At the rate Elimyer was draining Éamonn, he’d be lucky to see his next birthday.
‘He’s a snack, dear,’ Elimyer said. ‘Not a life-long commitment. Have you been back long?’
Time meant little to Elimyer, so the question was more out of politeness than real interest. Nor was her mother concerned about anything she might have seen or done in the reality where she’d been living these past few months. A world without magic was inconceivable to a pure Daoine sídhe. Trása would have no luck explaining it, and Elimyer wasn’t interested, anyway.
‘Not long,’ Trása said.
‘And your mission for your uncle was successful?’ Elimyer asked, waving a hand to produce a magical bowl of fruit that was pretty and perfect but hardly enough to sate Trása’s appetite. This question was also asked out of politeness. Elimyer had no interest in politics. Even after living for fifteen years in the inner circle of the Druids, she had little or no care for their business — a source of endless frustration for her brother. Her mother’s lack of interest in human politics was what had caused Marcroy to turn to Trása, of this she was certain. As helping her uncle gave her a purpose in life, Trása was silently thankful Elimyer was only interested in artists, and what they could do for her.
‘Very successful,’ Trása said, taking a perfect apple from the bowl. She bit into it, the taste sublime, but the meat of the apple dissolved almost as soon as she began to chew. Elimyer had forgotten, apparently, that her daughter was half-human and, when in human form, needed human food to sustain her. ‘In fact, that’s why I’m here. To report my success.’
Elimyer nodded. ‘He’ll be glad to hear of it, dear,’ she said, ‘but he’s not here.’
‘Where is he?’
Her mother paused thoughtfully. ‘He did tell me, I’m sure … but you know how I am with things like that.’
‘Mother,’ Trása said firmly, taking her by the arms. ‘Concentrate. Where did Marcroy go?’
The leanan sídhe paused for a moment, her face creased into a thoughtful frown. Then she smiled. ‘I think he went to Sí an Bhrú. Something about a meeting with Álmhath and Darragh. Do you remember Darragh, dear? You and he used to be such good friends when you were smaller.’
Trása nodded. ‘I remember, Mama. Did he say when he’d be back?’
‘Who? Darragh?’
‘No, Marcroy,’ Trása said patiently.
‘He might have, darling. But I don’t remember.’ She gasped as if suddenly struck by a grand idea. ‘Why don’t you go to Sí an Bhrú and find him? I’m sure Darragh would like to see you, too.’
‘I’m not allowed to visit Sí an Bhrú, Mama. Don’t you remember?’
‘Why not?’
Trása stared at her mother for a moment and then let it go. If Elimyer didn’t remember the reason Trása was sent away from Sí an Bhrú, she wasn’t going to open any old wounds by reminding her.
‘Perhaps I will go,’ she said, wondering why she ever expected anything more from her mother. She was leanan sídhe. There was no fighting her nature. No trying to change it. No point in lamenting it. ‘Will you tell Marcroy I’m back if you see him before I do?’
Elimyer looked at her blankly. ‘See who, dear?’
CHAPTER 38
Marcroy Tarth was an oddity among the Tuatha Dé Danann. He loved politics. He loved scheming and plotting and manipulating affairs in a way that was rare among his kind. The Daoine sídhe as a race enjoyed amusing themselves with humans, true enough, but for Marcroy, it was more than a game. It was what he lived for.
Orlagh had once accused him of being part human, such was his fascination for politics and the pursuit of power. Although somewhat insulted by the comment, Marcroy couldn’t deny there was a glimmer of truth in the idea. It was that glimmer of truth that gave him the power he now enjoyed. Orlagh had chosen him as the instrument of her treaty. Marcroy alone, she believed, understood humans well enough to deal with them on a daily basis. The queen had no such talent or inclination. She had done what she must to protect the Daoine sídhe. She wasn’t bothered about what happened afterward.
