Return of the Danu

by Kelly Lucille

  “I would not take him from that pleasure, but he was not a bother.”

  Amelia grimaced just a bit. “He had big plans to bring you any animal he could get his hands on so that you could make them into an entertainment troupe he could charge money for others to come and see.”

  Elena halted with the cup nearly to her lips and gave Amelia wide eyes. “Really?”

  “Among other things.” Amelia looked around the garden and shook her head. “It looked a hundred times better already. If my neighbors knew the gifts a Danu under the roof could bestow, they would be here vying for your attention. Instead of hiding.”

  Elena laughed and took another sip of her tea. “You are kind to see to my comforts, and to allow me free range in your garden. It did not occur to me until this second that I should have checked with you before I practically claimed it. Your neighbors, I assume will be like the healer who was here? Full of superstition and stories of the evil Danu.”

  “No,” Amelia said hurriedly. “That is not it.” She struggled for words for a moment before she bit her lip. “It’s more like to harm a Danu will bring about the wrath of the Green. It has been passed down that it was harming the Danu that caused the Green to become so dangerous. And many now hold the Danu in too high regard, if anything. The fear is that by even touching a Danu you will have marked yourself as an enemy of the Green and it will sense the Danu and punish you.” She was speaking fast but Elena was getting what she was saying, she just was having a hard time switching her own thinking.

  “You mean the Danu have become untouchable, not out of fear they are monsters, but that by touching them the monsters of the wild will sense it and come for you?”

  “Yes,” Amelia said sagging in relief. “That is it exactly. When it came out that I harbored a Danu in my home, many watched and waited for bad things to befall my house, instead I have been abundantly blessed. Some have begun to wonder what it means, but the young seem to be in two camps, those who fear even the touch of the Danu, like the healer. And those like my son who will follow you around and stare at you with big eyes while peppering you with questions about magic.”

  Amelia patted Elena’s leg and then blushed as if she had overstepped. “I count visits of the Danu as a blessing, and was wondering if it would be possible to send along something for Katrine when you go to return?”

  Elena smiled. “I am sure she would love any word of her friend here in Haven.”

  Amelia smiled and this time it went all the way to her eyes. “I will wrap it up in case you need to leave quickly for some reason.”

  “If I need to leave quickly, I will return here for any messages from you for Katrine before I return home.

  Amelia bowed her head just a little, hiding her new blush but she left as pleased as Elena with the exchange.

  Chapter Eight

  Her next visitor was not nearly as welcome.

  She was deep in the weave as she pulled weeds and cleared away the leaves and dead flowers. It was not a presence she felt that had her looking up in alarm, but rather a lack of presence. A stirring of unease among the Green growing things she was immersed in. She looked up over the stone wall that separated the garden from the cobblestone street and directly into a well-dressed stranger’s eyes

  Considering his hair was so light as to be almost white and his skin was the palest of any she had ever seen, the black of those eyes was off putting. It was not the only thing about him that was.

  All around her the garden shifted and whispered. Ready to close ranks. It was the strangest sensation she had ever felt. She knew, as surely as she knew the horse he road had no connection to the wild horses of the Green, that he would not be welcome in the garden. Or any closer to her for that matter. The weave was tightening around her as if preparing for battle, or more the feeling was that of needing to expel an intruder. Whatever else the stranger was, she knew in her gut he was just wrong somehow.

  “Can I help you?”

  “Forgive my rudeness,” he said. An appreciative smile on his face. “I am Farget, and I have heard many tails of the Danu and their great beauty and magic, but never thought to see one for myself. Certainly not in such,” he looked around and she could hear his little sniff of censure even though he tried to contain it. “Humble surroundings. Where I am from magic users are revered and would never stoop…” he stopped himself. The effort he was making not to sneer was obvious. Elena studied him more closely. Suspicion and that cold warning in her blood blooming to full on alarm. Farget went on and she that alarm turned to dread. “I have been sent to issue an invitation to the Danu. You are the first one we have been able to find outside the wilds.” Now she could hear annoyance and a touch of malice, and something close to fear when he spoke of the wilds, all of which he quickly hid behind those dead eyes.

  “You are not a part of these lands.” That was the wrongness she was sensing. In that instant the realization was like a hammer to her heart. This being had no connection to these lands. It was the first time she realized that as far away as the southern lands were from the north geographically, they were still connected by something, magic, perhaps something as simple as they were all created from the same source no matter how far away their ancestors had wandered.

  But with this male? She could feel the wrongness in this one. His feet touched the Earth but there was no welcome in it for him, and even as loosely woven with the weave as she was at the moment, she could feel the need to drive him further from the Green.

  “No,” he bowed low at the waist, sweeping his hand out so that his fingers nearly brushed the stones of the road. It was not a bow she had ever seen before and the sight of it had more alarm bells ringing in her head. “I hail from Scarrof, with an invitation from the great King Himli for the leader of the Danu to come and visit. As a welcome guest and friend.”

