Brendan closed his eyes and let the sensation call to him again. He stepped out into the hall turned left, continuing two doors down to Bibe’s room. The door was wide open and the call was coming from somewhere inside. It was muddled, reminding him of being a kid and trying to speak under water. He stepped in and looked around the room. It was cluttered with throw pillows and quilts all over the place. The twin bed was on a brass frame and stacked three mattresses high. Lace curtains were on a rod over the small window, partially opened so Brendan could see the stars. She had a dresser, a small wardrobe, and a vanity with a wood-carved frame. The vanity caught his attention; he walked to it and sat in the chair.
The first thing he noticed was that his reflection told him he was tired and in need of about twenty hours of sleep. The second thing he noticed was the mirror itself. It reflected well enough, but it looked different than glass, almost liquid, like mercury. His mind told him to leave it alone but the beacon said otherwise.
He reached out and touched the center of the mirror. Ripples rode waves to the frame of the mirror, bounced back and crisscrossed through the center. The constant motion of the liquid was hard to watch and Brendan had to shut his eyes. He didn’t normally get motion sickness but this was the exception.
“Open your eyes,” a soft voice commanded after a minute or so.
Brendan did as he was told and nearly fell out of the seat when he looked back at the mirror. “No way! Bibe?”
He stared up at the frumpy goddess who was seemingly trapped in the mirror, although it felt different than that. He couldn’t put his finger on it, but there was something else going on other than the strange sensation of looking in the mirror and seeing another person’s image.
“Of course it’s me,” the Bibe in the mirror replied. “Time is growing short and we have much to do.”
…
Della was terrified to be inside Arawn’s castle even if it was just in the doorway looking into the foyer. She was shivering so badly that her teeth were chattering, and her heart was pounding so rapidly that it was probably chipping the bone off of the inside of her ribcage.
“Arawn!” shouted Argona into the spacious hall. “I’ve come for your blood.”
“Looks like he’s not home. Oh well, I guess we can go,” Della squeaked.
“Argona, how dare you violate the sanctity of my home,” Arawn stated plainly and without emotion from somewhere within the structure.
“Home? Ha!” Argona laughed, her energy whip crackling as it danced across the floor almost like it had a mind of its own. “This place lacks a woman’s touch.” She snapped her whip out and destroyed a heavy wooden table so easily it might as well have been made of paper.
Della could see where this was going and backed out into the yard. She ducked into a bush directly next to the castle wall; the stone was surprisingly cold against her back.
Argona took two steps into the castle and looked to the top of the stairs where Arawn stood stoically in the lofted hall overlooking the lower level. He was leaning on his broad sword and was dressed in his full war attire. For just a moment Argona had forgotten how handsome he was—those feelings made her all the more angry.
“It would have had a woman’s touch, Argona, but you allowed your heart to blacken and allied yourself with pure evil,” Arawn replied, sadness apparent in his speech. “I could not condone that.”
“You act as though I needed your permission,” Argona shot back.
“We were in love!” Arawn’s eyes spoke of his heartbreak.
Argona stood staring at her former love—her whip’s crackle the only sound in the castle buzzing like a neon sign. “Time passed, Arawn, and Elathan has returned. Now only you are standing in his way.”
Arawn shook his head slowly, the feelings he had for her clouding his mind. His thoughts lingered on a good memory of their passionate relationship, distracting him from the danger that she had become. He could see her in that sundress, the one she favored and wore to the river the day they sat on the banks as he spouted poetry about her beauty and a love that would never cease. Their romance didn’t last, but his heart had never stopped loving her. He wasn’t really prepared to see her at this moment either—even now he was hoping that she would renounce Elathan and return to him, a desire that his heart had dreamed about ever since she left him. Every time he visited her in her trilithon prison all he wanted to do was read her poetry again.
“Where is Caoranach?” she called as she strutted further into the castle and rounded her body to look up at him.
