by Kevin Hearne
I hurt in places I didn’t know were places. Somewhere, Siodhachan had picked up a binding to shut off pain, and he taught it to me, but I don’t use it now. Greta doesn’t have a binding like that. It wouldn’t be fair.
Gradually our breathing slows and our eyelids grow heavy. I see hers flutter closed a couple of times before mine do the same.
I awake later to popping and crunching noises as she shifts back to human form. We lost a few hours, judging by the sun, and I feel warm and much better when I shape-shift myself.
“Thank you,” Greta says. “I needed a good fight.”
I lack skills for expressing emotions other than anger and impatience. I feel them quite often but rarely communicate them. All I manage to say is, “Me too.”
Her eyes trail down my body. “You heal well.”
“A good thing, that is. So do you.”
“Ready to go back?”
We walk to where we left our clothes—a decent hike, during which she talks a lot and I grunt in all the right places and try to think of something appropriate to say. I’m uncertain if she wants to see me again. I still think our time together might be more about her past than about a present attraction. Her rate of speech might indicate her own nervousness about where we go from here, but, if so, why exactly is she nervous? Is it a sign that she likes me and wants to share everything, or is it a desperate bid to fill the time so that I won’t ask to turn a dalliance into something more?
She finally stops talking when we reach our clothes, yet I’m not ready with anything to say. I must look as scared as I feel, because, after we’re dressed, she examines my face for a few moments and then smiles in an attempt to put me at my ease.
“Thanks for listening to me ramble on,” she says. “You’re quite good at it.”
I have never been accused of being a good listener before. It was probably a result of my discomfort with the language. Or else it emphasized how much this jump forward in time has changed me.
Greta throws up her hands and lets them fall back down to slap against her legs. “This was fun.”
“Well—yes. It was.” Unexpected and very welcome fun.
“I know you have to go now, but feel free to visit again.” She comes closer until her nose almost touches mine. Light dances in her blue eyes. “You know. If you’re free. And if you feel like it.”
“I will.” I nod at her, relieved at the invitation. “I like you.” Gods below, you’d never think I came from a family of bards. If me uncle had heard me say that shite he would have taken me balls because I wouldn’t be needing them anymore.
“Good. Let’s leave it at that.” She kisses me quickly on the mouth and heads for the car, with me standing there stunned. She’s almost out of sight before I can compose a sentence.
“Balance and blessings go with ye!” I call after her. She doesn’t answer, but I’m sure she hears me.
I shake my head, trying to clear it. I desperately need to find me own balance. I have so much catching up to do.
First on the list is catching up in Tír na nÓg, because I can speak Old Irish there and not sound like I took a hammer to me skull.
The elemental tells me to run toward Woods Canyon Lake, where Siodhachan has tethered a tree. He said he’d spent hundreds of years tethering the world to Tír na nÓg, back when kings were grinding their people to early deaths and using priests to tell them it was the plan of their god and it was not their place to question. It kept him busy and away from Aenghus Óg in the short term, but in the long term it ensured that he’d always have somewhere to run if anyone else came after him. If I had to point to one thing he’s done that’s a hundred percent good, that project would be it.
My thinking is that I need to be training Druids again—it’s me mission, really—but it will be quite some time before there are enough of us to matter. In the meantime, this ability to travel around the entire world instead of just to Europe will make our wee numbers as effective as possible.
When I find the proper tree, I shift directly to a place on the edge of the Fae Court. It’s nighttime there, and no one is around except for a few guards. One of them, a flying faery dressed in some kind of silver and green bollocks, yells at me to state my business. My patience disappears right away.
“Why don’t ye state yours first?” I says.
“I’m doing my assigned duty, guarding the Court.” He draws a sword on me and opens his mouth to demand my business again, but I interrupt him.
“From what, I might ask? Are ye afraid someone will drop their pants and water the grass? There’s nothing to guard, lad. It’s a meadow!”
“Someone could craft an ill binding while no one is looking. And sometimes messengers arrive at all hours from other planes. Now, who are you?”
“I’m the man who’s wondering who taught ye to talk like that. Are ye serious, lad—‘ill binding’? The Fae used to be a proud folk who spoke plainly and dressed sensibly. Now look at ye!”
He points the sword at me. “State your business or be gone!”
“My business is with Brighid, First among the Fae. I’m a Druid of Gaia long gone from the world, here to announce my return.”
He shrinks back. “A Druid? Not the Iron Druid?” That physical reaction to the mere idea of Siodhachan tells me an epic or two. Me apprentice was right: He wasn’t popular here at all. As much as I hated to admit it, it would be best to take his suggestion and pretend I didn’t know him.
“No, lad, I’m fresh out of iron, and mixing iron with Druidry sounds dumber than having a swim with the Blue Men of the Minch. Would you let Brighid know I am here, or let someone else know who will then speak to her?”
“I require your name to do that.”
“Eoghan Ó Cinnéide.”
“Wait at the foot of her throne. She will receive you there when she is ready.” He uses his sword to indicate an iron chair on a small mound of dirt.
