The Undivided (18 page)

‘Who were you expecting?’ he asked.
Pay attention. Look at what they’re wearing, how they speak, eye colour, hair colour …

Niamh would be easy to remember, he thought. She had long, wavy dark hair flecked with the occasional strand of grey, sharp blue eyes and an air about her that suggested she was used to being in charge. She was much older than Brógán, too, he realised, now he had time to notice. She was closer to his mother’s age.

Niamh didn’t answer Ren’s question. ‘Has Brógán fed you, yet? Offered you a chance to clean up? Is there anything you want?’

‘You could drop me off at the nearest port,’ Ren suggested. ‘And let me go home.’

Niamh smiled. ‘Never fear, Rónán,’ she said. ‘If I can promise you nothing else, I can promise you this,
Leath tiarna
: we are taking you home.’

‘Better the blood of two innocents, than the blood of twenty thousand.’

Ren extracted his finger from the soft, determined grip of the baby girl, her skin so soft and warm, her gaze so trusting and serene; it was heartbreaking.

But not heartbreaking enough to stay his hand. He raised the blade, transfixed by the guileless blue eyes staring up at him. And then he brought it down sharply, slicing through the swaddling and her fragile ribs into her tiny heart without remorse or regret.

He was quick and, he hoped, merciful, but the link between the sisters was quicker.

Before he could extract the blade from one tiny heart and plunge it into another, her twin sister jerked with pain and began to scream.

The next time Ren woke he was no longer on the rusty old barge tossing around on the Irish Sea. As the wisps of his unsettling dream faded, he looked about and discovered he was lying on a rank, straw-filled mattress in what seemed — and smelled — like some sort of rude shepherd’s cottage. There were no windows. The only light came from cracks in the split-log walls.

For a few moments, he struggled to recall how he got here. The last thing he remembered was sitting with Brógán in the galley of the barge, eating a perfectly ordinary ham sandwich. It was about ten in the morning, and Ren was freshly showered and dressed in borrowed jeans and a sweatshirt, none the wiser about what his captors wanted. Niamh’s voice had come over the PA again, announcing they were almost there. Brógán’s grin broadened. He was excited. Full of anticipation.

‘Where exactly is “there”?’ Ren asked.

Brógán was hard-pressed to contain himself. ‘You’ll see. Finish your lunch.’

‘Why?’

‘You’ll have to come up on deck. Then you’ll see.’

Ren swallowed the last of his sandwich, drained the lukewarm can of Pepsi Brógán had given him, and then followed the young man onto the deck to join Niamh. But almost as soon as he appeared, she hit him with that deadly blue powder again.

That was the last thing Ren remembered.

He pushed himself up on his elbows to look around. There was no sign of Brógán or Niamh and — through the pounding headache that was a
Brionglóid Gorm
hangover — he discovered that under the smelly woollen blanket, he wasn’t wearing any clothes.

He didn’t want to think about why.

The door opened and Brógán walked in. Still smiling like a fool, the young man was no longer dressed in jeans and T-shirt. Now he was wearing a tan hooded robe made of a rough woven fibre.

‘Where’re my clothes?’ Ren demanded, horrified at how panicked he sounded. ‘Who took them?’

‘I’m sorry,’ Brógán said, surprised. ‘Oh … Of course … you wouldn’t know. We couldn’t bring them through the rift.’

‘What rift?’

‘Ah …’ Brógán paused, as if choosing his words more carefully. ‘We are … in a …
different
place … to the one you are used to, Rónán,’ he said slowly, considering every word. ‘We have rules here that make the apparel you were wearing … dangerous.’

Ren’s panic evaporated in the face of such a ludicrous suggestion. ‘
Dangerous?
Dude, I was wearing jeans!’

‘With a zip fastener,’ Brógán said. ‘And your T-shirt was a blend of synthetic fibres. Neither of those technologies is permitted here.’

‘A zipper?
Technology?
Are you kidding me?’

Brógán looked appalled. ‘Of course not,
Leath tiarna
!’

‘And that’s another thing … why do you keep calling me Rónán? And Half-Lord? Where is Niamh by the way? And what happened to the boat? Wait … let me guess! The damn thing sank, didn’t it?’

Brógán shrugged. ‘Possibly. I don’t know what happened to it after we left.’

Brógán wasn’t making any sense and Ren’s head hurt too much to puzzle it out. He just wanted some aspirin, some clothes and a ride home. He was long over being a kidnap victim.

