The Undivided (29 page)

‘Is he sure?’

‘No,’ Ciarán said. ‘Given your brother’s limited experience with the little folk, it’s possible he mistook one
Leipreachán
for another. The problem is, he saw a
Leipreachán.
If the little folk know Rónán is back, you can bet they’re telling Marcroy Tarth about it, even as we speak.’

Darragh frowned. He’d seen the look on Marcroy’s face at the Council. The
Daoine sídhe
lord had been itching for the power transfer to take place. He had stood at Álmhath’s side in a show of unprecedented solidarity with the human queen. So anxious was he that the power be transferred, that he was prepared to risk the life of these young twins — not to mention take the life of Darragh and Rónán — in order to see it happen. Why?

‘You said we had a problem with Rónán,’ Darragh reminded Ciarán.

‘He wants to do a deal with you.’

‘What sort of deal?’

‘He wants to return to the other realm, and bring a friend back to this one.’

Darragh smiled. ‘Is it a girl?’

‘How did you know that?’

‘He’s my other half, Ciarán. How could I not know?’

It was uncomfortable, being a mouse. One was always being distracted by food. Mice, being scavengers, were frequently sidetracked from their purpose by the whiff of a fragrant midden, the aromatic temptation of a discarded crust or the mellow bouquet of a mouldy piece of fruit. Out here in the countryside, away from such distractions, it was a little easier, but Marcroy still had to concentrate.

Good thing, too. Otherwise he would have missed everything.

He’d followed Plunkett to this out-of-the-way shepherd’s hut, mostly because he was certain the
Leipreachán
was leading him on a merry chase. He thought he was giving Plunkett enough rope with which to hang himself and was looking forward to the moment when the little man realised he’d run out of slack.

Instead, Marcroy ran straight into the very thing he feared most.

Rónán of the Undivided. Alive and well and here in the realm Marcroy had taken such pains to remove him from.

Once the Brethren found out about this, there would be hell to pay. Thank
Danú
that Jamaspa was still locked inside Brydie Ni’Seanan’s brooch back at
Sí an Bhrú.

Rónán hadn’t stayed in Breaga long. Plunkett had been careless — naturally — and Rónán had caught sight of him.
By the time Marcroy and the
Leipreachán
returned, Sorcha and Brógán were getting ready to move him to a more secure location. Somewhere the
Tuatha
would have difficulty finding him. There were not many places where he couldn’t be found by the
Tuatha
, but there were enough of them for Marcroy to be worried he’d lose Rónán if he let him out of his sight.

Marcroy was angry. Trása had promised she’d taken care of the boy. Rónán was supposed to be trapped somewhere in another realm. Certainly not returned to be reunited with his brother.

No wonder Darragh had seemed so smug at the Council of Druids. Darragh had stood there and not said a word. He had not given the slightest hint that at
Lughnasadh
, when they intended to transfer the power of the Undivided to the new heirs, he intended to march into the circle of Druids with his Undivided twin by his side.

Marcroy wasn’t used to underestimating humans so badly.

The serendipity of the
Leipreachán
’s discovery was not lost on Marcroy. He was so thankful for it, in fact, that he had sent Plunkett to fetch his niece, rather than turn him into a worm for having the temerity to turn up at a Council, tugging on the edge of his master’s cloak.

In his guise of a fieldmouse, Marcroy was now able to get close enough to the hut to hear Rónán and the others talking. Close enough to see Sorcha, Ciarán and a young Druid Marcroy recognised from
Sí an Bhrú
but couldn’t name.

The younger man Marcroy dismissed as insignificant. He wasn’t surprised to find Ciarán here, though. Darragh trusted nobody more. If Darragh of the Undivided had cooked up a plan to find and retrieve his brother from another realm, it could not have been executed without the Druid warrior’s help.

Sorcha’s presence worried the
sídhe
lord more. He’d not seen her in some time, and knew her to be unsympathetic to the
Tuatha Dé Danann
, whom she blamed — along with Marcroy Tarth — for being trapped in
Tír Na nÓg
for so many years.

It was Sorcha’s quest to become a Druid magician that had sent her to
Tír Na nÓg.
She had no magic to speak of, so she would never achieve the status of a man like Ciarán, who was both magically gifted and a mighty warrior. She’d thought travelling to
Tír Na nÓg
would change that.

