Shadowmagic - Sons of Macha (15 page)

I awoke feeling great. I made another mental note in the imaginary book
Things to Do When Life Calms Down Around Here
. I promised myself that I would get a map from Essa's dad and take a trip where I only slept in Gerard huts every night. Then I wondered if things ever did calm down around here. I washed in the River Lugar and shared a breakfast with Araf. The other two were too nervous to eat. Brendan sat waiting in the boat, his legs jittering, while Araf and I closed up the hut.

The river bent ahead and if I remembered rightly, as soon as we took it, we would be in view of the two guardian yews that stood on top of the boulders on either side of the river.

The yews were as scary and magnificent as I remembered. A cold sweat dripped down my back as I recalled the first time I had been here, as part of a desperate escape from my uncle's dungeon. Then we travelled silently through the Yewlands hoping the deadly trees would take no notice. And they didn't. I had no desire or intention of repeating that gambit and I worried for my friend who would soon be entering that forest and asking one of those trees to judge his worth – knowing that the price of failure was death.

I saw a small sandy bank on the left and told Araf to steer to it. He was just about to turn the rudder when I saw him bring his hand up fast to his neck like he was swatting a mosquito. He then stared at me wide eyed and fell over the side of the boat.

I was so shocked I didn't do anything for a second, but when I saw him bobbing face down in the water I started to take off the Lawnmower – the Sword of Duir – and dive in after him. As I was fiddling with the buckle, a sharp pain in my neck made me turn. That's when every muscle in my body turned to jelly. I crumpled into the bottom of the barge, but before the world went black I had a chance to see in what direction the boat was heading. It was sailing straight and true into – the Yewlands.

T
he stinging in my neck was the first thing I noticed when I awoke. I reached to the source of the pain and removed a gold dart that I only had a couple of seconds to inspect before it dissolved into smoke and ash between my fingers. I was alone in the barge. I knew where I was. The green light filtering through the canopy confirmed I was deep in the Yewlands. I popped my nose up over the side of the barge like a soldier sticking his head out from a foxhole. My travelling companions were nowhere to be seen. Where were they? What had happened? What should I do? I definitely should get out of the Yewlands but what about Brendan and Nora? And Araf? If he fell face down in the water with the same thing that got me in the neck then … he must have drowned. What the hell happened?

Think, Conor. I had to assume that the barge wasn't too far into the Yewlands so if I could get it turned around without disturbing the yews, then I could get back and find Araf, or at least his body. If Brendan and Nora survived then that's the only place I could think that they would know to go.

I crawled to the stern of the barge and then kicked myself, remembering that I hadn't paid attention when my father was teaching Araf the magic words in Ogham that made the rudder propel the boat. Dad had said I should learn the ancient vocabulary too, but as usual I didn't listen. Gods I hate it when he's right.

I could see the entrance to the Yewlands off in the distance. I maybe could have swum that far if the current was with me, but against it I didn't think I could make it. I knew instinctively I couldn't walk along the banks of the river without the yews noticing me. I was literally up you-know-what creek without a paddle. My only other option was to push the barge back into the river and hope the current would eventually take me through the Yewlands without notice. What I would do on the other side was something I would have to deal with when, and if, I got there. This was the least worst of all my options. I hated the thought of abandoning my friends but I really had no way of getting to them even if I had a clue where they were – which I didn't.

All my deliberations were for naught, 'cause when I placed one foot on land to push off the barge, every muscle in my body froze up. No, that's not right, my muscles were fine, I could feel them trying to work. It was my bones. I felt like I was being pushed and pulled from the inside. I tried to yell but as soon as noise began to fly out of my mouth my jaw slammed shut making an audible clack of my molars, which thankfully didn't crack. With one leg still in the barge and the other on the shore, I stiffened up like a guy in a body-cast from some old black and white comedy movie. I stood like this for a minute, only able to grunt and move my eyeballs and then was mercifully released. I instantly tried to push the barge out but as soon as I tried I was turned into a human board again. Whatever was holding me made me wait for several minutes before I was once again released. This time I dove into the river. My thinking (I admit there really wasn't much thinking) was that if I could get some distance between me and whoever my puppet master was, I could get away. What happened was that I froze up again – this time in water with a heavy sword around my waist. I dropped like a stone. I hit the riverbed and said loud in my head,
OK, I get it. I'll go where you want me to.
I didn't know if that message went anywhere but I hoped that it went somewhere soon. I had about twenty seconds of air left in me.

In fact, I had forty seconds' worth. Just as I thought my lungs were going to erupt blowing my head clean off, I was released and scrambled to the surface gasping and spluttering. I waded to the bank and asked the air, ‘Now what?'

What
was a telekinetic game of hot and cold. Every time I went in a direction that my unseen force didn't want me to go I froze up, usually falling over. I then had to change direction until I found the way it wanted me to go. This went on for quite a while. I was walking deep into the yew forest. Not good. I racked my brains trying to remember if I had ever heard a story about someone accidentally wandering into the Yewlands and making it out alive. I hadn't, 'cause I suspected it had never happened. Finally I decided I wasn't going to play this stupid game any more if it just meant I was prolonging my ultimate demise, so I sat down and refused to move. That's when my possessor actually took control of my walking. Unkind invisible hands manipulated individual bones in my body forcing one foot in front of the other, and pressing so much strain on my knees and hips that I finally screamed and agreed to continue my guided walk on my own steam.