Marcroy was able to convince Orlagh that the Treaty of Tír Na nÓg needed constant vigilance. No member of the Tuatha race was capable of breaking the treaty, but the treaty was with humans, and they were known to keep their word solemnly — right until the moment it suited them to break it. She had appointed her cousin the Tuatha envoy, and then left him to administer a treaty he despised and would have given anything to destroy. The magic was safe and Orlagh had negotiated a settlement that would keep it that way. She had no further interest in human affairs.
That the treaty was still in place after nearly two thousand years was proof Marcroy didn’t have a drop of human blood. If he had, he’d have found a way to circumvent the damn thing centuries ago.
He was always looking for loopholes. It was an amusing pastime that had become urgent, Marcroy thought as he watched Darragh approaching the Council of Druids, with the birth of this young man and his missing twin brother.
The irony was not lost on Marcroy. He was the very sídhe who had discovered the unique ability of psychically linked twins to channel the power of the Daoine sídhe, as if they had one foot in the world of man and another in the world of Faerie. The Romans under the Emperor Claudius were gathering their forces and would likely succeed in their invasion of Albion and, if that happened, Eire itself (or more importantly, Tír Na nÓg) would be directly threatened, unless drastic action was taken.
The Tuatha had seen the different outcomes in other realms. They could travel between worlds. The realms where the Romans had prevailed were already starting to lose their magic, a combination of the destruction of the Tuatha Dé Danann, and the rampant consumption of natural resources required to fuel their relentless progress. And the Tuatha’s fears had proved more than justified two thousand years later. There were realms where the Tuatha could no longer survive, drained of magic as the forests that replenished the source of their power were cut down to make way for machines. Lesser sídhe such as that annoying Leipreachán Plunkett O’Bannon, and mongrels like his niece Trása, were the only ones who could travel to those realms now and live to tell about it.
For all that Marcroy despised sharing his magic with these wretched humans, the treaty had been — and still was — the lesser of two evils.
Marcroy glanced up. It was almost midday, and the vast wooden arches of the circle where the Council had gathered cast almost no shadow. The sky was clear, the previous night’s rain a distant memory. The day was warm, cheery and at complete odds with the solemn nature of the ritual taking place on the crest of the hill overlooking Sí an Bhrú.
Soon, he consoled himself, it will be done. Soon Darragh and his brother will no longer be a problem.
He just needed the twins separated for a little longer, perhaps only a few days …
Afraid his thoughts would betray him, Marcroy forced himself to concentrate on the ceremony. Each of the Druids in the Council held a thick staff made of elm, which they thumped rhythmically on a small wooden pedestal on the ground in front of them, to alert the gods to their presence in the sacred circle. But the drumming, which normally Marcroy found quite soothing, set his teeth on edge today. Although he had no prescient ability to speak of, something felt awry. Something, somewhere, he feared, was not going according to plan, although he could not imagine what, because right now, everything was going exactly as he wanted.
He glanced across at Álmhath, who was standing next to her son, Torcán. The prince looked bored, having no idea of what was to come. Marcroy had insisted on that. Torcán was a fool, incapable of keeping his mouth shut. The best way to ensure he kept a secret was to be certain he wasn’t privy to it. The Celtic queen was looking her age today. Her face was lined, her blue eyes puffy and red rimmed, as if she’d suffered a sleepless night. She obviously couldn’t wait for what was coming.
He understood her anticipation. For a sídhe limited so severely by the laws o
f his own people, things could not have worked out better for Marcroy. Darragh was right where they wanted him — in danger of losing his seat through his own foolishness.
Or he would be, if the Druids had been able to find another set of psychically linked twins to take his place. A generation lost, and the power would slip away from man. The Treaty of Tír Na nÓg guaranteed the sharing of power only while the twin line remained unbroken. Miraculously, the Druids had always managed to produce another set of psychically linked twins, generation after generation for the past two thousand years.
The search for heirs to the Undivided kept the Druids endlessly occupied. And somehow the Matrarchaí, the caste of Druid women charged with finding these rare and precious twins, had always found another set. Until now.