Marcroy, when he was feeling generous, could admit to being in some way responsible for her misapprehension. She was a beauty, and he’d been quite enchanted with her at the time. As a Druid novice, however, she would never entertain the idea of a casual affair with a
sídhe
. She was much too focussed on her desire to be the greatest Druid warrior that ever lived.

So Marcroy had let her believe that if she came to
Tír Na nÓg
her wish would be granted. He hinted that he could arrange for her to be branded with the magical tattoo that would allow her to channel
sídhe
magic, if she came to his land, where magic sweated out of the skin of every
sídhe
.

Sorcha, who had been sixteen, foolish and blinded by an impossible ambition, had swallowed his hollow promises. Several attempts in the human world to tattoo her left breast over the heart had failed. Like others who wished to wield magic but couldn’t, she’d been tattooed twice, but within days the magical ink faded, leaving her a simple warrior, and a slip of a girl warrior at that.

So she entered the magical lands of the
Tuatha
believing Marcroy would grant her the ability to wield magic. Once under the spell of his world, he’d wooed her and loved her, indulging her desire to be a great warrior by allowing her to be taught by the greatest warriors of the
Tuatha Dé Danann.

She learned everything she could from them, mastered every technique they showed her. But the magical tattoo remained nothing more than a hopeful dream.

One of Marcroy’s sisters had let slip the news that Sorcha could never be marked for magic. It may have even been Elimyer who gave the game away. By then, Marcroy had already lost interest in Sorcha and moved on to other, less challenging, conquests.

Sorcha, by now a formidable fighter, finally left
Tír Na nÓg
to discover a horrid truth. The Druids had warned her about travelling to the land of the
Tuatha Dé Danann
. Warned her that
sídhe
magic distorted time and that the world she left behind travelled at a different pace. She’d known of the danger, of course, and believed she’d kept track of the time. In fact, in her mind, she’d been in
Tír Na nÓg
no more than six months. In the real world, however, as Sorcha discovered when she returned home, sixty years had passed. Sorcha came back to a world she didn’t know; a family long dead, a home lost, a world destroyed. She’d come home to nothing.

Marcroy felt a little sorry for her. But mostly he felt sorry for the fact that he had created an enemy in the heart of a woman who had once been a lover.

That she was here now, helping protect Rónán of the Undivided, was proof enough of that.

‘… take him to …’ Ciarán was ordering Sorcha as Brógán kicked over the fire and began to remove traces of their makeshift camp. Marcroy cursed. He wasn’t close enough to hear the details. Perhaps it was his rodent hearing. But to change into anything larger — like the wolf shape he favoured when taking animal form — would alert the humans to his presence.

‘Where’s that?’ Rónán asked. Marcroy crept a little closer, in the hopes of discovering what village ‘that’ might be. He studied Rónán from beneath a small tussock of grass growing by the hut wall. It was cold hiding here, shaded as it was by the hut’s western wall, but it gave him an excellent vantage point and he was now close enough to hear what they were saying.

Marcroy marvelled at how much like his brother Rónán
was. He really was identical to Darragh, except he had shorter hair, a more slender frame, and the triskalion tattoo marked his left hand, rather than his right. Marcroy had sent him through the rift to a world of no magic, which meant technology and a lifestyle that didn’t require proficiency with weapons. He studied the young man with his rodent senses, battling the temptation to scuttle under the uneven boards of the hut’s walls and rummage for crumbs. Whiskers twitching, he watched and waited as they made their plans, but he still had no idea where they were planning to take the lad.

Rónán was complaining: ‘… but you promised.’ His shoulders were set in the same, intransigent pose Darragh adopted when he was being stubborn.

‘Ciarán promised nothing of the kind,
Leath tiarna
,’ Sorcha said, as she buckled on her sword. ‘He said your brother might agree to it. He certainly never offered to champion your insane bargain.’

‘But you can help Hayley! If we’ve got to make ourselves scarce for a while, why don’t we just go back to my reality and get her? It would be better than holing up in some fortress in the middle of nowhere, constantly looking over our shoulders for fear the cockroaches are listening in.’

Marcroy would have frowned, had his mousy features permitted it.
What was Rónán talking about? Fortress in the middle of nowhere? Going back to his reality? To get whom?

‘We can kill two birds with one stone,’ Rónán said, imploring the others for help.

