Fairy Dark

by Adam Golden

  The willowy sorceress stumbled as she moved to where Dian knelt beside Creidhne, she was tiring quickly. He’d asked too much of her, but there hadn’t been a choice.

  The rams beat on the doors faster now, and the heavy iron-sheathed portals jumped in their fittings. They were strong, but it wouldn’t take that much longer before one of those rams broke through.

  Nuada looked nervously toward where Bec and Dian worked. They were coaxing the big man to his feet slowly but he was going to need time to work. Nuada motioned to Sucellos to help them and stepped to the spot the wounded hammerer had vacated near the western door. He drew the shrouded crystalline sword from its sheath at his belt.

  “Lugh . . .” he said.

  The warrior turned to look at him and nodded when he saw what the king had in mind. Both men pulled the ties from their weapons and let the hexed wraps fall away. Claimh Solais blazed like the sun in Nuada’s fist and, as Lugh peeled away the covering on Areadbhair, the head of the spear that men had named ‘Slaughterer’ burst into a brilliant blue flame that soon engulfed the spear’s length.

  Creidhne was on his feet now and working away with a set of tools taken from a pocket in the vest that strained over his massive torso. The tiny delicate instruments looked doomed to destruction in his massive hands, but he used them deftly. Precisely tapping here and prying gently there, muttering to himself in a gravelly bass, like far off thunder, as he worked his way around the door’s mechanisms. Dian, reinvigorated by an infusion of Becuille’s power, was washing the wounds from Sucellos.

  “No one steps foot through these doors,” Nuada told Lugh, taking up a wide stance and a two-handed guard position. The younger man spun his flaming spear in his hand and offered his uncle a smile that had weakened more than a few women throughout the Planes.

  Lugh’s door gave to the pressure of the rams first, exploding inward at the last thrust of what turned out to be a massive granite statue from the outer corridor. The head of some long dead nun was gone, broken away in the assault on the doors, and as soon as the portal was fractured the revered image was tossed aside as Silver Maidens rushed through the gap.

  Areadbhair was a spinning blue-white blur in Lugh’s hands. The matchless warrior danced with the weapon as though it were a quarter staff, and everywhere the head or shaft struck gouts of flame stuck, spreading hungrily. The first knot of Maidens through the breach were transformed into screeching, flailing torches in a matter of seconds, and Lugh used the butt end of Slaughterer to push them back through the broken portal and into their comrades. The smell of burnt hair and cooking flesh filled the little antechamber quickly.

  “Got it!” Creidhne called in his deep rumbling bark, pushing the heavy door inward with one hand.

  “Get in,” Nuada roared as the door before him crashed open. “Everyone. Now!”

  Sucellos brought his hammer down on the floor and, outside Nuada’s door, the ram slipped from its bearers’s hands. Dozens of screams sounded as the heavy statue crushed feet and legs, clogging the newly made hole with stone and screaming Maidens.

  The invaders were nearly clear of the outer chamber, so Nuada turned and saw Lugh dancing backward as Maidens pressed into the breach in his door. Bolts bounced off of his heavy shield and his spear snapped outward like a viper dropping any not careful enough in her approach.

  “Lugh! Now!” the Tuatha king called.

  “Go!” the young warrior called. “I’ll hold ‘em.”

  He spun Slaughterer over his head and a brilliant arch of sticky white fire sprayed the enemy, coating the front ranks in hungry flames.

  “Lugh!” Nuada called again as the mess before the western door was cleared and more silver-clad warrior women poured in.

  “Nuada, go!” the spearman called. “Get the damned thing! Mission first!”

  The Tuatha king looked back through the portal where the rest of his team waited, and then to Lugh, deftly dancing through a display of spear work that would have dazzled even the greatest of human warriors.

  “Damn it, Nuada,” the warrior screamed as another gout of clinging flame bathed the pressing enemy. “Go.”

  A massive hand closed around the back of Nuada’s jerkin and hauled the unwilling monarch through the portal a second before it slammed shut, trapping Lugh in the room outside. Nuada whirled in a red-faced rage, and Creidhne raised his big hands in surrender, looking at the blazing tip of Claimh Solais pointedly.

  “Mission first, little brother,” the giant rumbled gently. “Any o’ us would’ave done t’ same, an’ ye know it.”