  Elena backed up a step instinctively, her mind searching the weave around her for the man who should have already stopped the stranger from talking to her. She looked into those cold black eyes when she found no one else near the garden. “Have you done something to distract the warrior?”

  “It was necessary I speak to you privately. A small distraction seemed the best way. The warrior will return shortly I assure you, and we may not get another chance to talk. My King has been forced to wait too long already for your visit. He will be thrilled to hear word of your new queen and the possibilities of an alliance between our people.”

  “And you wish for me to get a message to her?”

  He hesitated, as if that was not what he had wanted at all, but she could not read his intentions on his face. “Yes,” he murmured. Then more firmly. “I have a ship waiting to take her,” his emphasis on the words her made her wonder if he had not expected her to be able to contact the Queen. “Or indeed, yourself if that would be acceptable. The invitation was made for a Danu. Any Danu, to accompany me back to our lands and our king. I assure you we know how magic users are meant to be treated there at least.”

  “I am here on a mission for my queen,” Elena said carefully. Something in the man’s face making her not want to reject him outright, or explain why such a journey would be impossible. Which is what she wanted to do with every fiber of her being. Reject him and then eject him from her presence. “I will need time to confer with her about this matter before I make any decisions.”

  He ground his teeth but other than that showed no signs of his impatience. “Very well,” he said mildly enough. “I must go before I am discovered, but I will return for your answer tomorrow. I have many friends here who do not like the Southern invaders any more than the Danu do, rest assured I can keep you safe when you are ready.”

  He was gone so fast Elena did not have time to tell him that might not be enough time. He was already gone, when Beck returned, looked her up and down from the doorway and then backed back out of sight.

  Elena sighed, and went back to dead heading and weeding with half her mind while the other half she sent farther afield. S
he needed the ease of it and the cover it provided. Everything else had just gotten even more jumbled. She needed the peace the garden gave her to think and make her own plans. What friends had he been speaking of? Was she wrong to interpret his words as Northern people in league with this far away King in a united bid to take down Rek Morten and the Southern Warriors?

  This the queen needed to know. She only wished she had more answers than questions to give.

  A long time later Elena stood. She needed to talk to the king and Ansgar the Bloody. She did not think word of a rebellion and foreign invaders would do anything to help the peace between them, but Katrine, and especially her husband Prince Khalon had insisted they be told of the man from Scarrof. She might as well get it over with now.

  She sighed and called for Beck.

  ***

  “What else did he say?”

  “That was all he said.”

  Ansgar and Rek Morten both watched her with nearly the same predatory gleam in their eyes. Ansgar the Bloody stood a little too close and towered over her while his father the king sat behind the solid desk and studied them both. “Was it this man and his friends that brought your brother into the city?”

  “No,” she said raising her voice in exasperation at his continued distrust of her brother. “My brother needed no help getting over your walls. And no Danu would treat with this stranger.”

  “Why?” Ansgar asked as his father continued to allow him to interrogate her. He had been allowing his son to speak since she insisted on joining them with her news.

  “Because he is wrong,” she said knowing they both caught the shudder when it slithered down her skin. “He is not of this land, and no part of this land welcoms him.” She shook her head and rubbed her arms. “It is like nothing I have ever felt.”

  “We are not of this land,” Rek Morten suddenly said while his son examined her, a blaze of heat warming her with the look. “Do you feel this wrongness with the warriors of the South?”

  Elena shook her head and met those shrewd eyes. The dark of those eyes might be dark but they were alive, whereas the other man. “No, it is different. You and your people are connected to the weave just like all the North people. Not to the same extent but it is still there, as if we have all been created from the same starting place, changed and drifted from there. But you belong. Just as the people of Haven are connected to the land, so too is the Southern army and its leaders. It did not occur to me to wonder about that until this man showed up and was so decidedly not of the weave.” She rubbed her arms briskly for comfort. “No, you belong here, you might have been long away from the weave and some of you not as connected as the Northern people, but it was not always so. This man, whoever he is, does not belong here, I can feel the wrongness of him, and should he have tried to enter the garden it would have ejected him through no will of mine. I do not know if that is because he comes from so far away, as he has suggested, or if the wrongness is about something else. He said they knew how to treat magic users where he came from, but he looked down on my work in the garden, as if such things were beneath him. I do not think the magic he speaks of is magic in any way related to the Green.”

  “No,” Rek Morten said. “We have had dealings with the magic users of Scarrof. They cannot be trusted. They deal in death magic. They raided our shores years ago.” He looked at his son and they both shared a grim look of rage. Whatever they had done in their raids it had affected both men. “I would have to say it is as far from your type of magic as it is possible to get. Which is the only reason I was willing to make the alliance with the Danu magic users to begin with.”

  This, Elena thought, studying both men, was the root of their distrust of magic. It went farther than the last Danu war, much farther. Whatever had happened, had scarred both men, badly. And why did that make her want to step forward and touch Ansgar the Bloody, as if her magic could heal whatever wrong had happened so long ago.

