The Undivided

by Jennifer Fallon; Jennifer Fallon

  Marcroy wished he was able to voice such a definitive sentiment so readily, but he couldn’t. The Treaty of Tír Na nÓg was inviolable. He was Faerie and so bound by Faerie law he could barely contemplate endangering the treaty his queen had made on behalf of the Tuatha, let alone breaking it. Yet the warning the Brethren had brought him all those years ago — the warning that had prompted him to subvert Amergin and sunder the Undivided — called to another, even more profound oath he was sworn to uphold. The protection of his people.

  Marcroy had never before been so conflicted; never had to deal with two binding oaths so at odds with one another.

  ‘I have rift runners combing the other reality,’ he assured the djinni. ‘They will ensure Rónán stays out of reach until the new Undivided are invested. Once that happens — once the power is transferred — Darragh will be dead and he’ll take Rónán with him, wherever he may be. The threat will be gone.’

  ‘But not this cursed treaty of yours.’

  Marcroy shook his head. ‘Unfortunately, no. The Treaty of Tír Na nÓg will remain intact. But then, it must. I have no choice in the matter.’

  ‘Orlagh has much to answer for, binding us to that cursed treaty,’ Jamaspa said, his form darkening with anger. ‘She had no right to make such a promise. No right to swear a treaty that binds all Faerie into this absurdity. Would it not cause the breaking of the treaty, and the oath she took on our behalf, the Brethren would remove her themselves.’

  Although Marcroy had always known of the resentment among the elders of the Faerie races over the arrangement the Tuatha queen had made to save her people, he’d never realised just how angry they were.

  Perhaps he should warn his queen?

  All in good time. After all, if anything happened to Orlagh, he would become king of the Daoine sídhe.

  ‘How will they find him?’

  ‘Pardon?’ Marcroy had become lost, for a moment, in the enticing prospect of kingship.

  ‘The realm Amergin sent the child to? It’s populated by millions, I’m told.’

  ‘Billions,’ Marcroy corrected, although the concept was just as hard for him to grasp as it was for Jamaspa. No full-blooded Tuatha or Djinni could travel to a world without magic. They were forced to rely on the reports of the half-human rift runners they sent in their stead, for news of what was happening in the other realms.

  ‘How will they find him among billions?’

  ‘I sent someone who knows Darragh by sight. She’ll know Rónán when she finds him.’

  ‘Who did you send?’

  ‘My niece, Trása.’

  Jamaspa smiled. ‘Amergin’s mongrel daughter?’

  Marcroy nodded.

  ‘You have a wonderful sense of irony, cousin.’

  Before he could respond, Guinness McGee, the Leipreachán he’d arranged to manage his wardrobe for this all-important meeting in Sí an Bhrú, popped into existence a few feet below him, on the steep slope of the hill. With a squawk, the Leipreachán and the bundle of clothes tumbled backward for a short distance, until they came to a halt, tangled in the branches of a small shrub, several yards from where Marcroy and the djinni waited.

  Guinness scrambled back up the slope toward them, struggling to keep his hat on, his pipe upright and the bundle off the ground, muttering to himself. Jamaspa shook his head, frowning, and turned to Marcroy. ‘Your lesser sídhe make the sílā seem graceful and intelligent by comparison.’

  Watching Guinness stumbling over his own feet as he tried to drag the bundle of Marcroy’s precious clothing up the damp, grassy slope, Marcroy was tempted to agree, but he’d had enough of Jamaspa’s smug superiority for one day. ‘Do you think so, cousin?’ he asked curiously. ‘I’ve always considered a lesser sídhe who can be trained to fetch and carry, far more useful than one who prefers to inhabit rocks and trees with no other purpose than to leap out and kill things when the mood takes it.’ He gave Jamaspa no chance to reply, turning to Guinness. ‘You’re late, McGee. I said sunset.’

  ‘The sun not be set yet, me lord, so I be here, when and where ye asked me,’ the Leipreachán exclaimed, looking wounded as he handed the bundle over to Marcroy. ‘It not be me fault that ye big blue friend here threw me off course.’

  ‘The bug speaks,’ Jamaspa remarked, glaring down at the Leipreachán. ‘Shall I squash it for you, cousin?’