‘Look … can I just —’ Ren let out an involuntary yelp as the pain in his head suddenly spiked. ‘God … that blue crap you people keep blowing in my face is some serious shit. My head is killing me.’

Concerned, Brógán hurried to Ren’s side. ‘Here, let me fix that for you.’

Before Ren could stop him, Brógán placed his hand on Ren’s forehead and closed his eyes.

Miraculously and without warning, the headache vanished.

Ren stared at Brógán in surprise. Brógán was instantly concerned. ‘Is something wrong?’

‘No … I mean … Christ, what did you do, Obi Wan? Use the Force?’

‘I don’t know what that means,’ Brógán said, looking puzzled. ‘I healed your pain, Rónán, that’s all. It’s what I do.’

‘I thought what you did was kidnap people?’ Ren said sourly.

The young man smiled. ‘Not people. Just you.’

‘What makes me so special?’

Brógán’s grin threatened to split his face in half. ‘You’ll see. Did you want to get dressed?’

‘Didn’t you ditch my gear because of the evil zipper?’

‘We did,’ Brógán said, without a hint of irony. ‘I have clothes that will fit you.’ He hurried to the other side of the small hut where a folded pile of clothes sat on a roughly carved three-legged stool by the unlit fireplace. He picked them up and brought them to Ren. ‘Here.’

Ren eyed the pile warily before taking it from Brógán. It consisted of a sleeveless sheepskin vest and a pair of brightly coloured, speckled blue trousers made of soft wool. There was a shirt too, laced with a leather thong, made of a fabric that felt like linen, embroidered along the cuffs and collar with beautifully worked blue climbing roses and soft, equally embellished, ankle-high boots. There was no underwear. Ren shook his head in despair. ‘Dude, that has to be the gayest outfit I’ve ever laid eyes on.’

‘I’m glad the clothes please you, Rónán.’

Ren sighed. He had always thought he spoke Gaelige pretty well, but something was clearly getting lost in the translation. He studied Brógán’s expectant expression and shook his head. ‘You seriously expect me to wear this stuff, don’t you?’

‘Of course.’

‘How do you know it’ll fit?’

Brógán’s face split into that insufferable I-know-something-you-don’t-know grin again. ‘They’ll fit.’

There didn’t seem to be much choice. Silly or not, any clothes were better than no clothes. Ren pushed back the rough blanket,
shivering a little in the chill air, and pulled the shirt over his head. Brógán watched, still grinning stupidly. As his head poked through the neck, Ren glared at him. ‘Having fun there, pal?’

Brógán looked at him oddly for a moment and then shrugged. ‘I’m sorry … you’re used to privacy, aren’t you?’

‘If you don’t mind …’

Brógán backed out of the small hut, closing the door — which was hung on thick leather hinges — behind him. Ren dressed as quickly as he could, surprised by how accurately they’d guessed his size. The trousers took some working out, though. They were much tighter-fitting than he was accustomed to and were held down at the ankles by a slender strap passing underfoot. The shirt looked like a frock coat, but it had no collar. It reached a little below the hips, with a leather girdle at the waist. The clothes weren’t as comfortable as he was used to, but the boots felt as if they’d been custom-made for him, and the rest of the gear fitted almost as well.

When he was finally done, Ren glanced down at himself, shaking his head. ‘Oh my God … Hayley … if you could see me now …’

Ren wondered what would happen next. Brógán seemed excited rather than worried — but that could mean anything. And there was no sign of Niamh. It occurred to Ren that if Brógán was alone out there, perhaps now was his chance to overpower him. Ren wasn’t defenceless. He’d been taught to fight by Kiva’s bodyguards — who were masters of dirty tricks rather than the Marquis of Queensbury rules — and he’d spent some time on the school boxing team. At least until he realised competition boxing meant answering awkward questions about those wretched cuts that kept appearing on his arms, legs and torso.

Ren flexed his hands, wondering how hard he’d have to hit Brógán to incapacitate him. There wasn’t much he could use as a weapon in the hut. He’d done enough boxing to know a single
blow to the head resulting in unconsciousness would be — in his case — more good luck than anything else.

He lost his chance to do something about Brógán while he was still wondering about it. The door opened and Niamh came in. She was also dressed in a long tan robe. She eyed him warily for a moment and then stood back to let another man in.

