by James Comins
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Mrs. Bres’ Mom
or, Hcccccckkkkkrrrrrrhhm
“They are free,” Talvi announced.
Talvi, Kaldi, Lenna and Brugda stood before the white driftwood throne in the golden palace. Bres’ chin was up, sharp, smug, and the two angels stood to either side.
“Yes,” said Bres. “Yes, you’ve done well for me.”
“Where’s Binnan Darnan?” Kaldi demanded.
“Have you spoken to my mother in the palace of ice?” said Bres.
“The girl first,” Kaldi said.
“No, I don’t think so.”
“It’s okay, Kaldi,” Lenna interrupted. “I command Bres’ mom to be here.”
From the stone floor wriggled a thin face. Impossibly thin. Thinner than Annie’s face. It coughed and moaned.
“Mrs. Bres’ mom?”
“Glllrrrhh. Cough.”
“Mrs. Bres’ mom, um um the Fomor are freed from their curse!”
Lenna faced the crippled, sick-looking woman expectantly. The head lolled on its spine.
From behind her, Brugda leaned over her shoulder and spoke some words in Irish.
“Hcccccckkkkkrrrrrrhhm.” The thin face hacked and hacked and coughed, her throat sounding like sandpaper across gravel.
“What does that mean?” said Lenna.
“Nothing,” said Brugda. She said some more things in Irish. “She lost her talk.”
“Who are you talking to?” asked Bres, putting his feet up on the pale armrest of his throne.
“Your mom!” said Lenna. “She’s right here!”
“I see nothing.”
“But she is! She’s here! What would you like to say to her?”
“I don’t believe you’ve summoned her.”
“But, but I have. Mr. Bres. She’s right here! Mrs. Bres’ mom, what would you like to say to your son?”
Brugda spoke in Irish. The eyes of Bres’ mother were crusted together with a thick crust of sleepy-gunk; she wrenched her eyes open, and her eyelashes came off in a clump. Lenna winced. The arms of the woman were pasty with muscleless skin, and when she tried to lift a hand to her throat, a tendon snapped and her arm hung useless in her lap.
“Pb. Pbbbfff. Kkllllllllhhhhhhhhh.”
“Please, Mrs. Bres’ mom, tell us something Bres would know!”
Brugda repeated this.
“Hhhhhhhhhhhkknnnnnnnnccccchpppbhpppppbhppppppptthhhhhbbbbb.” She disappeared back into the floor.
“Ono.”
“Alone for ten centuries and more. Little wonder,” Brugda murmured.
“An amusing little theater. How long did you rehearse this deception?” asked Bres, swinging his feet haughtily to the floor and crossing his arms beneath his robe.
“Bres,” said Brugda fiercely. “Believe me, as once you did.”
“Cunning was ever your crutch, Brigid,” the High King spat.
“Bres. Believe.”
“Lenna, since you refuse to faithfully obey what I have instructed you to do--”
“But I did!”
“I have no choice but to refuse you the blessing I considered bestowing. You will always be cursed. This I decree.”
“Where’s Binnan Darnan?” roared Kaldi, pounding up the steps of the throne. “You’ve hurt this child, but I won’t allow you to hurt anyone else!”
Bres held his son’s fierce gaze. “I’d like my mother to know the good fortune of my people. Since this whelp refuses to tell her--”
“But I did!”
“Then you’ll have to do it for her, Caoilte. Swim, son, to the palace of your grandmother and tell her the good news.”
“I can’t swim that far. No one could.”
Brugda bent a shady eye to Kaldi. “There is one,” she mouthed, nodding toward the cave mouth.
“Very well, Father,” said Kaldi sourly. “I’ll travel there for you.”
As he stormed out of the chamber, Mo Bagohn, Emily, Andy and Aitta arrived, delivered by Baldur.
“Annie said she’d fly,” said Emily. “What’s wrong, Kaldi?”
“Many things,” he snarled, his shoes echoing as he stalked out.
The four newcomers wandered into the bright space, threading between the golden pedestals, coming to stand before the throne. Andy stayed away from Lenna. She ignored him too, sniffily.
“Where’s this girl we’ve heard so much about?” Emily asked Bres. She wore a dark long-sleeved dress with a white lace choker and kept her one hand on Pol’s arm.
“We are waiting for many things,” the golden-maned king answered her.
“But wasn’t that the deal? One of the deals? For my hammer?” she replied.