The question nearly knocked Arawn the Celtic warrior off his feet, though he probably should have seen it coming. He replayed images in his mind of a horrific battle against Caoranach and her demons; it had nearly cost both he and Argona their lives.
“We promised to never speak her name,” he whispered, though it sounded like an explosion in his ears.
“Tell me where she is, Arawn,” Argona demanded, her whip buzzing like a hornets’ nest.
He closed his eyes and allowed his chin to drop sadly towards his chest, feeling the full weight of the responsibilities that he bore.
“I cannot,” he replied.
Arawn dropped down towards the ground as Argona’s whip zipped through the air where his neck had just been. He was lucky that her whip buzzed and alerted him to get out of the way.
“You’re a fool, Arawn!” Argona took a few steps at a run and nimbly pushed off the stone floor, soaring through the air towards the loft.
She landed next to Arawn and immediately kicked him in the ribs to send him sliding across the floor. She snapped her whip and tore a gash through stones near his head as he barely managed to roll out of its path.
He popped to his feet and held his sword out in front of him. “Don’t make me kill you, Argona.”
“Ha! Just tell me what I need to know and just maybe Elathan will let you live long enough to see the end of days on your native Earth.”
She took his silence as defiance and cracked her energy whip at his face, intent on invoking his cooperation. Arawn lunged his sword into the whip’s path and changed its trajectory, causing it to spin around his blade. He almost smiled at the look of surprise on her face as he stepped forward, spun and yanked hard, forcing the war goddess to stumble forward. He sidestepped an errant strike and maneuvered his sword so that her momentum carried her straight over the railing and down towards the floor, her whip trailing behind her.
He didn’t waste any time as he leapt over the rail and bent his knees slightly on the landing. “You don’t know what you’re asking. Think it through, Argona!” he said, standing over her.
She pinwheeled into a standing position and backed away a step to get out of his sword’s reach. “Who do you think you are? You have no say in what I do or don’t do, what I want or don’t want.”
“Do you hear yourself? You sound like a spoiled child,” Arawn admonished.
“And you sound like a dying man whose good fortune has run out.” She lashed out with her whip as a feint and when he tried to ensnare it again, she stepped up quickly and delivered a side kick to his chin lifting him off of his feet and down onto his back.
He felt the air leave his lungs and tried to catch his breath, but Argona had already looped her whip around his throat. She quickly moved behind and forced him to a sitting position and then drove her knee into his upper back. He was struggling against her force, so she charged her weapon and sent thousands of volts of supercharged electricity into his body. He convulsed and pawed at the whip’s hold only causing her to tighten her grip and solidify her position.
“Tell me where she is or I will rip your head from your body,” she threatened.
Arawn fought the pain and concentrated on his next move. If he couldn’t somehow manage to get away from her then he was either going to be choked to death or electrocuted. He reached out with his foot, trying to pull his sword closer.
“I don’t think so,” Argona said through clenched teeth.
She pulled her knee off of his back and began to drag him backwards. He had anticipated her action and reached his hands above his head, managing to grab a hold of the whip even though the energy was numbing his arms. He pulled on it and rolled onto his back. This gave his legs the momentum that they needed to shoot up and over his head and connect directly with Argona’s face. She lost her grip on the handle and bounced across the floor and slammed into a leather-upholstered chair. She laid in the mess for a few crucial seconds collecting her senses.
Arawn untwisted the loop from his neck and tossed the whip to the floor. It was a useless strap to anyone but Argona. He picked up his sword instead and began to stalk towards her, his breathing ragged and his extremities numbed.
“I will never tell you or anyone where Caoranach is imprisoned.” He pointed his sword at her. “Her and her evil will never see the light of… ahhhhhh!”
Argona wasn’t sure what she was seeing. One moment Arawn was preaching at her and the next he was hovering in mid-air, screaming in agony. It wasn’t until blood began to drip to the floor that she noticed three points protruding from his midsection. Arawn’s head slumped forward just before he was tossed to the ground like a piece of garbage.