Marcroy wished he knew what the lad was trying to convince them to do. The key to managing humans was knowing what they wanted, and this boy clearly wanted something very badly.

‘It’s so simple, it’s perfect!’ Rónán insisted. ‘We vanish through the rift until the Autumn thingy, we find my friend, and then we come back and kick butt.’

Sorcha smiled. ‘I appreciate your fervour,
Leath tiarna
. It’s truly a pity the course of action you want to apply your fervour to is so preposterous.’

‘Did you ask Darragh if it’s preposterous?’

Ciarán shrugged. ‘He said he would consider your request.’

‘It wasn’t a request, dude,’ Rónán replied in the same tone with which Marcroy had heard Darragh issue a thousand orders. Until that moment, Marcroy had always thought Darragh merely good at parroting the instructions given to him by Amergin and, lately, the fool Colmán. Seeing Rónán using the same tone of voice, the same stance, the same mannerisms, forced him to reassess his opinion of both boys.

‘Darragh knows of your desire, and will discuss your offer as soon as he can get away from
Sí an Bhrú
,’ Ciarán said, placing a fatherly hand on the young man’s shoulder. ‘There are other things afoot in the land,
Leath tiarna
, that he must deal with, before he can consider it.’

Rónán didn’t look happy, but he seemed to accept Ciarán’s assurance. Within a few minutes, they’d packed up the camp and turned for Breaga and the stone circle. They would spirit Rónán away until it was time for him to make his triumphant return at the
Lughnasadh
festivities, throwing all of Marcroy’s plans into disarray.

Marcroy watched them leave, waiting until their voices faded. He forced himself to be still, fighting both his rodent and his
sídhe
instincts to move before he was sure he was completely alone. His nose twitched with the overwhelming smells of the earth, while his stomach rumbled, demanding he do something about the remains of the roast, not to mention the bonfire still smouldering a little further down the hill.

It was only once he was satisfied that it was safe to return to his true form that Marcroy changed from a mouse back into the tall
sídhe
lord. Naked, but no longer bothered by the chill air
now he was back in his own form, Marcroy entered the hut and fetched a small, three-legged stool. He placed it near the door in the sunlight and sat down to wait for Plunkett O’Bannon and his niece to make an appearance. He intended to give them both a piece of his mind.

Trása circled the shepherd’s hut near Breaga once to be sure she had the right place. When she spotted Marcroy sunning himself on a stool, she dropped the cloak she was carrying and came in to land.

Marcroy saw the cloak floating down to earth and stood up, snatched it from the air and wrapped it around himself before Trása reached the ground. There was no sign of Plunkett.

As soon as she landed, Trása resumed her true form, smiling in anticipation of her welcome. The air was cool, but it didn’t bother her much, and although she was naked, she was less self-conscious this time. Besides, Marcroy was also naked, which meant he’d recently taken on an animal form, too, and had been caught out here in the human world without human clothes in which to disguise his spectacular
sídhe
physique.

‘If I’d known the cloak was meant for you,
Uncail
, I’d have brought one of yours.’

‘Did you think to ask?’ Marcroy said, fastening the cloak under his chin before brushing an imaginary fleck of dust from his shoulder.

Trása was a little worried by his tone. She had not been expecting icy disdain. ‘No … I just assumed …’

‘Ah,’ Marcroy said. ‘You assumed. Just as you assumed
that Rónán of the Undivided was trapped in the other realm, I suppose?’

Trása nodded, relieved she could reassure her uncle on that matter, at least. ‘The Druids will never find him. He’ll be imprisoned for life. It’s what they do to people who kill other people in that realm.’

‘And you arranged for him to kill someone?’

‘I arranged for him to be blamed for another’s death,’ she explained, expecting a reward for her cleverness. ‘It was Plunkett who started the fire, but Rónán who was arrested for it.’

‘And you
assume
they’ll simply blame him and lock him up for the crime?’

His tone was decidedly unfriendly. It started to bother Trása a great deal. Did he not fully appreciate the scope of her achievement?

‘They did lock him up,
Uncail
,’ she said. ‘I waited until they took him away to be certain of it.’

‘Did you not worry that he might not be detained?’

Trása shook her head. ‘It was on TV that night. It was all over the news that he’d been arrested and was facing life in prison.’

‘Tee …
vee
…?’

