The Conjurers

by David Waid

  Once again, Eamon felt the weight of the skinning knife in his sleeve. Cahill draped an arm across the boy’s shoulder and pulled him close. It was a casual embrace, as though he were a comrade, yet Cahill held the long knife where Eamon could see it by his face.

  Not five paces away, Duff lay grievously wounded, yet the boy found himself thinking of the starvation and suffering Father Rhys had talked about: hard times driving men like this to desperate acts. He thought about that as Cahill threw back his head, taking a deep draught of whatever caustic liquor the jug held. He thought, too, of the people Cahill had killed as the man’s Adam’s apple bobbed beneath the dirt lines and scruffy hairs of his neck.

  Nairne seemed fixed on her work, but to Eamon, her movements seemed jerky and her hands were shaking, back straight and stiff. He pictured Corc and Mabon making their way to the barn, the smaller bandit cursing and fretting Baodan’s body through drifts of snow. Although Eamon knew little time had passed, a part of him imagined it racing and the two bandits already trudging their way back.

  Light flickered along the knife blade, bringing Eamon to the present. Chuckling, Cahill bounced the knife in his fingers, eyes wandering to the long table with its treasures. Eamon knew he must act quickly or not at all. His sister sat by the hearth with hands in her lap, big green eyes meeting his own, as though she knew what it was he would do. Cahill began to hum. Eamon couldn’t swallow, could barely breathe.

  He worked the skinning knife down so that its tip emerged from his sleeve, further still and the handle of it touched the boy’s palm. The jug of poteen that had been resting in Cahill’s lap raised once more to his lips. The brigand’s chin went up and a trail of the liquor worked its way down a crease in the corner of his mouth.

  Sick to his stomach, Eamon looked at his sister once more and pressed his lips together. Pivoting in Cahill’s embrace, he whipped the knife blade across the brigand’s windpipe with all his strength. It happened with such sudden force, the chair tipped backwards and Cahill went sprawling, heels upended. The jar of poteen exploded against the slate flags. Dropping his long knife, both the bandit’s hands flew to his neck where blood flooded through his fingers. He turned on his side, still holding his throat, eyes wide. He tried to get to his feet. Nairne, flailing her arms, found his legs and held them so that he tripped and fell.

  “Finish him! Finish him!” she said in a fierce whisper.

  Eamon jumped on Cahill’s back and stabbed at his body, blade scraping ineffectually against the boiled leather of his armor. Glimpsing an opening in the joint of the man’s armpit, he jammed the knife in, as fast and hard as he could. Lakes of blood pooled beneath the struggle, more by the bandit’s thighs, and Eamon knew the old woman had cut some thick, purple vein. Cahill’s blood flowed and his struggles faded, movements growing smaller and smaller until they ceased altogether.

  Nairne shoved Cahill onto his back and crawled to where she could spit in his face. “That’s for my son, murderer, and may the Divil take ye.” She stood, hands and arms stained red. “Quick. The others’ll be back soon enough.”

  Outside, ice cracked on a tree and all three of them jumped.

  “Place yer stepfather on a skin and drag him to Baodan’s room.” She continued to speak as she felt her way past the table and its tumbled chairs. “With me and yer sister in tow, ye’d never make it to the nearest farm, but alone ye may.”

  “You’re mad if you think I’m leaving without you.”

  “The way to our root cellar lies beneath a stone in Baodan’s room. Ye’ll be leaving us to hide, not die.”

  For a moment he hesitated, then gave a quick nod. He and Caitlin pulled Duff as fast as possible. Together, they got him through the door to the bedroom as Nairne pulled a basket away from one of the room’s corners. Beneath it lay a wide paving stone that she lifted with some effort, leaning it back against the wall. A crude hole was revealed, perhaps two and a half feet across. Eamon grabbed a candle and lowered his hand inside. Dusty steps dropped five feet to a small, dirt-walled cyst holding bushels of oats, flax, peas and barley.

  He and his sister slid Duff down the steps, wincing at every bump. At the bottom, they tucked the skin around him for warmth. As Eamon emerged from the hole, Nairne grabbed his arm. “As fast as yer legs’ll carry ye, make for the south and the road ye came in on.” He put on shoes and the old woman tossed him an overlarge coat, groped from Baodan’s chest. “Follow but a mile farther and ye’ll find the farm of Selig Mór and his grown boys. They’ll rouse the parish.”