“Lir!” she shouted. “Is he… ?”
“No, I spared his life,” the powerful god said as he pointed to the trident’s head. “I control life and death with my Corpse Trident, Argona. Elathan needs him alive.”
Lir reached down and snatched Arawn by the collar and began to drag him out the door. Argona pulled herself out of the chair wreckage and hobbled over to her whip. She coiled it up and hitched it to her waist, the whole time wondering where the anxious, nauseous feeling had come from when she thought Lir had ended Arawn’s life. She pushed it back down to that place deep inside her; it was he who didn’t want to join her, after all. She left the castle following Lir’s lead, while suppressed memories itching to be revisited again played on the edge of her consciousness.
Chapter 12
Mirror Image
Della remained hidden in the bushes during the whole ordeal, but she especially hunkered down when Lir showed up. Of all the beings that Arawn kept in his trilithon prisons, Lir was the most terrifying. He was heartless and mirthless, black to his core. She became even more frightened of him when Lir carried Arawn’s flimsy, limp body away. Argona had emerged from the castle walking more somberly than Della would have expected. She followed Lir and mumbled sadly to herself along the way. Della apparently went unnoticed by her masters. Her breath caught in her chest as they walked further into the distance. The Puck forced her body and all of its involuntary functions to be silent as Argona and Lir disappeared from her sight.
“This is my chance,” she uttered softly.
She ran.
Fast.
Arawn’s castle was fading farther and farther behind her and that suited her fine. She moved quickly through the forests and the fields, in a hurry, but not really sure of her destination. Trees and rocks and rivers all started to look the same as she allowed her subconscious to take over the navigation. She finally stopped running and collapsed onto a soft patch of grass beneath a huge elm tree. She was huffing and puffing, trying to pull in oxygen in big gulps.
“So the traitor returns,” a voice from overhead scoffed.
Della hopped to her feet and backed away from the tree. She scanned up and around her and cringed when she spotted two fellow Pucks. Merble and Cy—former friends—dangling from a crooked branch. She realized that her subconscious had run her back to her birthplace and unfortunately for her, it was no longer a friendly site.
“I can’t believe my eyes, Merble,” Cy replied. “Never thought she would have had the guts to return to the Hallow.”
“Please, I didn’t come here for trouble,” Della pleaded.
“Trouble? You’re the one who brings trouble here, Della,” Merble replied, a scowl creasing her forehead. “You’ve got a lot of nerve coming here after last time.”
“Yeah, you were lucky the Grand Pim wouldn’t let us toss you in the gorge.” Cy dropped down to the ground a few feet from Della. He stood slightly taller than her and had his midnight black hair hanging around his head in loose curls. “But the Grand Pim isn’t here right now, is she?”
Merble let loose a whistle and Pucks started popping out of the trees, bushes, and high grasses, surrounding Cy and Della. Merble looked around at her clan—angry and seething at a Puck they believed to be a traitor—and they stared back. Their eyes glared at Della, displaying the hatred they were feeling for her.
“Please, I wasn’t able to escape until now. You don’t know what it was like,” she begged.
“No, you don’t know what it was like!” Merble shouted as she landed next to Della.
Merble grabbed the traitor by the hair and swung her towards the others. Della stumbled and fell into the clamp-like grasp of her kinsmen. They held her tightly even though she struggled mightily and began pulling her towards the edge of the ravine—a several hundred-foot drop to the river below.
“You don’t know how you have embarrassed our clan,” Merble snarled. “The harassment we took because others knew what you were doing and who you were working for.”
“Now we can show all of them that you are no longer one of us,” Cy stated. “Toss her over!”
Three rough looking male Pucks took her by her limbs and dragged her to the edge. They weren’t gentle when they slung her over the rim and out into the free space. The Pucks cheered as they watched her tumble towards the river.
