The Undivided (21 page)

‘How did you find me?’

Brógán looked at Ren sitting by the fire trying to soak up some warmth. It was getting chilly, for all that it was still summer. For the last little while, Ren had watched the Druid pace out a circle around the hut and their campfire, marking it with a white powder he apparently kept in his pocket for occasions such as this.

‘We searched your realm for the better part of a year,’ Brógán told him, as he continued to scatter the powder. ‘Niamh found you about three months ago.’

‘You’ve been stalking me for three months? That’s creepy.’

‘It was … educational.’ Brógán brushed the powder from his hands. He examined his handiwork and nodded with satisfaction. ‘That should do it.’

‘What should do it?’

Brógán pointed to the faint white circle. ‘I’ve marked out a perimeter. If there are any weremen about, it should keep them at bay.’

‘What is it? Salt?’

‘Good lord, no!’ Brógán laughed. ‘The last thing those creatures need is a salt lick. We’d never get rid of them if we laid out salt.’

‘How silly of me,’ Ren said, still unsure what the threat was, although he was wondering how bad the threat could be if some white powder was enough to scare them off. He glanced up at the sky, but the night was cloudy and there was no sign, yet, of the moon.

Brógán smiled. ‘It’s aconite powder.’

‘Of course,’ Ren said. ‘What else would it be?’

‘Wolfsbane,’ the Druid added, by way of explanation. ‘The weremen hate it.’

‘Good to know. What
is
a wereman, exactly? Are you talking werewolves?’

‘Sort of.’ Brógán turned to check the roast before he answered. ‘They’re Faerie.’

‘Faerie werewolves, huh?’

The Druid looked up at Ren, frowning. ‘The
Daoine sídhe
in this realm are nothing like the Faerie you think you know, Rónán.’ As if to emphasise his words, Brógán produced a savage looking dagger from under his robe. He waved it at Ren. ‘You’d do well to listen and learn,
Leath tiarna
.’

‘Absolutely,’ Ren agreed hurriedly, the blade glinting dangerously as it caught the firelight. ‘Listening and learning from now on. Count on it.’

Brógán turned his attention to their meal and to Ren’s relief began to carve slices of roast meat from the spit, dropping them on a wooden platter from the hut. After a few moments, Brógán offered Ren the platter and then took a piece of meat with his fingers. Ren followed suit, guessing knives and forks weren’t a priority in this world.

Ren sat on the ground. ‘So how come you didn’t just come up to me on the street and ask me to go with you three months ago?’ he asked, figuring it was a safer subject than Faeries. ‘Would’ve been a lot less trouble than a gaol break.’

‘Would you have come without protest if two strangers had accosted you on the street and asked you to get in their car?’ the Druid asked. ‘Would you be sitting here, sharing a meal, discussing the situation with me so calmly, if we’d taken you by force?’

Ren shrugged. ‘Probably not.’

‘Anyway,’ Brógán added with a thin smile, ‘neither Niamh or I can drive a car.’

Ren smiled too, because seeing Brógán dressed like a Jedi, he couldn’t imagine him behind the wheel of a car stuck in Dublin’s peak-hour traffic. ‘I guess that explains a few things, although not why you busted me out of goal.’

‘Niamh decided we couldn’t wait any longer to retrieve you,’ Brógán said, through a mouthful of meat. ‘Once you did something that caused your face to be broadcast across the world, the chances of the
Tuatha
finding you before we could bring you home became a real danger.’

‘You broke me outta gaol to save me from the Faeries, huh?’ Ren said, eyeing Brógán warily. ‘That doesn’t sound in the least bit crazy.’

Brógán was no longer smiling. ‘You may poke fun at us,
Leath tiarna
, but the danger is real, and you mock it at your peril. Had the
Daoine sídhe
decided to take you, you would have been powerless to resist them. Just be thankful that in the realm we rescued you from there is so little magic left, no true
Tuatha
can survive there.’

‘If they can’t survive in my reality, what were you worried about?’

‘There are mongrels aplenty who can cross between the worlds.’ Brógán’s tone was cold; filled with bitterness and contempt.

‘So … these mongrel
Daoine sídhe …
’ he asked warily, not sure what reaction his question would provoke. ‘They can teleport across realities too?’