  Eamon blew out the candle as Nairne joined Caitlin in the hole. His last sight of the two was of their pale faces looking up, bodies lost in darkness, then the flag scraped back into place.

  Exiting the bedroom, Eamon paused, afraid they might have left a blood trail from his stepfather’s wound to give away the cellar’s location, but he found none. On the ground by the bandit chieftain’s corpse lay the skinning knife and the much larger dagger he’d held to Eamon’s neck. Grabbing the dagger, Eamon scanned the room a final time. As he did, his eyes swept across the table and its glistening treasures.

  Beyond the table stood the door Corc and Mabon had gone through. It might open at any time, and the boy’s flesh crawled, knowing he’d be caught like a startled rabbit. Yet these treasures, so important to Father Rhys — he couldn’t leave them. The priest had hidden them in a church crypt for fifteen years, a secret from all but God. Eamon would not let his murderers have them.

  Seizing a blanket from the floor, he spread it on the table. The hairs on his nape stirred as he turned his back on the door for a moment, but he swept the treasures up, tied the ends of the blanket together and swung it over one shoulder. Then, feverish and giddy with relief, Eamon ran through the back door of the house, out into the frozen night.

  Behind the farmhouse, the hill descended to a low wall, and beyond that to open slope. The boy swung right and at the end of the building saw a clear space must be crossed before reaching the cover of trees. Beyond the trees, the road curved off toward settlements and the coast.

  An expanse of snow led uphill past the farmhouse to where the worn, swaybacked barn sat, the building in which Corc and Mabon had been told to deposit their load of corpses. Though its door was closed, chinks in the barn’s timber wall created flickering pinpricks of light.

  Nairne had said to run for Selig Mór and his kin, but Eamon stopped in the open, gripped by the sight of something that stood upright, halfway to the barn. A figure wavered there, looking his way, or so he thought in the dark. It stood wrapped in colorless fabric, nearly lost against the blanket of snow on which it stood. He couldn’t tell if this was something real or a trick of the eyes. It seemed to shift, extending a hand. He couldn’t discern the face, yet something about it rang familiar.

  “Mother?”

  The figure flitted backward over the snow toward the barn.

  “Wait,” he said in a croaking whisper.

  Dropping the bundled blanket, Eamon raced up the slope. “Mother!” he whispered again.

  The figure disappeared into the dark nightshadow on the side of the barn. Knowing Corc or Mabon might hear him, Eamon vacilated, trying to penetrate the dark with his eyes, searching from side to side, seeing nothing. He caught the low murmur of the brigands’ voices and drew closer, controlling his breath as best he could.

  The figure he thought he’d seen was gone. All about were old wooden implements that looked like they’d been thrown outside to rot. They were capped with snow, bloated and warped with damp: long handled tools, an overturned wheelbarrow, a trough and, against the wall, stacked pails.

  Hearing the voices again, he crept close to a chink in the wood and brought his eye to the light. A breath of moist air touched his face, heavy with the fug of hay and dung. The brigands had set a lantern atop a short, wooden post and faced each other above it. Mabon’s shoulders were slumped while Corc’s head jutted forward aggressively. From out of sight to the left, came the scuff and shuffle of b
easts.

  “Ye should go back,” Mabon said. “Cahill is going to be angry.”

  “Shite on Cahill. Haven’t ye been listenin’ to a word I’ve said?”

  “Ye said we should kill him.”

  “Aye. An’ if we do, the entire treasure’s ours. We’ll be wealthy men, and no more witchy woman t’ give us orders.”

  “Cahill is our chief.”

  “Sairshee pulls his strings. Besides, the man’s wounds’ll slow him down and us in the bargain. He’s already dead, he just don’t know it.”

  “It’s not right.”

  “The man can’t even get out of his seat.” Corc licked his lips and peered intently at his comrade. His voice dropped as he looked over his shoulder toward the barn doors and back.

  “Ye can have the girl,” he said.

  Mabon lifted his head.

  “Aye, that’s right. Ye can have the girl. Before we left, the chief said he’d have her for hisself. He laughed, callin’ ye a simple fool.”

  “I’m not a fool.”