Della was surprisingly calm. The cold air rushed into her face like a refreshing splash of a cold mountain stream. She waited patiently as she fell, wanting to fall beneath the cover of the low-lying clouds just below. Perhaps if they thought she was dead they wouldn’t pursue her.
Her body sailed through the clouds and she extended her cloak, catching the air just so, and zoomed parallel to the river that was still a good two hundred feet below her.
She sailed on the breeze not sure of what the future held for her, only that she was going to avoid Argona and the Pucks for as long as she possibly could.
…
“Okay, okay, hold on for a minute,” Brendan said, rubbing his eyes to help clear his head. “How did this happen? Why are you trapped in a mirror?”
“Don’t be daft, boy, no one can be trapped in a mirror,” Bibe’s image chuckled. “Think of me like a recording you humans are so fond of—you know like on the InterTube and VHS.”
Brendan cocked his head but got the gist. “So where is Bibe, you know the living one?”
The image shrugged. “Probably dead, who knows, but that’s not important now.”
“It’s probably pretty important to her… to you… whatever,” Brendan retorted, beginning to get flustered.
“Buck up, torty, you’re a Protector of the Earth and that comes with a great deal of responsibility. You can’t go worrying about every little life that’s flip-flapping around on the Earth. You need to focus, boy. Elathan is back and it does not get worse than that!”
“Thanks, I’m feeling better already,” Brendan replied sarcastically.
“Not all is lost, Brendan.” Bibe shook her head knowingly. “Being a Protector of the Earth not only brings responsibility and dangers that no human has ever faced but powers like none other. Can’t you feel it? Can’t you feel yourself growing stronger than ever before?”
“Sure, but that’s why I’m here. You were supposed to train me.”
“That’s why I’m here,” she said, eyeing Brendan as if he had the mind of a flea. “If the live me is gone, which by the way, Bibe figured would happen, then you got me as your back up.”
“Okay, fine. What do we do first?”
“Great, that’s the spirit. Did you find your sword downstairs, ‘cause you’re going to need it.”
Brendan pursed his lips and shook his head. “Sorry, Camulos got here before I did and stole it. I think he did someth
ing to you, too.”
“No sword! Great, we’re screwed!” mirror Bibe exclaimed.
“Why is the sword so important?”
“Don’t you know anything about anything, half-wit? The sword is Nuada’s gift to his Protectors, but not one of them has ever had it until you.” She stared at his eyes and waited for him to catch up. “Don’t you see, this is it, the end, there’s one shot and if you fail, then the Earth and everyone on it dies. You have to have that sword to even have a chance of defeating Elathan.”
Brendan slumped back in his chair, the weight of the world sitting squarely on his chest. “So you’re saying this is big?”
Mirror Bibe pointed at her own head. “You think?”
…
“Tech Duinn,” Tannus said with a sigh. “I never thought I’d be back here again or anywhere else in Otherworld for that matter.”
He gazed out at the fire lake outside of Elathan’s castle and took in a deep, hot breath. Camulos stepped around Tannus—the Sword of the Protectors balanced against his shoulder—and strode towards the castle. “Come, Tannus, Lord Elathan awaits.”
The doors slowly opened upon their approach, scraping across the stone floor and filling the vast hall with echoes upon echoes. Camulos did not hesitate to walk right in, swallowed by shadows in the darkened castle, but Tannus stopped at the threshold. He felt himself shaking slightly, his nerves beginning to get the best of him.
“No turning back now, Tannus,” he whispered to himself.
“Come on, Tannus,” Camulos called from the dark hall.
Tannus stepped into the darkness and saw that Camulos had already started walking ahead. He hastened his pace and evened up with the war god just as they entered Elathan’s throne room. The golden god was perched on his throne looking at a massive living mural of Otherworld on the wall. Tannus noticed that Brugh and Mag Mell were shrouded in gold while Ann wn, Tech Duinn, Caer Wydr, and Tir na nOg were all glowing white like tiny LED lights back on Earth.
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