  Nuada lowered the weapon and then sheathed it at his side. “It shouldnae have been him. It should have been—” he started.

  “Highness,” Becuille interrupted, her voice sounding strange to Nuada. He turned to her and gasped. Between her flattened palms the slim-bodied sorceress held a long thin branch of silvery wood.

  “We did it, Nuada, we found it,” the woman beamed.

  The Silver Bough, the last remnant of Cerridwyn’s madness. Nuada couldn’t look away from the thing hanging between Bec’s pale delicate hands. How many centuries had he searched and struggled? How many friends had he lost? How many times had he almost given up? Lost hope? Now he had it. Now, after all these ages, he could finally make it right. If we can get out of here. The Tuatha king took the slim branch from Becuille’s hands with a nod of thanks and leaned on it like a staff looking around the vault chamber. The room wasn’t large, but every crevice was filled with books and scrolls, chests of precious stones, fine objects of gold and silver, and objects of power. This was where the Daughters of Cerridwyn had been hoarding their most precious and powerful relics for ages.

  “Fan out,” Nuada ordered. “Look fer somethin’ that’ll get us out o’ here. Some spell, some object, anything.”

  While his people set about doing as he’d ordered, Nuada went back to the heavy door. The room was heavily fortified, the walls and door thick and heavy, almost too thick to let sound through, but Nuada thought he could make out the faint clash of weapons, the far away sounds of screams. Lugh fought on then. “Thank you, my friend,” the king whispered, putting a hand on the door. “We did it.”

  “. . . we could use it to cut a rift, direct travel out.”

  Nuada turned to see Dian Cecht arguing with Becuille.

  “Nae,” the sorceress said, shaking her head as she leafed through a heavy text. “The effect of the door’s star silver would nullify the matrix, it’d collapse before t’was fully formed.”

  “Not if the silver’s lattice was disrupted and the vertices were inverted,” the healer said as though he’d said the same thing several times already.

  “Star silver is notoriously hard to disrupt, we dunnae have the time, nor the power left . . . unless you think you can disrupt half a hundred distinct vertices and maintain cohesion of a transfer matrix at the same time. I cannae.”

  Further toward the back of the chamber Sucellos was hefting a small silver box in one of his big hands.

  “Careful!” Creidhne rumbled, alarmed. “Dunnae jostle that! I made that box, t’is one of Cailleach’s experiments. A plague, an’ a nasty one if I know that crazy ol’ bitch.”

  Sucellos set the box down carefully and moved away from it. They might be able to use the plague to clear the antechamber. Of course, it would kill them, and everyone else on Eamhna. Cailleach wasn’t known for her care for the living.

  “Wait,” Nuada said, still listening by the heavy door. “Quiet, something is . . .” The mechanisms on the heavy door started to work and Nuada jumped back, whipping his sword free of its sheath. The others readied themselves, bringing their weapons to the ready.

  The last of the locks disengaged and the door opened slowly, haltingly. Nuada let the sword’s fire blaze through him, fueling a red-eyed killing rage.

  “Hold!” cried a voice from outside. “Nuada, my liege, hold. We come in aid.”

  For the first time Nuada became aware that the battle sounds from th
e outer chamber had changed to sounds of . . . laughter? Laughter and the low sweet strains of a harp. Nuada felt the grin on his cheeks as he slammed Claimh Solais home and pulled the heavy door open with his free hand.

  “Aengus!” he exclaimed, spotting the wiry youth surrounded by laughing, fawning Maidens in various states of undress. “What are ye doing here? I told ye t’ watch the gate.”

  “Aye, uh, so ye did, sire, but ye see, when ye didn’t return . . .” the youth stammered, “well, he convinced us . . . an’ Babd, well . . .”

  “Who convinced you?” Nuada asked, “an’ of what?”

  The youth pointed as a lush looking Maiden who’d doffed her chainmail and wriggled into his lap.

  Dian Cecht’s breath caught and Nuada saw why when he looked.

  “Miach,” the king said in a flat tone. “I told ye t’ stay—”

  “Hail my king,” the young man said with a nervous smile, “an’ ye too father. Should we nae save the speeches fer once we’re free? I dunnae think even Aengus here can keep these and their sisters docile fer long.”

