“Tell me about Carman and the Morrigan’s final battle,” Tony begged him.
“Ach son, I must have told you that one about ten times…”
“I know, but it’s my favourite,” the boy replied. “I love all that final battle stuff. Isn’t there like a prophecy-“
“No,” James snapped, a mite more sharply than he meant to. He saw the boy recoil slightly as if stung, he regretted it instantly, but the more his son talked about this, the more he realised both how intently his son had taken everything in, and yet at the same time how he’d not listened to a word his father’d said. “This isn’t Tolkien. I wish you’d never read those daft books…”
Tony was walking faster now, outstripping his father’s walking pace, obviously hoping that he could outrun the lecture. James disappointed him in this hope by stretching out a hand and placing it on his shoulder firmly enough for him to get the message to stop, he halted, looking up at his father in the way children did, recalcitrance mixed with resentment at being rebuked in the first place.
“Son, you’re a Morrigan,” he said, realising even as he said the words that this was almost the exact same speech his father had given him, though he’d been three years older and a foot taller than Tony when he’d received it. “My only son, just as I was my father’s only son, just as he was his father’s. For one hundred and seventy years our family has continued in a line of single sons born. Why?”
“Because-“
He raised a finger, and Tony fell silent. “Because,” he said, “we’re charged with defending this country from them. From the Fair Folk. From the Low Ones.”
“Like Mr McStravick.”
James sighed. “Anthony Morrigan! For the hundredth millionth time, Mr McStravick has a hair lip, God love him. That does not make him an agent of the powers of darkness.”
“Ach Da!” Tony burst out incredulously. “It’s not just the hair lip! Wee Seamy McGlinch from Nansen Street kicked his ball into his back garden and nobody seen him for a fortnight after he tried to go and get it!”
“Same wee Seamy McGlinch that broke our back fuckin window last summer playin hurley?” James said hotly, scowling at the memory. “He probably got a toe up the hole and spent two weeks cryin into his soup over it, wee ballix. Must get oul McStravick a pint when we get back to Belfast…but anyway, stop interruptin!” he said, raising his voice in annoyance as much as himself as at his son. Somehow this wasn’t proving to be the big inspirational speech he’d hoped it to be.
He glanced around. The farmhouse hadn’t quite disappeared, but it was at least three miles away and deserted looking; most likely given the time the farmer was off tending to one of his fields or at market. Yes. This was safe enough.
“This place,” he said, gesturing around him even as he unshouldered his bag, “this place, son, goes way back. Some places, cities especially, they’ve been too modern too long. Magic slides off them like oil tryin to mix with water. But places like this…old places…they’ve still got the leylines.”
His son perked up at this. This was new. “Leylines?” he echoed.
“That’s the word for them now,” James said, as he set the backpack down on the grass, grateful to be rid of its weight but unable to stop his stomach from churning at what was going to come next. He kept talking. It kept him occupied. “Words change, son, as time passes. What used to just be called magic – well, that changes most of all. They call it all sorts of things now. They call it intuition. Psychic ability. Precognition. Telekinesis. Its all that new thing, that whaddaya call it? Sci somethin?”
“Sci fi,” his son supplied instantly. Too instantly for James’ liking.
James rolled his eyes. “Sci fi,” he repeated mockingly. “Never catch on, you wait and see. It’s like that Lord of the Rings shite – it’s good for a laugh, and that’s about the height of it.”
“Right, Da,” his son nodded, and James failed to detect the faint note of impatience in his voice, which was probably just as well. “So. Um. You were sayin, about leylines…?”
“Know them big electricity pylons up around the city?”
Tony frowned. “Yeah…?”
“Imagine an ancient, invisible version of them. Strung up all over the country; and I mean all over son – not a corner left out, not a patch of land that’s not on one or near one. Except it’s not electricity they carry.”
“It’s…magic?”
James was crouching now, his fingers fumbling at the zip of the backpack. He looked at the boy. “Why d’you say it like that?” he asked.