“You gave me the hammer out of fealty to the High King of Ireland,” said Bres. “Any kindness I’ve shown you is for my own amusement. Intlás. Go and watch over my eldest son as he swims across the North Sea, would you?”
“Whatever you say, Master,” said the angel.
Lenna looked at Indaell, who bowed until his head hit the floor, bonk, then vanished. There was something about the way he talked to Bres that wasn’t normal. The two angels behaved very differently here than they had in the Nupsstaður church. Time didn’t seem to be going nearly so fast. They didn’t act as if they were in charge anymore, either, and their words didn’t seem to shake up her brain as much. They didn’t seem dangerous, or at least, only as dangerous as a caged animal. Indaell acted like a court jester, and Ljos stood like an angry statue, flicking his eyes repeatedly to Bres.
They hated Bres.
This was very important.
Waiting, waiting. Pol arrived and stood quietly. Waiting. Bres smiled, sitting in his big chair. Everyone else stood. They waited.
“So we wait?” asked Talvi.
“Oh, Intlás will tell us when--”
As he spoke, Indaell rose secretly out of the ground behind the throne, stretched and bent like a gray hook around Bres. The High King gasped.
“He’s told your mummy, Master. And then he killed her.”
Bres went still as the dead. His jaw went tight with violence, then slackened. He seemed to push the second half of Indaell’s announcement out of his mind. “How?” said Bres. “How could he swim across the North Sea in a moment? You tell me how.”
“You’re in big trouble,” Indaell giggled. “Oh, such troubles you have.”
Bres turned away from the bad angel and leaned across the splintery armrest toward Ljos. “What is this? Lés, what does he mean?”
“For once,” and Ljos’ voice was dripping with hidden meanings and bitterness, “for once, my brother speaks the truth.”
“Terrible trouble.” Indaell’s eyes were small and his teeth were long. “That’s what you’re in.”
“Why?” shouted Bres. “What, what, what is this?”
“You are no longer the greatest power in Ireland,” stated Ljos. Lenna wondered what he meant.
The man with the pure blue eyes stood, majestic. “I am the High King. There are no powers greater than that.”
“There are gods,” Ljos said simply. “And there is God.”
From beside Lenna, from the back of the crowd of people, Talvi stepped forward, shuffling past Andy and Emily clumsily. “Father, why did you send my brother into the ocean?” he asked, sidling uncomfortably into the center of the golden chamber.
Bres twisted back and forth between the angels and Talvi. “Mother had to be told,” he snapped at the man. “You are both part Fomor. You can change into a fish, if you choose.”
“Why not send the angels?” asked Talvi.
“Don’t you dare question me!”
“Father, we’ve completed all the tasks,” said Talvi in his quiet voice.
Bres eyed Indaell, who was still curled like a gourd over his shoulder. “Yes, I suppose you have. However--”
“Father,” said Talvi. “We had a deal.”
“However,” and Bres leaned into the word, “I don’t feel that you’ve done
enough to--or maybe you’ve done too much--”
“Father,” said Talvi. The tall man seemed dwarfed by the throne, and by his father. His ruddy hair hung just above his shoulders, shaggy and loose. He wore a foolish puffy orange-and-tan jacket with big pockets. His narrow face was shy under his five o’clock red beard. “May I ask you a question? For free?” he asked Bres.
Eyeing Indaell uncertainly, the High King said: “Ask.”
“Are you proud of me, Father?”
Bres blinked. “This is not the time.”
“It is the time. Father, are you proud of me and Kaldi?”
“Why must you ask this now? My servants are warning me of some strange danger, and you ask your father this childish question?”
“Answer it. Please answer it.” Talvi flapped his fingers nervously, like butterfly wings.
“If you cannot hold your peace when a father demands it, Taillvin, then I couldn’t say I’m proud.”
“Okay,” said Talvi gently. “Father--”
“Silence, Taillvin.”
“Let the girl go.”
Bres swept down the steps of his throne and looked his younger son in the eye. “I will open the door to her chamber if it will buy your silence.”
Talvi nodded. Bres snapped his fingers. Indaell went to the far wall and traced a doorway along the back wall with his skinny fingertip. The tracing glowed and a doorway appeared.
Lenna ran past Talvi and Bres and the angels. The doorway was narrow and shadowy. The chamber inside was musty and unlit. From behind her, she heard “Lenna, no!”
Binnan Darnan was not inside. The doorway vanished behind her.