Brógán nodded. ‘The half-breeds can. Some of them. But crossing the rift between realms is not a teleport in the sense you mean.’

A blood-chilling howl suddenly split the air. Ren jumped.

Brógán carried on as if he hadn’t heard a thing. ‘Teleports such as those we saw on television in your reality are purely mechanical. Such a machine would be massive and would require the power of a small sun to make it operational.’

‘Then how do yours work?’ Ren asked, glancing over his shoulder. He wasn’t sure which direction the howling had come from. The first call had been answered by a second, just as chilling, which seemed to come from the opposite direction.

‘Magic.’

Another howl rent the night.

‘Should we be worried about that?’ Ren asked. The howls seemed to be getting closer.

‘The aconite will keep them at bay. Did you want some more meat?’

‘No … I’m good …’

‘There’s nothing to worry about, Rónán,’ Brógán assured him, reaching forward calmly to carve himself another slice off the spit. ‘Did you want me to explain about the rift?’

He’s trying to change the subject. Distract me. While the hounds of hell are descending upon us.

Okay … I’ll play along …
‘Can you jump through time, too?’

‘Of course not. Everyone knows that.’

‘Here, maybe everyone knows it,’ Ren agreed, scrambling to his feet at the sound of something moving in the dark. ‘In the reality I come from …’ he added, peering into the darkness, ‘we’re still pretty much content with the whole idea of not being able to travel between dimensions at all.’ Despite a lighter patch of sky behind the clouds indicating the hidden full moon, it was too dark beyond the circle of firelight to see much of anything.

‘It’s not possible to travel through time …’ Brógán explained patiently. He seemed oblivious to the shadows Ren could sense creeping closer and closer to the faint perimeter. ‘Otherwise you run the risk of running into yourself, and that’s a paradox
Danú
just won’t allow.’

Ren jumped at another howl that seemed to come from just over his shoulder.

‘But you can run into yourself in another reality, can’t you?’ he said, trying to sound as if he wasn’t freaked by the nearness of the unseen weremen. ‘Are those things going to kill us?’

Brógán looked around for a moment and then shrugged. ‘While they’re howling like that, they’re nothing to worry about.’ He glanced up at the overcast sky and shrugged. ‘We’ll be perfectly safe, provided the rain holds off. We call them
eileféin
, by the way.’

‘Cellophane?’ Ren asked, wondering if he’d misheard the Druid.

‘
Ella-phane
,’ Brógán corrected.

‘Okay … what are these
eileféin
?’

‘The alternate-reality version of oneself,’ Brógán explained. ‘We have very strict laws in this realm about bringing
eileféin
through the rift.’

‘Good to know. If they’re not actually werewolves, exactly
what
are they?’ Ren asked, turning a slow circle to see if he could spot one. He could sense them, but still couldn’t make out much more than darting shades in the darkness, and Brógán had a valid concern about the rain. The Wolfsbane circle protecting them wouldn’t last a minute in even a light shower.

‘Shapeshifters, originally,’ Brógán said, with a complete lack of concern. ‘Legend has it they broke away from the
Tuatha Dé Danann
after falling out with Orlagh over some matter or other.’

‘Who’s Orlagh?’

‘The queen of the
Tuatha
.’

‘So … they changed their shape and then got stuck in it?’

The howling had picked up in pitch to the point where Ren’s hair was standing on end.

‘No, of course not,’ Brógán said, wiping the grease from his knife on the grass. ‘They usually only take on wolven form during a full moon. The rest of the time, they’re just ordinary, everyday Faerie.’

Ren eyed him askance. ‘Seriously? Ordinary, everyday
Faeries
?’

‘Something you’re going to have to get used to,’ Brógán reminded him calmly.

Ren shook his head, trying to spot one of the elusive shadows. The howls were so close, Ren couldn’t believe the creatures weren’t snapping at his ankles.