  Nuada gave the young healer a hard glare and then looked about him. The boy was foolish, but he was also right. The king’s gaze settled on a battered broken form lying by the shattered northern portal, a body lying crushed under its own shield with a blazing spear still in hand.

  “Right, let’s go!” he called to the others. “Creidhne, collect Lugh as we go. The rest o’ ye keep sharp. They’ll be comin’ hard once their heads clear. Ye stay with me and keep movin.’”

  The all nodded, hefting weapons and waiting on his word.

  “Alright ye lot, run!” Nuada roared.

  Chapter 25

  “There were eleven o’ us that day,” Nuada said, “twelve if ye count Miach. Only six made it off o’ Eamhna. Once their wits were restored to ‘em, the Maidens came fer us like a hurricane o’ steel an’ fire. They were everywhere.”

  There were tears in the Tuatha king’s far away, haunted-looking eyes.

  “Bec fell first, she took an arrow in the throat before we’d gone a hundred yards. After Aengus’s little trick to get us away from th’ vault, the Maidens’ sorceresses werenae takin’ any chances. They blanketed the whole place in nullification spells. Nothin’ worked, at least nae well. All we could do was run full out fer th’ gates an’ hope we made it t’ th’ Thinnin’ off of Eamhna.”

  While Nuada talked, Rhiannon was busy pressing strips from the hem of the dead Maiden’s tunic into Hervor’s wound, trying desperately to stem the bleeding, all the while knowing she wouldn’t be able to. The stern-faced warrior woman knew it too. She was too far gone. The Pyski could hear the gurgling of blood in her lungs. They were filling fast. Soon she wouldn’t be able to get any air at all.

  The girl, clothed in a poncho made of the head woman’s cloak and belted with her sword belt, held Hervor’s hand in her own, stroking the tough flesh softly and murmuring soothing sounds at the dying fighter.

  “When Becuille fell,” Nuada went on in a dreary pain-laden monotone, “Aengus stopped. I told ‘im t’ keep movin’, but he stopped. I suppose he thought t’ calm ‘em as he had b’fore.”

  The king looked old now, ancient and beat down with the weight of those long ages.

  “Da’s harp didnae save him that time. He ne’er plucked a string. They cut ‘im down like a dog. Sucellos, Babd, Cian, Flidais . . .” Nuada barked a rough laugh. “Ach, Flidais, ye should’ve seen her shoot that day. There’s ne’er been a finer archer, an’ that day was her masterpiece. Once the last o’ our charms faltered, it was that wee lass’s bow that kept ‘em back. Flidais got us through the Thinnin’ more than I did.”

  “Bollocks!”

  Rhiannon and the girl both jumped at the eruption from the wreckage of Creidhne’s massive form, still staked to the wall.

  “Ye led us well little brother,” the shattered smith declared, “an’ we were proud t’ follow ye. We knew . . . we all knew what th’ price would be. Ye fought as hard as any, harder even. Ye were all but a corpse when we reached Finias, if it hadnae been fer Miach’s skills, yer name would top that list o’the dead.”

  “An’ would that be such a bad thing, brother?” Nuada asked softly. “T’is true, those o’ us who made it through the Thinnin’ were all close t’ death, but we did it. We got that damned stick an’ broke Cerridwyn’s power. I didnae think I’d use this arm again, shorn clean off by that Maiden’s axe, it was. Sure’an that boy was a wonder, every bit as skilled as his ol’ Da.”

  “Miach healed your arm?” Rhiannon asked.

  “Aye, that he did lass, good as new, though weak for a time. That gauntlet there . . .” he said, pointing to the discarded bit of armor at Rhiannon’s feet. “Creidhne made it t’ protect the new limb at Miach’s instruction. Once it was nae needed any longer, I kept it, an’ we let the myth spread that it was made o’ the Silver Bough, but in truth none o’ us knew what became o’ the thing. Y’see, we drank our draught as soon as we arrived in Finias. By the time I’d recovered me wits me arm was restored an’ Miach . . . well . . . He’d taken Cailleach’s curse from the vault. I dunnae know what was in that box, but whate’er it was ate him up so that no art of man nor god could bring him back. There were hardly even bones remainin’, just bits, and a last few words scrawled on a scrap o’ paper, torn from one o’ the vault texts.”

  “What . . . what did it say?” the girl asked from where she held Hervor’s hand.