  ‘If you wish.’

  Guinness squawked with fear and took a step backward, which sent him tumbling back down the hill. Marcroy smiled at the sight and then turned to Jamaspa, offering the jewelled brooch holding the bundle together, intended to secure his cloak once he was dressed. ‘Here,’ he said. ‘I’ll carry you in this.’

  Jamaspa frowned. ‘It’s very small.’

  Marcroy examined the gold filigree and amethyst brooch for a moment and then shrugged. ‘I’m sorry, cousin, I assumed a Marid of your power could possess any item, no matter how small. A thousand pardons for overestimating your skill.’

  The djinni couldn’t ignore such a blatant challenge. He glared at Marcroy for a moment and then abruptly turned into a narrow plume of blue smoke, which quickly disappeared into the brooch, darkening the stone to a purple so deep it was almost black.

  Marcroy held the brooch up in front of his face to address the jewel’s occupant. ‘I’ll tell you when it’s safe to come out, but it won’t be until we’ve left Sí an Bhrú. The humans can have no hint of the presence of a djinni in their stronghold, and you know as well as I that, unrestrained, Darragh and probably more than a few Druid sorcerers in Sí an Bhrú, will feel your presence. Be patient, cousin.’

  The jewel flared in acknowledgement of Marcroy’s warning. Satisfied that he would be able to carry his djinni companion into the very heart of the Druid stronghold without them being any the wiser, Marcroy tossed it onto his cloak and began to get dressed. The sun was almost set. They would be waiting for him in the main hall, expecting him to arrive with a huge entourage. Appearing alone would confuse the Druids no end.

  As he pulled the silk embroidered shirt over his head, he caught sight of a plume of dust on the road below, heading toward Sí an Bhrú.

  So Álmhath has arrived, he thought, as he spied her canopied wagon in the centre of the line of armoured, pike-carrying riders. Her response to his news — and the reason for this meeting — had been enthusiastic, but forced. One would think, given she had been living in the shadow of the splintered Undivided for so long, his news would have pleased her. And after she recovered from her initial shock, she seemed keen enough to call this meeting and set the wheels of change in motion. But she wasn’t. And that puzzled Marcroy.

  Still, it didn’t really matter now. The trap was closing. Very soon, the Undivided would be replaced with twins far less dangerous than the divided RónánDarragh. The treaty would remain intact. The fate the Brethren had seen in other realms would not befall them here in this one.

  All it needed now was a little time, and for Marcroy’s half-human niece, Trása, to prove worthy of his trust by ensuring Rónán of the Undivided never found his way home to this realm.

  CHAPTER 5

  The only thing that made losing one’s magic bearable, Trása thought, as she picked up the remote control, was television. Even after six months in this strange realm with its huge cities, its countless people and its incomprehensible array of gadgets for every purpose — no matter how trivial or inane — the real magic in this world, Trása decided, was television.

  She could watch it for hours, and often did, using it as a visual instruction manual on how to exist in this reality. Nothing she’d been told before she left her own realm had prepared her for the sheer enormity of this one.

  It was overwhelming, and to make matters worse, her search wasn’t so much looking for a needle in a haystack as searching for a single grain of sand on an endless, sparkling beach.

  ‘Can we watch The Simpsons?’

  Trása started at the unexpected voice and turned to her newly arrived companion wit
h a puzzled look. He had materialised out of thin air and stretched out across the bedspread, his red coat unbuttoned to reveal an orange and green tartan waistcoat underneath. His matching red hat sat at a jaunty angle on his head, forced there by the fact that he was resting his pointy little chin on his left hand.

  ‘How long have you been there?’ she asked the Leipreachán, flicking past the news channels as she turned back to the TV. Trása found television news boring beyond words. The programs — and there seemed to be thousands of them — just repeated the same thing, over and over, never actually adding anything useful to the discussion, more often than not on subjects that made no sense to her at all. She preferred programs that showed real human dramas, true glimpses of life in this strange reality, like Coronation Street and The Bold and the Beautiful.

  ‘Long enough,’ the Leipreachán said. ‘Ye’re up early.’