‘Yeah … about that whole magic thing …’
How is this happening? I shouldn’t be here waiting for fairy werewolves to rip my throat out. I should be home …

No, I should be at the hospital with Hayley …

I should be in a reality where nightmares are just dreams and not a glimpse of the future …

‘Magic is a natural force like any other,
Leath tiarna
,’ Brógán explained patiently, mistaking Ren’s silence for interest. ‘It just requires a creature with the ability — such as yourself — and of course, in the case of the Druids, the training as well, to tap into the power of
Danú
to make it happen. The idea in your realm of ever being able to break people down into their component parts and reconstruct them somewhere else with a machine is really quite absurd, when you think about it.’

‘Unlike
magically
moving people around,’ Ren said distractedly. The howls were growing ever more frantic. ‘Which makes perfectly good sense?’ Ren’s head swivelled, trying to follow the sounds, hoping to see one of the creatures before they came at him, teeth and claws ready to devour him. Right now,
even though he was hard-pressed to believe in it, a bit of magical intervention seemed like a splendid idea. ‘Tell me, how long does it take to learn this “tapping into the power of
Danú
” thing? I think magically moving us somewhere other than here seems a grand plan right about now.’

‘Mastery of magic is the result of years of training,
Leath tiarna
. However, once you and Darragh have shared the
Comhroinn
it should become much easier for you.’

Ren looked up at the feel of raindrops on his face, acutely aware of Brógán’s warning about the rain washing away their protective barrier. He backed closer to the fire until his heels were almost touching the glowing coals. ‘So, there’s nothing you can teach me in the next … you know … three minutes or so, that might be useful if I was looking not to get devoured …’

Brógán sighed heavily, holding a hand out to confirm it really was starting to rain. ‘I am
Liaig.
I couldn’t teach you that, even if I wanted to,’ he said. ‘My power is —’

Without warning, the howling abruptly stopped.

The Druid lowered his hand with a frown. For the first time since the howling started, Brógán looked worried. ‘Ah … that’s not good.’

‘Not good?’ Ren asked, looking about in a mild panic as the rain began to fall a little harder. A moment ago, he had thought he’d give anything for the howling to stop, but the silence seemed infinitely worse. ‘What do you mean,
not good
?’

If Brógán answered him, Ren never heard it, because at that moment, a dark growling blur launched itself at Ren, slamming him hard into the ground in a snarling swirl of hair, teeth, red eyes, slobber and breath that smelled like rotting meat.

Killing things always evoked mixed feelings in Sorcha. If she hesitated, it wasn’t because she feared the kill or lacked the ability to deliver a decisive killing stroke. It was the faint suspicion that, no matter how good at it she was, she didn’t have the right to take another life, even though the goddess
Danú
had clearly gifted her with an exceptional talent in that area.

Sorcha held her breath, the taut string of her bow tickling her cheek as she waited for the right moment to loose her arrow. The hind in her sights still had no inkling of her presence. The dappled twilight in the clearing and Sorcha’s almost supernatural ability to move silently through the forest meant the creature had no notion its death was a mere heartbeat away.

And still Sorcha hesitated, silently thanking the goddess for her bounty, wondering if she should let the creature go …

A loud snapping behind her startled the hind and it dashed off, crashing through the undergrowth and out of sight.

Sorcha lowered her bow and released the string, neither angry nor disappointed.

Danú
had spoken. The hind, this time, was meant to live.

‘There’s no point in you sneaking about out there,’ she called, returning her black-fletched arrow to the quiver at her belt. ‘You’re making enough noise to wake the dead.’

There was more clumsy crashing through the undergrowth. A few moments later a familiar figure emerged from the trees, his beard threaded with golden trinkets, his muscular forearms encircled by gold bracers engraved with the triskalion insignia.

‘I should have known it was you,’ Sorcha said, shouldering her bow. ‘You thunder through the forest like an elephant.’

Ciarán smiled at her, but wisely stayed out of her reach. ‘I’ve never seen an elephant.’

‘Well, you’ll know it when you meet one,’ Sorcha assured him. ‘You have the same boot size. What’s the matter?’

The big warrior stared at her, all full of wounded innocence. ‘Why do you assume something is wrong, my lady?’

‘Because you’re here, Ciarán,’ she replied, putting her hands on her hips, which placed them — conveniently — nearer the knives she carried at her belt. ‘You know better than to seek me out for mere social intercourse.’

He smiled tentatively. ‘I bring wonderful news, my lady.’