“Like that?” the boy tried, and crumbled in the face of his Da’s expression. He started scuffing at the ground with his feet, finding things to do so that he wouldn’t have to look in his father’s eyes. “Ach Da…” he said. “I mean this was a laugh, when I was younger. But I thought it was sorta like Santa, y’know. When I got big enough you’d have a wee word with me. I’m fourteen now like. I’m gettin a wee bit on for the…” he faltered, “…the stories. I still love them like, and you tell them amazing, but…well you get on like I’m s’posed to think it’s all true…”
James unzipped the bag.
“About fuckin time!” a voice called from within.
He tried not to take too much satisfaction from the colour draining from his son’s face upon hearing that voice. Or the few steps backward, of his own accord, that Tony took when the occupant of the bag clambered free from inside, all eighteen inches high of him; an incredibly wizened little old man, wearing a tiny little grey-green suit buckled with big black round buttons and capped off with smart little black shoes. He rubbed at his back and cast a filthy look in James’ direction.
“You coulda strapped the fuckin bag down! Six fuckin hours in that boot bein thrown from one end to the bastard other!” he said indignantly. His voice wasn’t high-pitched in the slightest; it was amazingly deep for someone of his tiny stature.
“Buh…” Tony gabbered, and lost his footing as he tried to take another long step backward, his gaze rotating between open-eyed terror at the newcomer and a betrayed look at his father. He landed on his arse on the grass and went backwards on his hands and knees as though he thought the little creature was going to launch itself at him.
“What’s up with him?”
“Brian, this is my son, Tony. Tony, this is Brian.”
Incredulity penetrated the fog of amazement and fear that had descended on the teenager. “Brian?” he said. “As in King-“
James was waving a hand desperately to try and stop him, but it was too late. Far too late.
“That’s right! That’s right! King Brian’s the name!” exclaimed the little man, doing a happy jig of joy and doffing his little cloth cap in respect to Tony, who by now had recovered sufficiently to get to his feet again. He sidled around in a long circular motion to stand once more beside his father, giving Brian a wide berth.
“King my arse,” James scoffed. “He only took that name on after watching that stupid film.”
“But he is a lepre-“
“Yes I am! Fifteen centuries born and bred! Begorrah!”
“Leave out that Begorrah shite will ye? Does he look like an American? He’s not a leprechaun. He’s one of the Low Folk.”
Brian scowled at James. It was amazing how quickly darkness descended on a face that only moments before had been full of twinkle and mischief. “Low Folk indeed!” he muttered, and added a few other choice comments under his breath; Tony didn’t catch the words, but the tone definitely wasn’t complimentary.
“I don’t believe it,” he said faintly. “I don’t…I mean…he’s…but…that means…”
“Yep,” his father said, and clapped him on the back. “So,” and he was really twisting the knife now, “what were you sayin before? Sorry I sorta tuned out for a moment…”
His son had the decency to flush scarlet. “Nothin,” he said.
“Attaboy,” James grinned at him, and then the rebuking gleam in his eyes softened and his voi
ce lowered. “Look…I don’t blame ye, son. I had my doubts too and when I was a boy we grew up with all this stuff; everyone did. The world seems to be movin on…its hard to believe in magic when you’ve a box in everyone’s house can show them anything imaginable. God only knows what your son will make of it when you have to tell him one day.”
Brian muttered something. James whirled on his heels so suddenly that the little creature almost died of fright. “What did you say?” he hissed.
“N…n-nothin…save that God willin his son will be big and strong,” Brian protested, face contorted in contriteness. Tony knew in that moment that Brian was lying; for an instant his tiny little eyes flicked to stare directly into his, and he could see something buried there before it was gone again and Brian was all smiles and beams. But for that split-second he’d glimpsed resentment, and more besides.