“Fine.” I brush past him and prepare myself for a long wait. I’m sure it’s hours until daylight and Brighid might take her time waking up. I plant myself in front of the throne, legs crossed, and take off me shirt so that the tattoos will be plainly visible to anyone who wishes to check me out in the dark. It won’t reveal anything except that I’m telling the truth about being a Druid.
Less than an hour has passed, I’m guessing, when an orange globe of fire drops from the sky into the iron throne, startling me. A wall of it spreads out from the impact and I roll backward, away from the heat. When I look back, Brighid is sitting on the throne, and the small hill is circled by a ring of fire. She is dressed simply in a belted blue tunic and wears a golden torc around her neck.
“I am told you are Eoghan Ó Cinnéide,” she says.
“Yes.”
“I can see that you are bound to the earth, so you are who you say you are. My son, Goibhniu, tells me that you spent two millennia on one of the Time Islands.”
“Yes.”
“He also says it was the Morrigan who put you there and Siodhachan Ó Suileabháin who removed you. Will you tell me why?”
“I’ve been entrusted with a message from the Morrigan in the event of her death. She told Siodhachan where to find me, knowing that he would bring me back into the normal flow of time.”
“Then we have much to talk about.”
“Aye, Brighid, we do.”
Perhaps deities spend more time talking things over in whatever realm they reside. I have noticed, though, that once they are on earth, they have a very specific to-do list and waste no time getting to it. It’s disorienting to go from passive observation to full battle in the space of a few seconds, with no time to discuss objectives or strategy or tactics. I have to scramble to take up a position on the left side, and Laksha brings up a very tardy flank on the right. When Durga and her lion meet the vanguard of the rakshasas, I understand the true meaning of Shakti, a divine weapon. The demons are bowled over as the lion keeps plowing through them and Durga lays about her with her weapons, tossing som
e of the demons into the air and crushing others, cutting and spearing and painting the air and ground with blood and viscera.
For a second I feel entirely superfluous; Durga can surely take care of everything by herself. But the rakshasas keep pouring out of the house as fast as she slays them. A growing roar from behind me earns a glance, and I see that another army is advancing from the city. The raksoyuj has called all the rakshasas back to defend him, giving the city a respite from ruin while giving us a significant problem.
Out of the corner of my eye, I see Laksha spread her hands in front of her and fall forward into the dirt, lifeless. She wasn’t hit by anything, so I presume she’s left the woman’s body and intends to do battle in the ether, working her way through the rakshasas until she gets to my father. I hope the woman has the good sense to stay down and play dead, or she won’t have long to enjoy the sole possession of her faculties.
Before Laksha can fight the raksoyuj in the ether, though, I have to get him to leave my father’s body.
We are going inside the house, Orlaith. On my heels.
The rakshasas are collapsing in toward Durga, not even realizing I’m on the field. I don’t know if they can pierce my invisibility the way the devi can, but I doubt it occurs to them to look for me. I swing around farther left to avoid them, hoping to sneak into the house and do my duty with Fuilteach before the raksoyuj realizes there’s a threat other than Durga.
I’m still a hundred yards away from the house when the nature of the battle changes. A different sort of demon starts to pour forth from the door and take shape in the yard—blue-skinned, many-armed, glowing with power. I stop to reassess and realize that they look like the form Loki took that time he tried to mess with Atticus in the Polish onion field outside Jas?o. My guess is that they are probably not rakshasas but more-powerful demons called asuras. They carry themselves differently: They move like masters-at-arms, while the rakshasas have all the martial skills of a coked-up peasant armed with a spoon.
And in the midst of this phalanx walks my father, his eyes glowing blue and his accustomed expression of academic detachment twisted into malevolence. It’s been a very long time since I’ve seen him, of course, but my heart sinks at how old he looks now. His hair has gone white and wispy and it’s retreated from the top of his head, and the well-defined jaw of his younger days has faded as the skin under his neck sagged. I tell myself that I can deal with his age; it’s his expression that makes me recoil, and I realize that I have never before seen him look angry or favor me with any expression more severe than indifference.
Now he’s looking at Durga with the kind of leer that would inspire anyone to either run or empty a full clip into his chest, and it horrifies me. He bellows something incoherent, and the asuras surge forward, long swords in their fists. The flash of steel against their blue skin makes them seem like a frothy wave, building to crash upon Durga. It washes and flows around her and the lion, drowning out the black rakshasas, and clouds condense and roil overhead where it was a clear night minutes ago. The army of rakshasas behind me grows closer and I pull Fuilteach from its sheath, resuming my run around the flank, target now in sight. I will have to clear a number of the demons out of the way before I can reach him, but everything still seems possible and the problems solvable—until suddenly they aren’t.
Twirling Scáthmhaide in my left hand only, I aim for throats, crushing the windpipes of unsuspecting rakshasas. I slash open the necks of others with Fuilteach, spinning as I advance to add force to my blows. Black blood gushes like oil, and bodies fall with toothy snarls onto the field. At first it is easy work, a deadly caper through opponents as skilled as training dummies, but soon the ones closest to my father become aware that something that isn’t Durga is approaching on their flank and they turn, slashing the air with their blades at an unseen foe. My father doesn’t notice; his eyes are locked on the seething tumult surrounding the goddess.
