folk ask, innit? If I tell ye I’m Irish, it’s a dandy thing to know, Missy. But it’s hardly a conversation-starter.”

  Lenna retreated further behind Brugda.

  The man simpered at her. “How old are we?”

  “I’m twelve,” muttered Lenna without sympathy.

  “Twelve. So it’s fishermen yur after, is it?” the man mumbled, rubbing the back of his neck with a rough hand.

  “Even a legend,” said Brugda.

  “Plenty a legends in County Meath. That’s whar legends come from. But a legend of a yashkar?” He puffed his lips out, shook his head, shook it again.

  “How about--” Talvi broke in. He looked at Brugda, who nodded. “How about Mo Bagohn?”

  Pol’s eyes glittered. “Ahh, now thar’s someone worth talkin’ about. The ditty’s an old one, and not long.” He sat up a little straighter, adjusted his embroidered collar, cleared his throat.

  Mo Bagohn lived all alone, she never kept a lover.

  She dealt in spells in bonny Kells to help the ill recover.

  A carriage wrapped in ivy-thorn would bring her to your door,

  Drawn by Wicklow mare with braided hair the color of copper ore.

  Of lion’s eggs and serpent’s legs she kept a few upon her,

  And for the sick, she’d bring a pint of that old stout, O’Connor.

  The man erupted in thick, wheezy laughter. “In’t it a scream? Now,” it sounded like new, “the legends of Mo Bagohn are plenty. Wouldja hear bout the time she look into King James VII’s eye from afar, just afore the Battle of the Boyne, and hid from him the great ravine what kept the armies apart, so’s no one could fight him in person? Or, or how she dressed as a man to help clear the tunnels of Knowth, so’s she could slip in and take the Stone of Man to fulfill her sistar’s quest for her true love, four hunnart years after the fella's grave was dug?”

  A truck with inflated owls instead of wheels passed the airport lobby, thumping. He waited until it was quieter, then went on.

  “It’s said that never in her history was Ireland without her.”

  “An Old One,” whispered Aitta.

  Brugda shot her a sharp glance. “What do you you know?” she growled. Aitta didn’t respond.

  “An Old ‘Un, indeed,” said Pol, smiling brightly at Aitta. “This one--” he pointed to her--“she knows her legends aright. There’s no story in Ireland worth telling, save them what have the Old Uns in.”

  Brugda fidgeted impatiently with her sleeves. “I want no stories. I need ...” She stopped, growled, stamped a foot, hitched her bag higher up on her shoulder. “Come along.”

  The man set his bare feet on the stone floor and leaned out to watch them go with a bit of a frown. Brugda ignored him and headed out the outer doors of the airport to the streets of the city.

  “But--” said Lenna, looking at the old man.

  “Follow,” Brugda called back.

  They threaded out along the quiet morning lane and walked. They walked past parking lots full of floating cars, past a series of low buildings stuck to one another, plastered and painted in blue and yellow and pastels. They came to the high street, which rapidly sprang with many more cars with fins and feet and hoverpads. Some of the buildings were very old, built of round gray mortared stones; they had peaked roofs or flat roofs and narrow chimneys with pots on top of them. The shops were each one snug against the other, as if it was all one long long building sliced into different shapes and heights, all painted with vertical stripes, yellow and brown and blue. Between the stoops, gold bullion was stacked into short walls interrupted by steps.

  “We need to find a bank for euros,” Brugda said to Kaldi as they stomped over clanging sidewalk grates and around caged trees set in the stone sidewalk.

  Pol’s voice drifted like mist: “Ye’ve a credit crystal fit to charter a daedelus.”

  Brugda spun, spun again. Pol was not there. Nervously she walked on, clutching her bag against her breast. Talvi and Aitta walked hand in hand, and Kaldi put Lenna on his shoulders, and she steered with his ears. She was almost too big for that now, but not quite.

  They turned a corner and faced a roaring intersection. Lenna looked at the peculiar wheels of the cars, clopping to a stop before a gem stoplight: emerald, citrine, ruby, glowing one after the other. Some of the cars floated off the ground, vibrating uncomfortably as the long crystals that glowed from their undersides buzzed like mosquitos. Long trucks teetered on hoverpads, their loads groaning as powerful crystals dragged them forward. Trucks weren’t new to her--she had seen delivery trucks pulled by pygmy dragons, seen them regularly out along the Ring Road, but those trucks were quiet, rolling along the paved road after dragons gliding on long hind legs, bright orange or gray, trotting in leather harnesses. In central Iceland trucks were always by themselves, just one for miles and smiles, sometimes passing the obsessive cyclists that would pedal past the jokulls in foolish-colored spandex outfits. Trucks were solitary creatures.