  ‘So are you,’ she replied, stopping when she came to a channel dedicated to her other favourite topic — celebrity gossip. She was fascinated by these golden creatures called celebrities, even though — after nearly six months — she still hadn’t figured out what made one human a celebrity over another. ‘You haven’t been out causing trouble again, have you, Plunkett?’

  ‘Of course I have,’ the Leipreachán said, looking at her as if it was the most foolish question ever posed. ‘This is London.’

  ‘It’s nothing like the London I know,’ Trása said with a frown, stopping on a channel showing scenes from a movie premiere the night before. Trása had no interest in the film, but she did love the pretty dresses parading down the red carpet. There were so many colours, so many gorgeous fabrics, so many wonderful jewels, all worn by beautiful, elegant women who didn’t seem quite real.

  ‘Ye think this place is strange? Wait ’til ye see New York.’ Plunkett pulled his pipe from his pocket — already alight — and began to puff on it contentedly, despite the ‘no smoking’ sign prominently displayed on top of the TV. ‘Did ye know New York has a big parade every year for us? On St Patrick’s Day?’

  ‘Who’s St Patrick?’ she asked, only half listening to the little man. His daily escapades were of little concern to Trása. He was here to aid her search for the missing Undivided twin. It was an almost impossible task, made worse because there was so little magic left in this realm, only the smallest of the Daoine sídhe could still tap into it. Trouble was, the smaller the Faerie, the more easily they were distracted. The Leipreachán were about the only sídhe still able to use magic — limited though it was — in this reality, who could be relied upon to do as they were told.

  Well, most of the time anyway.

  Not that Plunkett O’Bannon was very reliable. His idea of entertainment was appearing to drunks and drug addicts in alleys late at night and coaxing them into handing over their valuables in return for vague promises of good fortune, wealth and even the odd pot of gold. They’d been living on stolen credit cards since they arrived, procured magically by Trása’s larcenous little companion. She didn’t think he’d given that up just because — at this very moment in time — their hotel bill wasn’t due.

  ‘Patrick be the patron saint of Ireland.’

  ‘What’s a saint?’

  ‘Not sure, t’be honest.’

  ‘Then who made him one?’

  ‘The Christians, I think.’

  Trása shook her head and picked up the room service menu, the part of her not listening to Plunkett debating whether to have breakfast sent up or to brave the restaurant. ‘I will never understand how a ragtag bunch of Hebrew outcasts managed to end up in control of half this realm,’ she remarked. The various religions of this reality were even more confusing than the rules of celebrity. Surely the deities of her reality had existed here at some point? Had they not resisted the notion that one of their number was more powerful, more worthy of worship, than all the others? Or had the gods faded here — like the magic — leaving only their human worshippers with their human delusions of grandeur to carry on in their names?

  ‘Ye should watch the History Channel more often,’ the Leipreachán advised. ‘Ye’ll find Christians ruling the world is no more strange a thing than a score of other odd occurrences that have happened in this realm.’

  ‘I suppose.’

  ‘If ye can’t find The Simpsons, Road Runner will do.’

  Although they both regularly viewed the History Channel with something approaching awe as they watched documentary after documentary detailing the bizarre past of this realm, Plunkett was almost as fond of cartoons as Trása was of soap operas and the E! Channel. Fortunately, she controlled the remote. For some reason — possibly the magic that infused every cell of the Leipreachán — when Plunkett tried to use anything battery operated, it shorted out. As a consequence, Plunkett watched what she wanted, and if Plunkett wanted to watch cartoons, he had to earn it.

  One did what they must, to control a creature as fickle as a Leipreachán.

  ‘What do you want for breakfast?’ she asked, tossing the remote on the bed as she reached for the phone. With a Leipreachán for company, a public dining room was a bad idea.

  ‘Bacon,’ Plunkett announced. ‘Mounds of it.’

  Trása wondered why she’d even bothered to ask. In some things, Plunkett was as predictable as a rainy summer in Tír Chonaill. She muted the TV with its breathless descriptions of the designer dresses worn by the celebrities attending last night’s star-studded movie premiere and dialled room service.

  ‘Room service. How can I help you?’