I need two hands on the staff to parry the attacks of the rakshasas and then the three asuras who guard my father, so I sheathe Fuilteach and wade in. I knock aside blades, slam the demons in the gut to make them bend over, and then finish them with a blow to the head or throat as they are momentarily robbed of breath.
Orlaith defends my back a couple of times, judging by her growls and the panicked howling that abruptly chokes off behind me.
I find that my staff alone cannot break through the defenses of the asuras. They present an impenetrable flurry of steel, with their four arms weaving blades in front of them, and they are far more disciplined than the rakshasas. It’s an excellent counter to a single weapon. To create an opening, I flick a small throwing knife at their faces, not particularly caring where it hits and knowing it won’t be fatal. All it does is cause a flinch, an interruption of their defenses, and I take advantage of that to shoot the shaft of Scáthmhaide into their throats. I feel something wet on my arm, look down, and see that I’ve been cut somehow. No matter; I’m high on adrenaline and the earth’s energy, and there’s only a single asura left between my dad and me.
The demon’s reach is incredible, and he’s using all of it now that he’s seen his companions fall. I drop down into a squat and swing Scáthmhaide at his ankle, cracking it loudly against bone, then rise from my crouch as he falls to the ground. He’s there for less than a second before I shove my staff into his nose and pile-drive it into his brain—a tad more vicious than I would normally be, but he was keeping me from my dad. A small voice in my head wonders if this behavior in battle is why the elementals have been calling me Fierce Druid, but I can’t answer it.
Dad—or the raksoyuj—turns, finally aware that something threatens nearby, and I wonder where his pupils have gone. His sockets are like blue Christmas lights. If I dwell on it, however, I will miss my chance—the ravening cries of the rakshasas from the city are growing louder.
I whip Fuilteach from its sheath, hold it so that it is upside down in my fist—a grip better for slashing than for stabbing—and lunge forward, before the thing possessing my dad can process what’s happening and I can nurse any doubts about what I’m doing. I drag the sharp blade across the center of his chest, opening up a rent in his shirt, and the skin beneath that blooms blood. And that’s as close as I ever came to saving my father, because I never got to make the second cut to the chakra above his head.
In retrospect, I can see the chess moves, if not the motives behind them. The blight of the rakshasas draws Durga to earth; Durga’s presence draws out the raksoyuj and the asuras. The summoned clouds provide cover from satellites so that humans never see that demons and gods still do battle on this plane. And then, when the tide of blue demons manages to slip through Durga’s defenses and wound her lion—as an anguished roar testifies—the devi can no longer slay with patience and kindness. The lion’s roar comes almost simultaneously with the roar of the raksoyuj after I cut him. Eager to press my advantage and make the second cut on his brow, I get caught on the temple by my father’s raging, flailing arm. He’s far more powerful than he should be, knocking me backward and setting off popping light flashes behind my eyes. I tumble over Orlaith, hitting the ground hard, and my window of opportunity shuts forever. From the ground, I see Durga leap up into the air and hover, seven arms low and one held high, the high one clutching the twin bell shapes of Indra’s thunderbolt. The third eye on her forehead opens, and with it comes destruction.
Lightning lances down into the asuras surrounding Durga’s lion, throwing them back and charring their skin, and then a single massive bolt is thrown at my father. It doesn’t destroy him or even knock him off his feet, but it burns away his clothing without igniting any of his skin. Wreathed in blue fire, he looks pale, wizened, and skeletal, and he shouts something in a deep, throaty rasp that’s not his own.
I scramble to my feet and backpedal, because I’m starting to feel the shock coming up through the ground and there is palpable, searing heat radiating from him. I back off a good fifty yard
s on sheer instinct, grabbing a fistful of Orlaith’s coat and urging her to run with me, before I remember that I still have work to do. But the devi continues to pour power into her strike, and I can’t get any closer to make that second cut; it’s already like putting my face down in front of a four-hundred-degree oven and opening the door.
Stay with me, I tell her, and then I shout at the devi, “Wait, Durga, I can separate the raksoyuj from the man! I just need one more chance!”
The sorcerer possessing my father is immensely powerful—he could not withstand such a barrage of elemental fury for even a second if he did not have legendary defenses—but he is not so powerful as perhaps he thought. It is already clear that whatever he sought to accomplish by forcing Durga to visit the earth won’t be happening. The arrogance and malevolence on my father’s face slowly drains away, and the blue glow in his eyes fades too, as the body begins to quiver under the strain of the assault.
“Please stop! I can fix this!” I plead.
But the devi continues to punish him with lightning. It swirls and crackles around him, and his movements grow more jerky and involuntary. I drop my invisibility and call out to him.
“Dad!” I cry. “Can you hear me? It’s Granuaile!”
His head twitches in my direction, the blue lights wink out, and his eyes return to brown, and for the briefest instant I see confusion, wonder, and kindness in them as he lifts a hand toward me, recognizing his daughter. And then the devi’s energy overwhelms the raksoyuj, and my father is torn apart in a violent explosion of meat and bone, atomized into a red mist that evaporates completely, leaving nothing where he stood but ash and a rising trail of smoke.