Marcroy was never quite sure how they’d managed. The reason he had not objected to the treaty clause that continued the magical sharing with the Druids after the Roman threat was defeated, was Marcroy’s belief that psychically linked twins were so improbable, there was little or no chance the Druids would be able to keep the line going. It didn’t seem to be an hereditary skill. Over the years, many of the Undivided had produced twin offspring who shared little more than a name and an uncanny resemblance to each other. Just as many Undivided heirs had appeared out of nowhere, from human family lines with no history of twins, or magical ability. Druid women seemed a little more able to produce psychically linked twins more often than ordinary women. Marcroy recalled that RónánDarragh were the get of the lovely Druid Sybille — but it was by no means a certain thing.
As Marcroy puzzled over the history of the Undivided, the Druids chanted in a monotone. Finally, Darragh entered the circle. By then, the prayers calling on the gods and goddesses had been going on for the better part of an hour.
‘Siuil linn a Danú,’ the Druids chanted as they thumped their staves. ‘Siuil linn a Uathach.’
Walk with us, Danú. Walk with us, Uathach.
Marcroy mouthed the words of the chant, but his mind was in other places as he reflected on the contribution he’d made to this awkward situation. And he had contributed to it. He was prepared to admit that much to himself.
‘Siuil linn a Rhiannon.’ Walk with us, Rhiannon.
It wasn’t that there hadn’t been enough magic to defeat the Romans back then, simply that there hadn’t been enough Tuatha to deliver it. It was Marcroy’s idea to enlist the Druids as allies. He’d heard of other sídhe in other realms, saving the day in a similar fashion — although if he’d known how it would end, he would have thought twice about suggesting they follow the same course. Druids knew a little magic, although only a few of them could truly wield it, they worshipped the same gods as the Daoine sídhe, and shared a similar outlook on many fundamental beliefs.
They had seemed perfect allies.
All the Tuatha had to do was find a way to allow the Druids access to their magic — using psychically linked twins — as they had in other realms, and their effective numbers would increase tenfold. It was enough to send Claudius scurrying back to Rome, leaving their islands safe and the humans who made up the fractured tribes of Britain, Ireland, Scotland and Wales, free to continue to do what they did best, which was — in Marcroy’s opinion — to fight each other.
It made for little progress but it kept the Druids from growing too strong.
Let the Romans attack Persia and recreate Alexander’s glory. Let the Djinn fight off the Roman desire for empire. Let Claudius take his legions to China and face the wrath of the Tian-wang. Let them see how far they got attacking the islands guarded by the Youkai. The Tuatha just wanted to be left in peace.
‘Siuil linn a Ogma.’ Walk with us, Ogma.
If only they’d seen how the balance of power would shift so dramatically in favour of the Druids. Who would have imagined the whole world might one day turn to them, and not the Tuatha Dé Danann, for guidance and direction?
Marcroy frowned as Darragh came closer, thinking the boy seemed cockier than the situation warranted. Was he just being a foolish child or was there a reason for the boy’s confidence?
‘Siuil linn a Telta.’ Walk with us, Telta.
It had been almost two thousand human years since the Treaty of Tír Na nÓg was shaped, although for Marcroy and his people, time was a fluid thing. For the Daoine sídhe it was not measured nearly so inflexibly as humans measured it, with their clocks and calendars and constant arguments about the movement of the planets around the sun.
Sixty generations of Undivided had come and gone since then.
Sixty generations passed before this young man and his missing brother were born.
Sixty generations to find a pair of twins who didn’t need the Tuatha to bestow their power on them.
Sixty generations to find a pair of twins powerful enough to use magic without help from anyone.
Marcroy remembered well the ceremony that had marked Rónán and Darragh with the magical triskalion that would allow the magic to flow into them and, through the twins, to every other Druid marked the same way. The three-legged symbol merged the power of three worlds: the Otherworld, the Mortal World and the Celestial World. It was on the Celestial plane that the rifts to other realms could be opened.
‘Siuil linn a Gráinne.’