  ‘This is room five-fourteen,’ she said, pleased she was now able to do this as if it was the most natural thing in the world. It had taken her months to gain the confidence to use a telephone with ease, something Plunkett took a certain degree of malicious glee in reminding her. ‘I wish to order breakfast.’

  ‘Of course, madam,’ the oddly accented male voice on the other end replied. ‘What would you like?’

  ‘Um … two American breakfasts,’ she said, even though she considered it a silly description. If every American ate bacon, eggs, hash browns, tomato and beans for breakfast every day, they’d all be as fat as those little Chinese Buddha statues, and all the Americans she’d seen on TV were quite thin. Some of them seemed to be actually starving. ‘One with extra —’

  ‘Holy Jaysus, Mary and Harry!’ Plunkett suddenly exclaimed. He’d been experimenting with the curses of this reality ever since they arrived. This was his latest favourite, having heard it a couple of weeks ago on TV. Unfortunately, he could never remember the last name that belonged in the phrase so he usually added whatever he thought of first. Trása thought the right name might have been John or Jerry. She was quite certain it wasn’t ‘Harry’.

  ‘Do you mind!’ she hissed, putting her hand over the receiver. ‘I’m on the phone!’

  The Leipreachán didn’t answer her. He was jumping up and down on the bed, red coat-tails flapping, pointing at the TV, his little eyes fairly bulging out of his head. He was nigh on apoplectic with excitement.

  ‘Extra bacon,’ she said to the room service man on the other end of the phone.

  ‘Certainly, madam,’ he replied. ‘That will be —’

  Trása hung up the phone. ‘Plunkett! You stupid little sídhe! How many times have I told you,’ she said sternly, turning to look at whatever it was that had the little Leipreachán so excited, ‘that when I’m talking to real people in this world, you need to keep qui — Oh, by the Goddess Danú!’

  Trása grabbed the remote, unmuted the sound and sat on the edge of the bed, staring at the screen, almost as apoplectic as the Leipreachán. On the TV, wearing an expensive, beautifully tailored tuxedo, his dark hair falling across his achingly familiar sapphire eyes, and on the arm of a stunning older woman, was the young man she’d come here looking for.

  Darragh of the Undivided.

  Or, rather, Darragh’s twin brother, Rónán. Darragh was back home where he belonged. In her own realm.

  Her heart pound
ing, Trása turned up the volume. ‘… and here comes the star of Rain over Tuscany herself,’ the female presenter was gushing. ‘The fabulous Kiva Kavanaugh, escorted this evening by her son, Ren.’

  ‘His name be Rónán, not Ren,’ Plunkett told the reporter on the screen, a little miffed they got it wrong.

  ‘Shhh … I’m trying to listen.’ Trása wasn’t really surprised — or concerned — to learn Rónán had a different name in this realm. It would have surprised her more if he’d had the same name. And it was easy to guess where the diminutive came from. After all, the twins’ Druid mother, Sybille, was from Gaul. Although Trása had never known her, Sybille probably called Rónán by the French version of his name — Renan. Perhaps that’s all Rónán remembered about who he really was.

  ‘My, hasn’t he grown into the handsomest young man,’ the presenter’s male counterpart sighed.

  ‘That’s right, Clive. But it’s rare to see Ren in public.’ Sally smiled and winked at her unseen audience. ‘Well, I’m sure he’s thrilled to be here, sharing this moment with his mother.’

  Trása thought that highly unlikely. The young man in question seemed anything but happy. In fact, he looked as if he’d rather be anywhere but standing next to the star of the night, blinded by a hailstorm of flashbulbs, fending off his mother’s screaming fans.

  ‘The triskalion! The triskalion! Can ye see the triskalion?’

  ‘Not unless he waves at the camera, idiot,’ Trása pointed out, her gaze glued to the TV.

  Reporter Clive nodded enthusiastically to his co-host. ‘You’re right, Sally. If you remember, this is the boy Kiva rescued from drowning in that terrible boating accident while she was filming Fire on the Water up in Northern Ireland.’

  ‘It’s him!’ Plunkett shouted, jumping up and down on the bed even harder. ‘It’s him! It’s him! It’s him!’