  If she tried it, she thought self depreciatingly, he would probably stab her again, with the way he was looking right now. No magic however benign or beneficial, would be welcome.

  “I have sent word to my queen,” she said instead of acting rashly. She needed to know to keep the children hidden while this man and his friends are about. And she advised me to tell you. I did not like the look in his eyes when he insisted I would be visiting his king. I have a feeling if he thought he could have managed it he would have dragged me away right then.”

  Neither of them asked how she had managed the communication.

  Rek Morten looked at her and then at his son. “It is time to finalize the plans regardless. You will take Elena into the wilds, keep her safe. Escort her to the first Northern area we have proposed for the building of the city. If there are traitors among the citizens of Haven I would not give them a chance to sew dissent.”

  “You should return home. Leave the spies but take the rest.” Ansgar told his father. “Until we know what we are dealing with I would not have open targets for their sights.”

  The king seemed to chew that over. “Agreed.” He finally said. “It will be easier to find what we are looking for if the people are free to speak without a warrior overhearing them.”

  Elena bit her lip. “You will take your whole army away? What of the garrison previously stationed here?”

  Ansgar’s eyes sharpened on her. “Why do you ask?” His suspicion could not have been more blatant.

  Elena fought the need to roll her eyes. “Many have family and connections here. And it will be too obvious of a change if you strip every warrior away, not to mention with the Danu busy elsewhere the people will need the buffer of the warriors against whatever the wilds will spit at them. Too many dangers have sprung up in these areas since we left them. We can move safely through the wilds because we are part of it, but travelers will face dangers even with a new leader of the Danu to calm the Green.”

  Both men studied her, and she gave them wide eyes. “There are not enough of us left to patrol the many wild places. You need to protect your cities, or I fear for the safety of all.”

  They looked at each other. “I think we might have assumed, wrongly it seems, that the Danu had commanded the beasts to attack the travelers and that they could stop it the same way.”

  Elena snorted before she could control her reaction. “Contrary to what you all must have thought. We are not omnipotent. Each Danu that lives has a gift beyond their ability to connect to the wild weave, but even Katrine does not command the wildest beasts, nor can she change the fabric of the forests and take away the teeth than have grown in defense of itself since the fire. The Danu has spent the last ten years in hiding, learning to survive in a place that most humans could not survive, We are connected to the weave, and nourish it as it nourishes us, because of that it comes to our defense, but it is also a place of new nightmares, that we must either try to tame, or kill to survive. We did not make the creatures that have risen, nor do we command them. The Danu are warriors as much as they are gardeners, but we do not have the numbers or the power you seem to think.”

  “That is,” Rek Morten said slowly. “Both reassuring and disappointing.”

  “You have brought fire and war to the North, Barbarian,” she held up her hand before he could speak. “I am not saying you are solely to blame, the Danu have contributed in pride, just as the Northern people have with their apathy. It will take all of us to bring this to rights. You cannot undo that with a few magic words.”

  “So, what you are saying is that you are not in complete control of the Green?”

  “We have never been in complete control. And certainly not since the war. It is our home, but the creatures that live there are sentient beings and they can choose to attack us as easily as they can choose to help us. Some of the wilder more dangerous beasts are guaranteed to do so. They do not see humans, Danu or otherwise as anything but food. But if we are careful, we can traverse the wilds without harm. Some of us have more affinity with animals than others,
but the plants and trees, the very ground may attack you, where the Danu will pass safely, and even be nurtured by it. We are a part of it as it is a part of us. But the predators of the Wild that have come into being to protect it since the great fire. No, those we do not control. Not even Katrine can command them once they are away from her.”

  Ansgar and his father shared a look. Then he looked back at her and gave her a smile with a lot of teeth. “This should be an interesting trip.”

  Chapter Nine

  The stable yard was uncharacteristically deserted. Only the three horses and their warriors upon them filling the vast space. The smell of horses and the swirl of dust upon the deserted stable grounds held the scent of horses and manure, the almost sweet scent of the grasses they ate made her sensitive nose twitch. The stables, like the rest of haven were made of stone, and it meant for most Danu a blunting of the senses, but the horses and her connection to them, assured that Elena at least knew that the warriors and stable staff were still there, just out of sight within the walls. It was good. She did not need an audience for the argument she was having with the heir to their kingdom. Lor and Beck waited patiently eyeing Ansgar and Elena much as they might an entertaining farce.

  With all her meager possessions quickly collected and shoved into Ansgar’s saddle bag and no time for good-byes they were all ready to be off, and Elena was as anxious to be out of the stone city of Haven as the rest. It behooved them to get out and away before anyone was wise to their movements. She regretted not being able to see Amelia or her son before she left and thank them personally for their hospitality but needs must. If she and the blood prince could clear up this one point of contention, they might actually leave.