Ren stared at the newcomer, whose powerful presence filled the hut. The man was a little taller than Ren, his face scarred and weather-beaten, making it hard to guess his age. He was dressed in a similar fashion to Ren, with the addition of a chainmail vest that reached to mid-thigh, golden bracers at his wrists, and rings on almost every finger. And he was wearing a sword. A very large sword.

He stared at Ren for a moment and then shook his head. ‘By
Danú
… except for the hair … it’s uncanny.’

‘What’s uncanny?’ Ren asked.

‘Nothing …’ Niamh said, with a warning look at the big man. She fixed her gaze on Ren. ‘This is Ciarán. He’s here to watch over you. Let’s go outside. There is someone coming to meet you soon and we need to explain a few things before then.’

Here we go
, Ren thought.
This is where they tell me ‘it’s nothing personal, son, but if your mother doesn’t arrange for the release of every political prisoner in the entire freaking world by tomorrow morning we’re going to start sending you home, one finger at a time’.

Filled with trepidation, Ren followed Niamh and the big scary guy outside, mindful that escape would be easier out in the open. It turned out his guess about being in a shepherd’s hut was right. The tiny shelter was located on the side of a small hill. The countryside fell away in a postcard-pretty sweep of emerald green fields, dotted with a few trees and a dozen or so scrappy-looking sheep grazing contently. Nearby was a lathered mare cropping at the grass close to the hut, although there was no sign of a saddle or bridle to indicate she’d been ridden recently. Ren could just make out a thin blue ribbon of water on the horizon. The day was cool and cloudy and seemed to be mid-afternoon. They weren’t that far inland, he calculated, given he could smell the salt air on the breeze, but there was no sign of civilisation. No powerlines, no roads, no smoke haze in the distance. They were far from everywhere.

‘Who’s coming to see me?’ he asked, blinking as he emerged into the sunlight.

‘That will be obvious when you meet him,’ Niamh said. She pointed to a fire pit where Brógán was turning a lamb on a spit over a bed of glowing coals. ‘Are you hungry?’

Ren shook his head. The creature still looked quite raw.

‘Sit down,’ she said.

He looked around. ‘On what?’

Niamh looked at him oddly. ‘The ground. What else?’

Ren sighed.
Ask a stupid question …
He did as Niamh suggested, and sat down cross-legged — no mean feat in those trousers — on the grass near the fire, close enough, almost, to reach it. Maybe, when Brógán turned his back to stoke the fire, Ren could grab a burning stick for a weapon …

But a glance at the newcomer in the chainmail who was here to ‘watch over him’ made Ren think better of that plan. Ciarán looked like he could break tree-trunks in half with his bare hands.

Niamh sat opposite him, much more gracefully. The man with the sword folded his alarmingly well-formed arms across his chest and remained standing behind her.

‘The first thing we must explain to you, Rónán,’ Niamh said, arranging the folds of her robe, ‘is that there is no point in trying to run from here. This is not the world you know. You are in danger from threats you cannot imagine, which is why Ciarán is here. I want your word that, at least until you meet your …’ she hesitated, as if searching for the right word, ‘your visitor … you will not try to run away.’ She spoke Gaelige, as she had almost continuously since he had first met her, although it was oddly accented and Ren wasn’t sure he was getting all the words.

He nodded in response to her request, easily making a promise he had no intention of keeping. Not that he had much choice in the matter with Ciarán standing there …
looming
. ‘Okay,’ he said.

‘The next thing I need to explain is that we are not from the realm you know.’

That seemed something of an understatement. ‘I see …’

Niamh frowned. ‘I am serious, Rónán. This is a different Earth to the one you are familiar with.’

‘This is not your reality, is what she means,’ Ciarán said. He added, speaking to Niamh, ‘He won’t understand realms, Niamh. You should call them realities.’

‘You’re talking about
alternate
realities?’ Ren asked. He was expecting a political manifesto. Even some rant about how Kiva didn’t deserve her Oscar, and that he was stuck there until she gave it back, would have made more sense. He wasn’t expecting a physics lesson.

‘You know of alternate realities?’ Niamh said in surprise. ‘I wasn’t aware they knew about such things in your realm.’

‘We have theories about them,’ Ren said cautiously, deciding he’d be better served not antagonising the guy who looked like he ate small children for breakfast. ‘Sci-fi shows on TV like to use them when they run out of other ideas,’ he added in English. ‘Get to the bit where you busted me out of gaol. And why.’

‘There are certain things you need to understand about this place,’ Niamh replied in Gaelige. ‘Differences between our realm and the one you came from. These differences are critical, Rónán … differences on which your life will depend.’