Tony learned so many things in the next few hours he felt as though his head weighed twice as much with the increase in knowledge. It turned out Brian was to be their guide; James knew an incantation that had a hold over him and summoned him for a day and night, and during that time he was duty-bound to obey what James commanded him. It was for this reason, Tony gathered, his father had spared the little creature’s life.
Watching Brian, he was unavoidably reminded of the informants the police used in the gangster movies; shifty, untrustworthy, useful enough – just – to merit their survival.
Brian scouted ahead; he had caught the scent of what they were after, which James was still coy about revealing to Tony. The farmhouse had long since vanished and they were now deep in the Mournes – on another day, in another state of mind, Tony might have wished for a few moments to linger and appreciate the breathtaking vista laid out below them, the blue ribbon of the sea along one horizon, the landscape of Down in the other.
Recollections of stories his father had held him spellbound with came back to him and he saw in his mind’s eye battles and chases and legends spring up fully-formed from the soil, but with the revelation that at least part of this was all now real, he found the images cast up even more vividly.
Every so often Brian would reappear and give them new directions. occasionally he would mutter to himself and give only the most cryptic of statements about how close they were to whatever it was they pursued. He knew his father wouldn’t have appreciated the comparison, but there was something distinctly Gollum-like about him now, and chills went down Tony’s spine; after all, Gollum had led Frodo and Sam into a trap…
“Oh don’t worry about him,” his father said softly, when Tony had finally found the courage to voice his concerns. “His masters know the help he’s given me in the past, you see, and they aren’t the forgiving sort. They won’t care if he was under a ‘fluence or not – for helping a Morrigan, he’s as good as dead if they get him. That’s why he comes so quickly when I call him, you know,” and he smiled grimly, “it’s not just because of the comehither I have on him; it’s because he daren’t stray too far from me.”
“Even in the city?”
James glanced at him. “You think they don’t come to the cities, too?” he said, and shook his head. “Son, some of them can make themselves seem as human as you or I. Some of them…” and Tony couldn’t suppress a shiver to see the shadow of fear enter his father’s eyes as he spoke, “…some of them, you’d never know a thing until it’s too late, and they’d get you. Then if you’re lucky, all they’d do is eat you.”
Tony’s head spun. A day ago the biggest concern he’d had in his whole existence was catching Pauline Scullion’s eye next time the Disco was on down at St. Bridget’s Hall, and now his father was telling him anyone, Pauline included, could be a monster painted with a human sheen slavering over the prospect of sinking fangs into his soft flesh. Although ironically, in a way that would make what he’d read about Pauline in the boys toilets at St. Bridget’s accurate (indeed, that was what had piqued his interest in her in the first place).
The more he heard about this, the more he was beginning to wish it had been filed under ‘Santa’. He learned from his father that in their true form, faeries could be as tiny as Brian, or smaller, but they could also be as big as twelve feet tall. They could change form. They could command creatures similar to themselves; a faerie with wolf aspects could command dogs, while a spider faerie – Jesus Christ, he wasn’t going to sleep for a month imagining one of those – had complete control over every creepy-crawly that scuttled in a half-mile radius.
Their only weakness, the only thing that stopped them completely in their tracks was iron – good solid iron. Apparently that was where the horseshoe myth about good luck came from; some sort of buried racial memory.
This was class. This was beyond his wildest dreams. His mind raced with the possibilities. If all this shit was true, then surely he and his Da had to have some sort of-
He asked the question breathlessly. The response was not what he expected.
“Nothing? What’d you mean, nothing?”
James laughed. He seemed to find his son’s consternation hilarious. “Powers? Why, what were you expectin? Did you think I only bought the car for show and I really flapped my arms and flew to work?”
“Ah, but come on, Da!” Tony wailed. “These things have claws and fangs and can do all sorts of fancy magic tricks and we’re the only ones that can stop them, and we’ve got no powers at all? I thought we were descended from the Morrigan! Wasn’t she some Goddess or what? She coulda give us something!”