  Not here. Here in Kells, trucks lined up one behind the other, topped with crystalstacks that belched out high-pitched vibrations. The ground shook with the exotic wheels of the vehicles.

  With Lenna on his shoulders, Kaldi followed Brugda to the shops of the high street. From a gray stone building on the corner she heard:

  “And ye’re asking after legends of Old Ones as if you expect to find them around every carnar. And maybe ye will.”

  “Who are you?” said Talvi, spinning to find the voice. “Why are you following us?”

  Pol leaned out of the decorated doorway of a mortarstone townhouse, glowering. He lifted his eyes. “Looks like rain. You’d best come in, says I.” With a careless hand he turned the latch and the old door swung, banged, shuddered. Pol O’Donnell was gone up the stairwell.

  They found him near the top. He led them through a door into the living room of a low-ceilinged flat.

  “Meet the missus,” Pol said, stepping inside.

  “What in the world?”

  A brown-haired woman came out from the kitchen. It took Lenna a few blinks to realize she only had one arm.

  “Pol? Who’re we?” />
  “Friends, Emily, unless my eyes are astray.” He winked at Lenna.

  Pol’s wife Emily examined the newcomers, who stood uncomfortably just inside the door. Lenna unbuckled her green boots and set them on a mat.

  “Well, come on in,” said Emily. “Make yourselves at home. What are your names, then? I suppose it’s a day for a feast, Pol.”

  “Knock yarself out, Em. Well, friends,” he said, looking around the living room, eyeing the small sofa. “We’ll have to bring in some chairs.”

  “That isn’t ...”

  “Andy! Out here sharpish, wouldja?” shouted Pol down the far corridor.

  “Whuffor?” came a holler.

  “Guests!”

  Thumping and bonking; a boy with sharp, wideset eyes and short dark hair came bounding down the hall.

  “And how do you do?” he said, bowing to them. “Andy O’Donnell, atcherservice.”

  “Kaldi.”

  “Talvi.”

  “Aitta.”

  “Brugda.”

  “I’m Lenna.”

  “Pleasure, all,” said Andy.

  “Chars, Andy?”

  Andy brought in chairs two at a time by underarm from rooms down the hall.

  “Now, my dear Icelanders,” said Pol. “The story, if you will.”

  Lenna still felt sleepy and confused. There was nothing about the O’Donnells or their world that was safe or familiar. She sat beside Aitta in a high-backed chair with a woven seat and swung her legs. Brugda arranged herself and frowned as she considered how to begin.

  “A girl is missing,” said Talvi. “She was kidnapped. We believe she was taken to Ireland.”

  Pol frowned. His wife stared.

  “Then what the hell are you doing here?” she exclaimed. “We need to getcha to the Icelandic embassy. That’ll be Dublin. Andy’ll look up where it is exactly on Google. Don’t know if you’ll all fit in the Opel, but the rest can stay until you get--” Emily said in a rush.

  “Not that simple,” interrupted Kaldi, holding up a hand. “If it was, we would have gone straight there.”

  “But arncha Icelandic citizens, then?” asked Emily.

  Talvi’s eyes flicked to Aitta. Brugda ground her palms into her face. “We should not have come here,” she moaned.

  “Hey, hey,” said Pol gently. “This house here’s a house for friends and naught else. We’re all friends here. Only yull need to tell us all, my friends, and honest and true, or we can’t help you any.”

  Lenna burst into tears. “We’re only wasting time. We’ll never find Binnan Darnan. Brugda, couldn’t I call for Mo Bagohn and ask her what to do?”

  Emily squinted.

  Pol looked at his son. “Andy, maybe the lass would find yar room worth seeing?”

  Andy ducked his head, turned to Lenna, hissed, “Social graces. That’s what me oul fella has, huh?” and smiled. “Let the old folk make the hard choices, lassie-o, while we make merry.” Andy put his hand out. Lenna grasped it primly.