Something about Niamh’s tone warned Ren she was serious, and that was frightening. She truly believed what she was telling him, even if it was insane. Ren decided to at least give the impression he was listening attentively, figuring it wasn’t a good idea to anger the insane people who just kidnapped you.

Pay attention
, he reminded himself silently.
Remember as much as you can. Listen. Listen for names. Listen for key words that tell you useful things about your kidnappers.

Such as they’re completely off their collective rockers and think they’re from an alternate reality …

‘Okay,’ he said in a conciliatory tone. ‘Lay it on me.’

Niamh glared at him crossly, before she continued. ‘This reality differs from the one you’ve known in many respects, but the true point of diversion seems to be a Roman occupation of Britain.’

Ren waited. She was looking at him as if her statement should mean something to him. It didn’t.

Ciarán seemed frustrated that Ren wasn’t getting the significance of Niamh’s revelation. ‘Two thousand years ago, the Romans failed to take Britain, Rónán,’ he said. ‘They failed to eradicate the Druids.’

Ren eyed them warily. ‘Okaaay … So you’re Druids, huh?’ That, at least, explained the outfits.

‘I know what you must be thinking,’ Brógán said cheerily, taking a seat beside him on the ground. The roast on the spit didn’t need his complete attention, although it was starting to smell delicious.

‘I’m thinking you guys have been skipping your meds.’

Even Brógán didn’t crack a smile. Perhaps they were from the Totally Lacking a Sense of Humour reality. Ren remembered Murray Symes once telling him that at least two percent of the world’s population were psychopaths. Looking at these three, he started to wonder if the percentage wasn’t a lot higher.

‘Please, Rónán, you must take this seriously!’ Niamh sounded more than a little frustrated.

Ciarán nodded in agreement. ‘There are things you must learn yet, Rónán, skills you need to master, to survive here.’

‘You have been gone a very long time,’ Brógán added, ‘and there are those, like the
Tuatha
for one, who have benefited enormously from your absence.’

‘
I’ve
been gone?’ Ren asked, glancing back and forth at the three of them suspiciously. He didn’t bother to ask who or what the
Tuatha
was, because for some reason he knew who they meant. And that worried him. Even feigning interest in their politics was the short ride to insanity, but now he had actually understood one of their words. ‘You think
I’m
one of
you
?’

‘There is no doubt,’ Brógán said, looking ready to burst with glee.

Ren was tempted to ask why they were so certain, but he was afraid they might tell him and he really didn’t want to buy any further into their delusion.

An unexpected scene from his recurring nightmare flashed unbidden through his mind. Ren suddenly felt ill. The clothes he was wearing — the clothes they’d just given him — were almost identical to those he wore in his dream …

Niamh must have mistaken his expression for scepticism. With a frustrated snort, she rose to her feet. ‘This is a waste of time,’ she said to Ciarán, brushing loose grass from her robe. ‘There is only one way he’s going to be convinced. I’m not interested in wasting my time trying to tell him something he’ll only believe when he sees it with his own eyes.’

Ren climbed to his feet. ‘Show me then. Prove it.’

He needed proof, either that this was really happening, or that he was going mad.

Dear God, please let me be going mad
. The idea that his nightmare had become a reality was more than he could bear. Just knowing he had the capacity to imagine killing those unnamed babies had haunted him most of his life, making him fear the darkness secretly dwelling in his soul. He wasn’t sure he’d be able to deal with the idea that his nightmare wasn’t actually a nightmare, but something he really might do some day …

Niamh looked at the older man, who nodded slightly. She nodded back, glancing up at the sun that rested on the edge of the horizon in the west. ‘I suppose it’s almost time.’

‘Time for what?’ Ren asked.

She didn’t bother to answer him. She turned to her younger companion. ‘Give me your robe, Brógán.’

The young man looked at her questioningly.

‘She can’t parade him openly through the village, can she?’ Ciarán explained impatiently.

‘Oh!’ Brógán said. He jumped to his feet, untied his woven belt and slipped off his robe, handing it to Ren. Beneath it, he was wearing tight red trousers and a linen frock coat similar to the outfit Ren was wearing.

‘Put it on,’ Niamh ordered. ‘And pull the hood up so nobody sees your face.’

Small wonder they didn’t want him recognised. They must know the police would have circulated his photo and that by now his face would be on every news broadcast, every newspaper front page and probably every milk carton in Europe. Ren hoped that was the reason for the disguise. He desperately needed to believe that was the reason and that she was lying about the alternate realities.