‘I was sixteen the last time anybody shared their wonderful news with me, boy,’ she reminded him. ‘That cost me everything and everybody I knew and loved.’

The pain of that discovery was long behind her now, but Ciarán didn’t know that, and it suited Sorcha to let people think she still bore the emotional scars. It made them wary of her and meant, as a rule, they gave her a wide berth, which was exactly how she liked it. She turned to pick up her waterskin, not caring much for whatever wonderful news the Druid warrior brought. There was little, these days, that inspired Sorcha. Even less that she considered ‘wonderful’.

‘We have found the missing twin,’ Ciarán announced with barely contained excitement.

Sorcha hesitated. That was not something she’d expected.

‘Good for you,’ she said, straightening as she shouldered the waterskin on the opposite side to her bow and began to walk
back down the faint game trail along which she’d followed the hind. ‘Come see me when you have him.’

‘We do have him, Sorcha.’

This time she stopped, turning to look at the warrior. She’d taught him when he was a mere lad, and could tell at a glance if he was lying. Even in the fading light of the forest, she could see him nodding, barely able to control his joy.

‘You
have
him?’

‘Rónán is alive and well and back where he belongs.’

‘He’s at
Sí an Bhrú
?’ she asked, a little incredulous. Sorcha chose to remain aloof from human society as a rule, but she couldn’t imagine news that the missing twin of the Undivided had returned to
Sí an Bhrú
was about and she’d not heard it from someone.

Ciarán shook his head. ‘No, of course he’s not there. We have him stashed in a hut just outside Breaga. You are only the fourth person, including Darragh himself, who knows of his return.’

Sorcha didn’t answer immediately, not sure how the magical reappearance of the long-lost Undivided twin affected her. She had lost any desire for life at any ruling court, Druid or otherwise. Were it not for the oath she’d once sworn to the Druids, she’d have had nothing to do with them at all.

‘Why bring
me
this news?’

‘I bring a request on behalf of Darragh, my lady,’ he said with a formal and not inelegant bow. ‘He wishes to engage your services as his brother’s protector.’

‘Does his brother need protecting?’ she asked, her curiosity piqued. Although she had little interest in the goings-on at
Sí an Bhrú
, she knew how much the
Tuatha
, and Marcroy Tarth in particular, would like to rid themselves of the Undivided. To be there when he learned his most recent efforts had been in vain … well, for that, it was almost worth heading back to
Sí an Bhrú
.

‘The traitor, Amergin, threw Rónán through the rift to a realm with no magic,’ Ciarán explained. ‘He seems as intelligent as his brother and, naturally, has the same physical abilities, but he has been raised in complete ignorance of his heritage. He is untrained and unprepared for the life ahead of him. He needs someone who can protect him while he learns. Someone who can teach him.’

‘There are Druids for that. Have Darragh perform the
Comhroinn
on his brother. He has no need of my help.’

‘The
Comhroinn
will give Rónán knowledge, not experience, Sorcha. Even with all his brother’s knowledge, he’ll need training. And protection.’

‘I’m no sorcerer,’ she reminded him. ‘What can I teach a Druid — one of the Undivided, no less — of magic?’

‘Darragh is not asking you to teach him magic. He needs you to keep his brother alive while others teach him,’ Ciarán said. He glanced up at the sky. Night was closing in on them and he was clearly in a hurry. ‘Will you come?’

‘I’ll think about it,’ she said, turning back to the path. Undivided or no, Darragh couldn’t just arbitrarily send for her and expect her to drop everything for him.

‘It’s a full moon tonight, Sorcha.’

‘Then you’ll have a few weremen to contend with on your way back to the stones,’ she said over her shoulder, unsympathetically. ‘Do keep your eyes open, lad. They’re particularly hungry at this time of year.’

‘Rónán is alone in Breaga under the protection of a single
Liaig.
If we don’t get back to him before moonrise, there may be no
Leath tiarna
left to protect.’

Sorcha frowned. ‘And whose stupid idea was it to leave the unprepared and untrained lost twin of the Undivided alone with a herb-peddler on a night like this?’