  “I know that. But he don’t, do he? He makes us do all the work while he warms by the fire. Now he’s goin’ to take yer girl.”

  “He can’t take my girl. She’s mine.”

  “He will if ye let him. Come with me and we’ll set him right.”

  Mabon stood quiet, looking over Corc’s head.

  “Arra!” said Corc. “Ye don’t even have to do anythin’. I’ll go first, tell him I’m gettin’ the dead woman from the bedroom. I’ll tell him yer still feedin’ the horses…”

  “I am, too.”

  “Yes. An’ when ye come in, ye’ll distract the chief while I come at him from behind.” Corc patted the sword at his side. “Off goes his head an’ it’s into the night fer two rich gents.”

  Mabon scratched his head.

  “Fer the girl,” said Corc.

  “All right,” said the big man.

  Corc smiled and fierce, lunatic excitement lit his face. Backing toward the barn doors, he kept his eyes on Mabon. “Come soon.” He spun, slipped outside, closing the door behind him. Eamon pressed himself to the wall, but Corc never looked back.

  Risking a last peek through the hole, Eamon saw nothing; Mabon had moved out of sight. A distorted shadow moved across the far wall while a horse stamped and whickered. Eamon looked toward the farmhouse where Corc had just reached the door. Run, he said to himself. Run now.

  Turning away from the hole, he bumped the stack of wooden pails. They teetered for an instant and came tumbling down, scraping the side of the barn, knocking together like dull drums. He tried to run, but stepped on one of them, tripped and fell.

  Scrambling, all hope of stealth shattered, Eamon almost screamed when the barn doors crashed open. He dove behind the overturned wheelbarrow. A heartbeat later, Mabon rounded the corner, sword in hand. He’d left the lantern inside and stood now at the edge of its light, squinting.

  Even with the darkness on the side of the barn, Eamon knew the giant’s eyes would soon adjust. He’d spot the shin-deep imprint of Eamon’s steps. The boy’s heart sank and he prepared for a desperate sprint to the trees. Just then came the sound of something falling in the snow behind Mabon. He whirled. Caitlin sat in the light of the open barn, nursing a knee in both hands as if she’d twisted it.

  Mabon froze in place. It was a picture that made no sense, Eamon’s sister outside in the snow with no coat. The giant looked from side to side as if expecting to see someone else, but there was just the empty expanse. He must have been moved by something, for he put away his sword and knelt to help Caitlin stand. “Up. Up,” he said and set her on her feet. When her weight went onto the knee, she winced and cried out. She almost fell again. Catching her, he lifted Caitlin in his arms and stood. He put one big hand beneath her and another behind her back.

  “My good girl,” he said.

  Eamon wavered between fears of the giant brigand holding his sister and Corc’s malevolence, inexplicably silent, somewhere loose in the night. Moving into the light, he clutched the bandit chieftain’s dagger so tight his fingers hurt. Caitlin spoke, saying something he couldn’t catch and the giant’s head bent forward. One stab was all Eamon would have. If that didn’t kill the brigand, he and Caitlin would die, but the armor left no opening he could see.

  Peering over the giant’s shoulder, Caitlin’s face looked smooth and slack as though she was asleep, yet her eyes were half open, hooded. She shivered and Eamon thought for some reason it might not be from the cold. Her lips pulled into a humorless smile and she held up the small skinning knife Eamon had dropped on the floor of the house, as if to show him a curiosity. It hovered for a moment and then, fast as a snake, she plunged it into the side of Mabon’s neck, the full length of the blade until her fist on the handle pressed his skin, and then she pulled it out.

  Just like that it was done. A gout of blood fountained into the white yard: once, twice, and Caitlin, unmoved, sat bathed in its mist. Mabon may have tried to scream, yet no sound passed his lips. Dropping Caitlin, the giant clutched the side of his neck. Under the starlight, blood came past his fingers in black spurts. Caitlin landed on her feet, backing away in calm, dreamy steps. The knife fell from her nerveless fingers, disappearing in the snow. The giant took a single step. He fell to his knees, sat slumped as if resting, chin nodding ever closer to his breastbone.

  Sidling around the dying man, Eamon clutched his sister’s hand, pressing hard. The giant shuddered beside them, but all Eamon could see was his sister’s face, speckled with blood.

  “I spoke to the wolves, too,” she whispered.