  The battered old king turned his blazing sad blue eyes on her and she cringed back. “Mission first, lass. Two words scrawled across some bit o’ poetry. The lad’s last words were me own mantra spat back at me. Mission first.”

  Rhiannon let the words wash over her as the ancient Fae fell quiet. Mission first. How well she knew that drive.

  “Poetry?” she asked after a time. “From the vault?”

  The King nodded tiredly.

  “Prophecy,” the Pyski whispered to herself. “One of their prophecies,” she said louder. “It must have been. What did it say?”

  “How would I know lass?” Nuada asked, exasperated. “T’was Miach’s words that were important t’ me. Some drivel about trees or some such . . .”

  “Root of Honor

  Holds the key

  Soul of gloom

  Must tear it free.

  Slaves of chance

  Bound and braced

  Prune the Bough

  Cursed or graced?”

  All eyes were on Dian Cecht’s withered form as he spoke the lines. “How could I forget?” he sobbed. “How? Oh, why can I nae forget?”

  “A prophecy of the Bough?” Hervor gasped, dribbling bloody froth onto her chest as the old man devolved back into his piteous weeping. “. . . how?”

  “Fate is an animal that cannot be tamed,” Rhiannon said, quoting something Aphra had said to her before she’d gotten the poor woman killed, or worse. “It courses as it will, no matter how hard we hold the leash.”

  “What does it mean?” the girl asked Rhiannon.

  The Pyski shook her head without responding, she had no idea.

  “I dunnae know what it means,” Nuada said. “But ‘Root of Honor.’ That I know well enough . . . t’is me.”

  “What?” Rhiannon asked. “What do you mean, it’s you?”

  The ancient king let out a long sigh. “T’is one o’ th’ titles o’ th’ High King. I am, properly, Nuada mac Dagda. By the Grace o’ the Fates, High King o’ Fae, Lord o’ th’ Holy Cities, Protector o’ th’ Four Great Treasures, Root o’ Honor and Sword o’ th’ People.”

  “But that’s . . .” Rhiannon started, but Nuada raised his bleeding, damaged arm to hold a negating palm up toward her.

  “B’fore ye ask lass, I dunnae know what that bit o’ rhyme meant, and I dunnae know where the Bough . . .”

  He stopped speaking as Rhiannon stood and crossed quickly to where he lay. She held the dead Maiden’s belt knife tightly in her fist and there was something strange in her
eyes.

  “Lass?” Nuada asked, looking from the Pyski’s face to the knife in her fist. “What is it?”

  “Miach hid the Bough,” she said softly, more to herself than to him.

  “Aye, that he did,” the king replied.

  “And he was first and foremost a healer, like his father,” she continued.

  “An’ a fine one,” the king confirmed. “Some said th’ most gifted in our history, superior even t’ Dian.”

  “A person always falls back on what they know best,” the Pyski said. “When in doubt, a warrior will fight. When she is troubled, a scholar studies. What of a healer? When pressed with a duty of such scope and importance that he is ready and willing take his own life to ensure its success, will he not fall back on what he knows best?”

  “I dunnae understand,” Nuada said, perplexed. “Ye think he . . . healed the Bough? What kind o’ nonsense . . .”

  “His arm!” the girl gasped from where she still held Hervor’s cold hand. “Ye said it yerself, Yer Highness. Miach grew ye a new arm.”

  Nuada gaped at the girl, speechless.

  “Working in an isolated, secure location,” Rhiannon said, “without witnesses, and with all the time he might need.”

  “Miach was a healer, nae a smith,” Nuada argued. “He didnae have the skill o’ workin’ metal.”

  “Nae brother, but I do,” Creidhne boomed from his perch. “I dunnae know if I did such, but I could, an’ I was the least injured o’ the lot o’ us.”

  “Is it possible?” Rhiannon asked the dumbstruck monarch. “Could Creidhne have done the work and not recalled?”

  “Aye,” Nuada said after a moment. “T’is possible, th’ drake . . . he said the draught would take our memories fer a full day after we imbibed that we would be aware durin’ that time but have no memory when the next day dawned.”

  The king flexed the wounded arm as best he could. It felt as it always had, it felt like his arm. But it’s nae, is it? Miach had cut away the dead arm he’d lost all those years ago. He had replaced it with something. What if?