‘Darragh suggested —’

‘Darragh is a fool,’ she snapped, annoyed the decision had been taken from her, although she realised Darragh wasn’t a fool at all. He just knew her far better than she thought. He must know the danger his brother would be in and that she would feel honour-bound to protect one of the Undivided.

Curse his wretched Druid soul. He must have been supremely confident I would come to his aid.

That boy really is too clever for his own good.

‘Where is Darragh now?’

‘He had to return to
Sí an Bhrú
. Marcroy Tarth and Queen Álmhath are currently visiting. He couldn’t tip them off about Rónán’s return by going missing for any length of time.’

Sorcha let out an exasperated sigh. ‘I will meet with Rónán,’ she announced, to save face, if nothing else. She’d make Darragh pay for playing on her sense of duty like this. She wasn’t sure how, just yet, but she would see he did not get away with this manipulation unscathed. ‘But I’ll make no promises about staying. Rónán may have been spoiled beyond redemption by this other realm. I’ll not agree to anything until I’ve had a chance to take his measure myself.’

‘That seems fair.’

‘And you can tell Darragh I don’t appreciate being played like this.’

‘You can tell him yourself,
a Mháistreás
.’ Ciarán looked mightily relieved.

Sorcha wasn’t surprised. Already she could hear the first faint calls of weremen in the distance.

‘Then we’d best hurry,’ she said. ‘Breaga is east of here. The moon will rise there sooner than here. If I am to have a
Leath tiarna
to protect, we don’t have much time.’

It was full dark by the time they emerged from the stones in Breaga. Ciarán took his arms from around Sorcha — who could
not travel through the stones without the help of a Druid — pocketed his jewel, and took off at a run. There was a fine rain beginning to fall, the moon misty behind the clouds, and the howling they could hear in the distance was the frenzied howling of a were-pack closing in on a kill. It seemed colder in Breaga than in Sorcha’s forest. The tiny village was little more than a few round dark shadows pierced here and there by the blur of yellow light from a tallow candle in a window.

Sorcha easily out-distanced Ciarán, running with the ease of a seasoned warrior, her lighter, more supple frame — and the fact that she carried less in the way of armour and weapons — making her much faster.

The howling stopped abruptly as they caught sight of an orange glow in the distance. The cook-fire would keep a wereman at bay only if one was actually standing in the middle of it.

Sorcha withdrew two long knives as she ran, certain, now, that
Danú
had scared away the hind earlier today because she had other lives in mind for her warrior daughter to collect on her behalf.

It was time to kill some weremen.

She leapt into the fray with a terrifying ululating cry. She aimed for the nearest one who appeared to have a human pinned to the ground beneath him. Sorcha didn’t know if the human was Rónán, the Druid healer they’d left him with, or some random shepherd who happened to be caught outdoors on a full moon. She didn’t even know if she had arrived in time to save him.

Sorcha slashed at the beast, jumping on its back as she sliced her blades sideways. A hot rush of blood gushed over her arms and the beast’s terrified victim as she laid open its throat. The beast collapsed onto the human and she left it there as she leapt up, looking for her next kill. Whoever it was pinned beneath the hairy wolven corpse was safer trapped under the bulk of the dead wereman while she took care of the rest of the
pack, than stumbling around panicked, frightened and getting underfoot.

Ciarán joined the fight. He killed another beast with a single blow of his Roman sword, while Sorcha turned her knives on a creature that seemed torn between attacking the man brandishing a burning branch on the other side of the fire, and the roast lamb.

She dispatched the creature with a sharp thrust to the spine. Its blood-curdling scream distracted some of the other weremen. They knew what that scream meant. Only
airgead sídhe
weapons could cause that sort of pain in a dying Faerie creature.

Sorcha and Ciarán disposed of another two each before the beasts fled howling into the darkness, looking for less troublesome prey. Prey that wasn’t armed with blades forged from
airgead sídhe.

Breathing heavily, Sorcha turned to survey her handiwork. Now they were dead the weremen had returned to their true form. No longer frightening, drooling beasts, they were pale, slender, long-limbed creatures, dirty and bloody, but unmistakeably Faerie.

Sorcha bowed her head, offered their souls to
Danú
, and then turned to the first corpse she’d killed, under which was trapped — and hopefully still alive — the long-lost twin of the Undivided.