  An icy fingernail scraped along his spine. Taking his sister by the shoulders, he shook her. “Caitlin!” he said. The glaze of her eyes began to clear. “Catie, we have to leave. We have to go before Corc finds us.”

  “Too fucking late, ye little shites.”

  An arm’s length away stood Corc, sword in one hand, the blanket-wrapped treasure Eamon had left behind in the other. Dropping the blanket, Corc flexed his fingers. “Toss that knife by me feet,” he said.

  Eamon bit his lip. In a fight between him with his knife and Corc with the sword, he’d die for sure. Yet he couldn’t surrender. The bandit’s hand shot out, grabbing a fistful of Caitlin’s hair. Pulling her close with a savage jerk, he put his blade to her throat.

  “Do it now or I’ll cut yer sister’s neck, just like the two of ye done fer Mabon.”

  Eamon tossed the knife aside and a slow, triumphant smile spread across the brigand’s face. Mabon, meanwhile, knelt in the snow, chin on his chest and hands in his lap. Suddenly, in some final seizure, the giant threw his arms up, a wet exhalation came blubbering from the wound in his neck, and he pitched face forward in the snow. Dropping his sword arm, Corc stared in open-mouthed horror. Eamon leapt forward, tearing Caitlin free of the brigand’s limp hand. That broke Corc’s stupor. He tried to grab Caitlin’s hair, but missed, lost his balance and fell to all fours, cursing.

  Caitlin and Eamon ran down the hill, fast as they could, illuminated in starlight, blazing a trail a blind man could follow. Along the side of the house they ran. Out past the back, clambering over the three-foot wall into deeper drifts. Eamon pushed and pulled his sister, urging her on.

  Corc had been silent, neither shouting nor cursing, and Eamon stopped to see if he followed. He did. Ten yards behind. He saw Corc clearly in the starlight: head forward, teeth bared, his shoulders and arms pumping back and forth, back and forth as he ploughed through the drifts.

  Eamon ran, but now he couldn’t see Caitlin. Breaking through a snowdrift, he skidded onto the windswept ice of a river. There was no snow beyond the dusting of it that swirled above the ice and he slid for a precarious instant, arms pin-wheeling in the air.

  “Over here, Eamon!”

  Caitlin stood twenty feet to the left. As he started towards her, Corc burst through behind in a cloud of snow. Half running, half sliding, Eamon reached his sister as the brigand gained his footing and time slowe
d to a crawl.

  Death had seemed ever present since Father Rhys came knocking in Eniskeegan. Death in its thousand forms: wolves, brigands, the ache of cold air, the thick pull of water below the ice. Eamon’s mind reached down into the frozen river, its murky translucence and web of fractures. It was like looking through clouds. He saw the shadow of his own boot soles with the starlight dim behind and felt the thrumming vibration of every ponderously, time-slowed step Corc took toward them.

  Reading the ice fractures like a line of runes, Eamon sensed weakness, the beginnings of a crack. He pushed in that spot with his mind, but nothing happened. Struggling against a surge of panic, he tried again. Instead of a push, he pulled. He led where the frozen river wanted to go — would go on its own, given time. The ice responded, he felt it, but slow as an age. Then his sister’s spirit was around him, lending new strength. He guided her will as he might her hand and together they pulled those places yearning to split and quickened the unbinding.

  With their minds engaged in the depths, their bodies stood above, side-by-side, facing Corc as he stalked forward. He spoke his threats but the two didn’t move. They held hands, staring forward with no expression and no movement other than their clothing and hair, which flew out and fell back in the restless, moaning wind.

  The splintering began small and moved slowly at first, running faster, longer and spreading in directions Eamon and Caitlin guided and beguiled. The crystals parted, the ice shifted. A gigantic Crack! sounded so loudly Eamon felt it in his mind like a physical slap, wrenching him from the depths. He had time to wonder at the fact that Corc remained several paces away and yet was moving in fast. The brigand’s sword came up, cocked to take a swing that would have cut him in two.

  Yet Corc never swung. He recoiled at something in Eamon’s eyes. He tried, in the end, to run away, back to where he had come off the hill, but the ice broke. A vast sheet of it collapsing, from where they stood to a point twenty yards back. The sound was deafening. Eamon caught a flash of Corc as he went under, then a grasping hand, no more.