Ren did as he was ordered. ‘So … there’s a village nearby?’ he said in what he hoped was a casual tone.

‘About three miles from here,’ she said.

He glanced around. Except for the one horse, there was no sign of a vehicle, although it would take a four-wheel-drive with some serious torque to climb this hill. He glanced at the horse. ‘How are we getting there?’

‘Walk, of course.’

Niamh set off without any further ado, not even bothering to check if Ren was following. He supposed that meant she took him at his word when he said he wouldn’t try to escape.
Fat chance. First public place we come to in the village, I’m outta here …

Even if the village was too small to have its own Gardaí station, there was sure to be a pub or a store. Some place with people and a phone.

Ciarán wasn’t quite so trusting. He waited for Ren to move off, before coming up the rear, leaving Brógán to tend the roast on the spit.

Ren hurried to catch up with Niamh and put some distance between himself and Ciarán. It would take them half an hour maybe to walk to the village.

In half an hour, Ren figured, he would be free.

Ren was soon forced to rethink his escape plan. The village of Breaga didn’t even have a sealed main road, just a muddy, rutted street separating a cluster of thatched roundhouses no more salubrious than the shepherd’s hut they’d left behind. A pall of wood smoke hung in the air, and the few people he did see were dressed like brightly coloured extras from a Conan the Barbarian movie. But the residents of Breaga seemed to want to avoid Ciarán’s eye and scurried indoors as soon as they appeared.

So much for asking someone to help.
Ren couldn’t see anything in the village that looked like a pub or a shop. Not even a public phone. And if there was electricity in this village, then the lines were underground.

Not that they ventured far enough into the town for Ren to be sure about that. Their destination proved to be a small ring of stones on the outskirts of the village. As they approached, Ren studied the circle curiously. Some of the stones were taller than he was, the lowest of them only waist-height and flat on top. Although moss-covered and weathered, he could see they were covered in intricate Gaelic knot-work. Maybe this was the local tourist attraction, Ren thought, rubbing his tattooed palm against his thigh. For no apparent reason it prickled with pins and needles. If the village was hoping to encourage tourists, a cafe and a souvenir shop, along with a useable road, would go a long way to improving their chances.

The grass around the site was trimmed, or grazed down by sheep. The ground inside the circle of stones seemed to have been used for a bonfire. There was a small stone platform in the
centre, and around it, the earth was scorched and dead and dry, in contrast to the damp ground outside.

Ren turned to Niamh. ‘What’s with the poor-man’s Stonehenge?’

She looked at him in surprise. ‘You’ve been to Stonehenge?’

Ren nodded. ‘Kiva did a photo shoot there once. Some perfume endorsement she had going at the time. I don’t remember much about it. Except playing around the set and getting underfoot.’ He said it in English, not sure if there were even words in Gaelige for ‘photo shoot’ or ‘endorsement’.

‘Did you feel anything?’ Ciarán asked him curiously.

‘Feel anything?’ It seemed an odd question, but then, pretty much everything about his current circumstances was odd. ‘Not that I recall.’

Niamh shook her head with a sigh. ‘It is a very strange world you’ve grown up in, Rónán. I hope it has prepared you for this one.’

‘Here’s hoping,’ he agreed in English, playing along with her as he glanced over his shoulder toward the village. He wondered if he could make it to the first house — dressed as he was — before Ciarán caught him. Assuming, of course, he wasn’t armed and didn’t shoot him in the back to stop him. ‘Last time I —’ Ren stopped abruptly, as every hair on his body suddenly stood on end and the tattoo on the palm of his hand started to burn.

The area inside the small standing stones began to crackle with red lightning.

Alarmed, Ren took a step backward, which brought him up against the solid bulk of Ciarán, who placed a firm hand on his shoulder.

Niamh didn’t seem in the least concerned by the lightning. In fact, she was smiling expectantly as she moved closer to the circle. Ren glanced over his shoulder again, eyeing the houses on the edge of the village warily. The burning in his hand intensified.
Was now the time to run? While the standing stones danced with that arcing red light and Niamh’s attention was elsewhere?

Will I get more than three steps without Ciarán lopping my head off with that sword?

Before Ren could decide, the lightning stopped as inexplicably as it had started — no wonder the ground was singed. He looked at the standing stones. A hooded figure now stood on the stone platform in the centre of the circle.