Eventually the powers that drove me only had to give my wrist a tweak to keep me in the right direction. All the while I kept a look out for Brendan and Nora. I hadn't seen what had happened to them. They might have fallen in the water like Araf but if they were in here I worried most about Nora. She was unprepared for this – but then again, so was I. I decided to worry about myself for a while.

After what seemed like hours I came to a point where my spirit guide would only let me walk into a tree. Ahead was a yew that to me looked exactly like the zillions of ones I had been forced to walk past. I took a deep breath and said to myself
this is it
. After all I had been through, I was going to be killed alone in the forest by a tree. I pondered the philosophical implications of this. If a man falls over in a forest without making any noise is he really dead? I thought about that for a nanosecond and decided the answer was – yes. I felt a Fergalish smile light my face and wished my old cuz was here with me to share the joke.

I placed my hand on the bark and said, ‘What do you want?'

You would think a tree that was older than most dinosaur fossils would be beyond shocking, but I think I puzzled this one. A voice came into my head that was surprisingly pleasant.

You never know with trees. Some of them just reach into your brain and take what they want to know. Others can't do that and wait for you to speak or at least think purposefully. With the reputation the yews had and the psychic push and pull I had just been through, I was expecting an unpleasant experience. Instead, my mind was filled with a voice (or a feeling of a voice) that was neither male nor female – or maybe it was both.

‘What do I want?'

‘Yeah, what do you what? You just pushed and pulled me like a hundred miles and now here I am so what the hell do you want?'

‘It is we that should be asking that question of you,'
the tree said, using ‘we' like it was the ‘royal we'.

‘Yeah,' I said, ‘well, I asked first.'

That was the last thing I got to say for a while. If I can presume to know anything about yew tree behaviour I would have to guess that he/she got tired of this banter and just decided to go straight to the source. Pain and deafening white noise erupted from inside my head. I dropped to my knees, presumably screaming but I couldn't hear anything over the internal commotion. I started to reach for my head but then stopped 'cause I was afraid that I wouldn't find any top to my skull. I had a mental image of my brain being exposed and tree branches spinning around in my grey matter like it was soup.

‘You are terrified,'
the tree said,
‘yet you jest.'

‘You discovered my secret,' I said through gritted teeth.

‘I do not understand you. Explain.'

‘Get it over with.'

I remembered seeing an old gory horror movie where people's heads exploded and their insides splattered all over the room. I was now sure I was seconds away from decorating the yew forest in the same way. When I didn't answer the tree, the pressure got worse, something I would have thought was impossible. I remembered the look on Spideog's face when he realised he would have to go back to the Yewlands to be re-judged. The yews had subsequently found him again worthy but at the time he was sure he was going to die. The pain I experienced was so intense that I knew that if I somehow survived, I would choose death rather than go through this again.

‘You wish I should begin the judgement?'
the androgynous voice of the tree shouted in my head.

‘Whatever.'

The bush turned the egg beater in my head up to the frappe setting.

‘Once again,'
the tree said,
‘you are speaking in contrast to your true feelings.'

‘OK, you want my true feelings? I don't want to be here. I didn't mean to come into the Yewlands, I'm not prepared for a judgement and I don't want to die. And while I'm at it could you loosen the vice on my head?'

Surprisingly he/she did and as soon as I could think properly I said, ‘I was unconscious when I entered the Yewlands. Has any of your kind seen my companions?'

‘We are yew. We are not here to answer your questions.'

‘But the woman that was with me, she is unprepared for judgement. Her son was with me too but at least he was trained by Master Spideog.'

‘You speak of the archer?'

‘Yes, his name is Brendan. Have you seen him?'

‘The archer you call Brendan spoke of Spideog's death. Is this true?'

‘It is,' I said, ‘I witnessed it.'

‘Let us see,'
the tree said and the pain returned with a vengeance. My brain, like a crappy video movie, fast-forwarded my memories. Stopping, then zooming ahead until once again I was forced to watch Spideog fall. Then the pain in my head subsided, only to be replaced by an ache in my chest.

‘He was killed by your knife,'
said the voice of the tree in my head, but only the male voice. In my defence the female voice said,
‘But not by his hand.'

What followed was a debate in a language (or maybe even a different plane) that I couldn't begin to fathom. As best I could figure out it was a domestic squabble. Where before the voices of the tree were speaking as one, now the male and female were backing and forthing. As it got faster and seemingly more heated I wondered what would happen if they didn't come to a conclusion. Can a tree get a divorce from itself? I wondered if there were yew trees all over the forest where the male and female parts hadn't spoken to each other for centuries.

Finally the squabble ended.
‘We shall judge you now.'

‘What happened to the others?'

‘You will be judged.'

‘I don't want to be judged, I'm not ready to be judged. I want to know what happened to my friends.'

‘If you will not be judged then you must eat of the fruit.'

A bough laden with red berries drifted before my face as I felt the bones in my arm and hand reach for the poisonous fruit.

‘Who died and made you god?'

The push on my arm stopped as the male voice said with a sneer,
‘We are before the gods. We have been makers of gods.'

‘I hope you didn't make Lugh.'

‘What do you know of Lugh?'
the tree demanded but didn't wait for an answer. Once again the pain dropped me to my knees as my encounters with the Oracle of Mount Cas were replayed for me and the timber sticking into my brain.