“She did,” his father replied. “She gave us a role in the world, son. She gave us a purpose. There’s precious few people out there can say similar. And,” he added, as if making a concession, “if it’s any consolation, we’ve got…well…you’ll know it when it happens. We have a knack. An instinct. I wouldn’t call it a power, but it sets us apart. Makes us able to see them. Sense them. As for powers though, no, I think you’re gonna be disappointed. Unless you’re the one in the prophecy,” and he laughed again.
Tony stopped. They were almost at the top of one of the peaks, and he could see a flicker of movement ahead of them that was probably Brian returning with fresh directions. His legs ached, his lungs burned, and his mind was reeling from what he was hearing. He wasn’t about to let that one pass without comment.
“Prophecy?” he said. “Prophecy? I thought this wasn’t Tolkien, Da?”
“Don’t be cheeky, son.”
“But-“ Tony protested. “But you said-“ and then he deflated and gave up on it, because this was the sort of argument fathers always won by virtue of being fathers. “So what does it say?” he said, changing tack, his mind already buzzing with the possibilities.
James smiled for only a moment. “I had the same look in my eye when I heard about it,” he said. “Suppose we all did. Doesn’t do any harm to hope I suppose.”
“Da…”
“Okay,” his father held up a hand. He stepped closer to Tony and his voice dropped to a conspiratorial level; whether for dramatic effect or because he, too, had spotted Brian’s imminent arrival Tony wasn’t sure. When he spoke, it wasn’t in his father’s own speaking voice, not really; he had the oddest sense that he was hearing the combined voices of his male ancestors down the generations, reciting words they had all been taught.
“They say that one of us, one Morrigan…one of us will be chosen to represent her in the final battle against Carman.”
Tony frowned, trying to sort through the names and the stories. “Carman,” he echoed. “She’s the one came over from somewhere with someone and done something.”
“You’re a born storyteller, son.”
The name finally clicked. “She’s the witch with the demons for sons. The one that made all the fruit die and tried to take over Ireland.
“She’s the enemy,” James said quietly, having trouble looking at his son for a moment and looking out instead over the beautiful landscape around them.
“So she’s our Sauron?”
A breath escaped
his father’s lips with a resigned whee. “If you want. Anyway, when we face her…the Morrigan who is chosen will be put through more than the rest of us put together and have to endure it all. He’ll be granted the Morrigan’s power. The power of the Tuatha De Danann. A God’s power to remake the world with a thought and do the things the legends of the heroes speak of.”
Every hair on Tony’s head was tingling as though electricity was passing through his scalp. It’s me. It’s bound to be me. I’ll be the one that has to battle her and end it all, and when I do I’ll be fuckin UNSTOPPABLE. I’ll be like Superman and Cuchuliann rolled into one. Fuck Pauline Scullion – I’ll have Raquel Welch!!!
All of this must have passed across his face pretty close to the surface because his father chuckled. “Sorry, son,” he said ruefully. “I know what you’re thinking, believe me I do, but I already know it’s not gonna be you. And I hope to God it’s not going to be your wee fella either, whenever he comes along.”
“Why?”
James shushed him. “Well?” he said instead, turning to Brian
Brian pointed. “It’s two hundred feet up that slope. A few trees. You can’t miss it.”
James gave him a hard look. “You’re leaving?”
“Yes, I’m fucking leaving. Not that your company isn’t as delightful as ever. Good to meet you, Tony,” Brian said, turning to him and ignoring James. He smiled a smile that did not get northwards of his nose, his eyes still burning coldly. “The family line’s in good hands, if I’m any judge. Be seeing you. Be seeing you soon.”
He doffed his cap again, and seemed to dissolve into the air and the soil. Tony started backwards with an exclamation of surprise, all of the fears that had been running through his mind shortly before, were coming back to him with a vengeance. How were you supposed to fight things that could do something like that?
“Come on, son,” his father said. There was a rough edge to his voice now, fraught with apprehension. “We’re almost there.”
Folk'd Up Beyond All Recognition (FUBAR) Page 15