Marcroy had never imagined the Druids would find such a use for that magical power. It was something, he realised, they should have foreseen.
It had happened a long time ago, but he still clearly recalled the tall stones of Beltany casting their shadows over the stone platform where the infant heirs lay. As tradition demanded, when the new heirs had passed their first birthday, they were branded with the magical triskalion that allowed the power to flow from the Daoine sídhe to the human realm. That way, should anything happen to the reigning Undivided, the flow of magical power to the Druids remained uninterrupted.
It was a ceremony Marcroy had presided over sixty times before. A boring ceremony full of absurd ritual having little to do with the business at hand. He’d been stifling a yawn when Orlagh stepped forward and took each of the year-old twins by the hand — Rónán by the left and Darragh by the right — and branded them magically with the symbol that would act as a conduit between the Tuatha and the Druids. The magical symbol that gave the Druids, and all those similarly branded, access to the Three Worlds.
He’d waited, expecting the children to howl with pain. After all, it was much more than a surface tattoo the sídhe queen was bestowing on them. She was branding them to the bone, searing the magical symbol so deeply that even losing that limb would not interrupt the flow of power.
But the boys hadn’t cried. They cooed and smiled as if feeding at their mother’s tit.
‘Siuil linn a Eostre.’
It was only then that Marcroy started to pay attention. It was only then he realised the danger the Tuatha were in. It was only then that the need for a plan to contain the Undivided came to him.
Jamaspa came to him a few days after the branding to warn him of the danger he had glimpsed for himself. These children, the Undivided twins, would be their undoing, the Djinni warned. They had seen it happen in other realms. It would not be permitted to happen here. Either Marcroy did something about it, or the Brethren would.
It had taken Marcroy the better part of two years to find a way to reduce the risk of the Undivided without breaking his oath to uphold the Treaty of Tír Na nÓg. It had seemed such an elegant solution, too. Break the boys apart. Never let them discover how powerful they would be if they acted together. Keep them contained until the line died out or they could be replaced.
These boys — these psychic twins born of a human woman — obviated the need for the treaty. There was no need for spells or magical tattoos, Jamaspa told him. These children could take from the sídhe that which had, until now, been given only under very specific conditions.
‘Siuil linn a Bel.’ Walk with us, Bel.
Darragh finally stopped before the gathered Druids who were, for the most
part, wearing animal masks making them look like a horned herd of demonic creatures. The drums fell silent.
The young man seemed undaunted. Marcroy wanted to believe it was because Darragh had grown up with ceremonies such as this that they held no fear for him. He worried Darragh’s confidence meant he was up to something.
He’s nothing more than an irritating boy, Marcroy reminded himself, hoping his uneasiness was simply a reaction to the awful food in Sí an Bhrú, and not something more worrying. That which makes him dangerous, his twin, is in another realm, trapped and unable to return.
Trása had seen to that. His mongrel halfblood niece, of whom he had despaired for most of her growing years, worrying her affection for Darragh would lead them all into even worse trouble should she share her mother’s fascination for humans. It was a condition of the treaty — for obvious reasons — that no sídhe would ever produce a child with one or other of the Undivided. Until Marcroy had arranged to remove her from Sí an Bhrú and bring her back to Tír Na nÓg, where she couldn’t make trouble — innocent or otherwise — he’d never really breathed easy. And now … to his great surprise, she’d proved to be useful.
He’d sent her to look for Rónán to get her out of the way. He’d even sent her with that fool, Plunkett O’Bannon, the most useless Leipreachán in this realm, certain she’d get herself — and probably Plunkett — killed in a world she didn’t know or understand.
And yet it was Trása who’d found the missing twin he’d cast into another realm, and it was Trása who had promised him the boy would remain trapped there, out of reach of the Druids, forever.
You’d not be looking so smug now, young Darragh, he thought, if you knew that.
Farawyl, Druidess and High Priestess of Sí an Bhrú, now stepped forward. She wore a stag-head mask, which distorted her voice as she finished the prayer that would enable congress to commence.
The Undivided Page 27