The Shadows (2 page)

Tuatha de Dannan
[TOO-a-ha dae DONN-an]—
the old, revered gods of Ireland, the people of the goddess Danu

Aengus Og
[ENGUS OG]—
Irish god of love, Diarmid’s foster father

Manannan
[MANanuan]—
Irish god of the sea, Diarmid’s former tutor

Lir
[LEER]—
god of the sea, Manannan’s father

Brigid
[BREED]—
Irish goddess

The Morrigan
—
Irish goddess of war; her three aspects:
Macha [MOK-ah], Nemain [NOW-nm], and Badb [BIBE]

Danu
—
Irish mother goddess

Domnu
—
Mother goddess of the Fomori

Cuchulain
[COO-coo-lane]—
Irish hero

Etain
[AY-teen]—
Oscar’s wife in ancient times

Neasa
[NESSA]—
the Fianna’s Druid priestess

Cormac
—
ancient High King of Ireland

Grainne
[GRAW-nya]—
Cormac’s daughter, promised in marriage to Finn, eloped with Diarmid

Fia
—
Finn’s son

Senach Síaborthe
[SEN-awk SEE-bora]—
legendary demon warrior

King of Lochlann
—
Miogach’s father

Tadg
[TYG]—
Diarmid’s Druid teacher

Rose Fitzgerald
—
Grace’s best friend

Timothy Lederer
—
neighbor and friend of the Knoxes

Mrs. Needham
—
“friend” of Mrs. Knox

the O’Daires
—
investors in the Irish uprising

Jerry
—
Patrick Devlin’s stableboy

Leonard
—
Patrick Devlin’s driver

Dr. Eldridge
—
Grandma Knox’s doctor

Almhuin
[Allun]—
the keep of the Fianna, aka the Hill of Allen

ball seirce
[Ball searce]—
the lovespot bestowed on Diarmid

Beltaine
[BAL-tinna]—
ancient Celtic festival, the first of May

cainte
[KINE-tay]—
one who speaks/sees, Druid poet

dord fiann
[Dord FEEN]—
Finn’s hunting horn

Dubros
—
an ancient woods in Ireland where the legendary Diarmid and Grainne find refuge

geis
[GISE]—
a prohibition or taboo that compels the person to obey

Magh Tuiredh
[Moytirra]—
location of the great battle between the Dannan and the Fomori

milis
[MILL-ish]—
sweet, an endearment

mo chroi
[Muh CREE]—
my heart

ogham
—
ancient form of Irish writing

Samhain
[SOW-in]—
ancient Celtic festival, October 31

sidhe
[Shee]—
fairies

Slieve Lougher
[Sleeve Lawker]—
location in ancient Ireland

veleda
—
ancient Druid priestess

I
t is given to you,” the archdruid said, handing her Finn’s hunting horn. “It is put into your care and that of your descendants.”

The
veleda
curled her fingers around the horn and felt the power, an ancient energy. She caressed the crack at the base where it had been trampled in the battle that had mortally wounded its owner, Finn MacCumhail, the great leader of the Fianna warriors. The bronze decoration had been stripped away, replaced and mended with hammered silver etched with ogham, the symbols that infused it with magic.

The power was hers. The privilege of sacrifice. She looked up into the blue eyes of her teacher and mentor.

He asked soberly, “Do you accept the task, my child?”

She glanced at the men lying on the biers surrounding her, the soldiers of the Fianna, with Finn at the center. They were as still as death, clad in the raiment of battle. They were
the most elite warriors and bodyguards of the High King of Ireland. These men had served gods and kings; they were the subjects of countless stories, poems, and ballads. Everyone knew of the Fianna. There was not a boy who did not dream of becoming one of them, nor a girl who did not yearn for their kisses.

But now a new world had come.

“I accept the task,” she said.

“They will return when the horn has known the
veleda
’s blood, when the incantation is sung and the horn is blown three times,” the archdruid continued. “When Ireland is in need, they will return as young men in their prime to fight for her. That is the spell that is laid. That is the word that is spoken.”

“But they have grown arrogant and greedy these last years,” she joined in, singing the spell she’d labored to master, not just the words but how to
say
them. “They have misused their power, and they have not always served the honorable. And so we place upon them this
geis
, this prohibition: the
veleda
must decide if their new fight is a worthy one. If it is not deemed so, they will fail, and die.”

The magic of the words threaded through the branches of the overhanging rowan tree. She clutched the horn tight between her fingers. The power reverberated through her like thunder heard beneath the water.

“The
veleda
will see the path,” the archdruid sang. “She will weigh the task and choose the worthiest side. And on Samhain, when the doors between worlds open, her death will
release her power to the chosen, and they will win. If this condition is not met, the Fianna will disappear, never to return to any world. This will be done. This is complete.”

The spell would pass through her blood and down through the generations, from one Druid priestess to another. One day her descendant would blood the horn. One day the daughter of her daughter’s daughter would know the joy and power of self-sacrifice.

She smiled and echoed, “This is complete.”

The moon turned the color of blood. The rowan tree trembled, and the earth shook beneath her feet and opened, swallowing the Fianna. The men were there and then gone, and the great maw closed again, leaving no seam, nothing to show what had been, nor what lay beneath.

NEW YORK CITY

Diarmid

F
irst was the darkness—or no, not the darkness itself but rather his awareness that it
was
dark, and that it had been so for a very long time. Next came memory, only bits and pieces: golden hair and eyes the color of a spring morn. Her voice cautioning him not to go without his great sword. Then the boar, charging, tusks red with blood. Pain, there had been pain. And thirst. And . . . death. And then, from far away, his foster father’s voice, conversations held in a gray twilight.

Now Diarmid heard murmurings, young men’s voices. He opened his eyes, blinking at the daylight peeking through an unshuttered window. He saw the ceiling first, spotted with mildew, in one place black with soot, and then the rest of the room: seeping walls, a potbellied iron contraption in one corner. Pallets of straw, his friends dressed as he was: in linen shirts, capes, and boots. The Fianna. He knew a moment of swelling pride.

And then he realized that the undying sleep was broken. They had been called back as foretold. Ireland had need of them again.

He saw the white-blond head of his best friend, Oscar. Then Ossian, Oscar’s father, looking strangely young, no more than twenty-four, as if there were only a few years between him and his son instead of more than twenty. Some of them had died old men, some of them in war, some—like Diarmid—by other means; but they were all young now. Most of them, like him, eighteen or nineteen; some a bit older. Goll, no longer haggard. Keenan, still thin but not yet gaunt and gray. Conan—bald as always, but then he’d been bald in his youth, and still wearing that stinking sheepskin about his shoulders.

And then there was . . . Finn. His golden-red hair glistened in the pale light, his gaze was as sharp and blue as ever. Finn, whom Diarmid had betrayed. Finn, who’d had the means to save him but had let him die.

Diarmid rose to one elbow, trying to gain his bearings. Yet nothing was familiar but these friends he’d known the whole of his life.

“A restorative sleep, it seems,” Finn said with a smile, rising, flexing arms and shoulders. “It looks to be all of us together again, lads. The horn’s sounded at last.”

“Where is she?” Ossian asked. “Shouldn’t she be here? The priestess?”

Diarmid looked around. No woman anywhere, no
veleda
. He remembered hearing the spell through his dreams, the
archdruid’s booming voice and the
veleda
’s soft one, though still powerful. Even then he’d felt a foreboding, and now he looked for her with dread.

There was another part of the prophecy that had a special role for him. He didn’t think the others knew of it—he wished he was ignorant himself.