‘It’s a … a thing they have there. People appear in a glowing box …’ Her voice trailed off as she saw the expression on Marcroy’s face. She didn’t understand how television worked herself. She had no hope of explaining it to her
sídhe
uncle who could not even imagine electricity. ‘The town criers confirmed his fate,’ she amended.

‘So, if I told you he was here,’ Marcroy said, taking a seat on the stool as he painstakingly spread the cloak around him, ‘and that I have seen Rónán of the Undivided in this very place, on this very day, I would be mistaken?’

Trása laughed, a little nervously. ‘Of course … well, I mean, you would not be mistaken, just …’

‘Yes?’

‘It’s not possible,’ Trása said flatly. And then she smiled. ‘You are teasing me, aren’t you,
Uncail
?’

‘Trása, my pet, you have known me all your life. Have you ever known me to make a joke?’

‘Well … no …’

‘Then why do you suppose I would start now?’

Trása’s stomach sank as she realised he was right. Marcroy had no sense of humour. Humour was a human trait. One he didn’t understand and didn’t appreciate. If Marcroy claimed Rónán was here in this realm, then Marcroy truly believed he was.

‘Have you considered the possibility that it is Darragh playing a prank on us,
Uncail
?’ Trása suggested cautiously. ‘He knows we seek to keep his brother hidden from him. Perhaps he has conceived some complicated scheme to make us think Rónán has returned, in the hope of tricking the
Daoine sídhe
into revealing his location in the other realm?’

‘Perhaps,’ Marcroy conceded.

‘Did you see them together?’ she asked.

‘No.’

That was a relief. ‘Then if you thought you saw Rónán, it’s more than possible that it was Darragh posing as his brother, is it not?’

‘A likely scenario, Trása,’ Marcroy agreed, with a warmer expression. ‘Except for one tiny little detail.’

‘What’s that?’

‘Darragh bears the triskalion seal on his right hand. The boy I saw — the one protected so diligently by Ciarán and Sorcha, who were panicking at the idea that a
Leipreachán
may have revealed their presence to me — that boy bore the tattoo on his
left
hand.’ Marcroy stood up, towering over Trása. ‘Now, who do you suppose that might have been?’

Trása stumbled backward, overwhelmed by fear and confusion. She’d been so sure Rónán was safely out of harm’s way. How could he be in this realm? And so quickly? She’d seen no sign of Druids around him in the other world. Admittedly, his face had been all over the news for days. But for the Druids to have found him, and brought him back through the rift so quickly …‘It can’t be him,’ she gasped.

Marcroy raised a brow. ‘Are you suggesting I am
wrong
?’

‘No!’ she babbled. ‘Of course not! It’s just …’

‘That you think I’m mistaken?’

Trása was trembling. She was in a dilemma and there was no way out. Either she’d failed and let her uncle down, and Rónán had indeed returned to this realm, or she hadn’t failed, and would have to prove to Marcroy that he was mistaken about what he’d seen. Both involved angering a
sídhe
lord.

‘
Uncail
, I swear. I left Rónán in the other realm facing life imprisonment.’

‘Facing it is not the same as being certain of it.’ Marcroy gripped Trása by the shoulders with his long, slender fingers and his cat-like eyes bored into her. ‘Of course, I might have misread the situation.’

Held in her uncle’s vice-like grip, Trása knew Marcroy’s seeming change of heart was something to be wary of. ‘You might?’

‘We need to ascertain the truth,’ he told her. ‘Put the matter to rest, once and for all.’

Trása nodded warily.

‘Ciarán spoke of taking the boy to a fortress in the middle of nowhere,’ he said. ‘Why don’t you take to the air and see what you can discover?’

Trása nodded again, relieved that the task he’d set her could be so easily accomplished. There were a few places that might fit that description. There was a
Ráith
at Drombeg where Ciarán
had grown up. The people there would shelter the warrior and any who were under his protection.

‘I’ll do it right now,’ she promised, ‘and be back before you know it.’

Marcroy let go of her shoulder and held out his arm like a hunter offering a perch to his hawk. Trása immediately changed into her owl form and flew up to perch on his forearm.

Marcroy scratched her fondly under the beak, muttered something under his breath, and then he smiled. ‘There you go, precious. Fly away, find your would-be lover and his twin. I have no further use for you.’

The comment seemed at odds with his smile. Trása launched herself from his arm, circled the hut once, and then landed near the cold fire pit. She didn’t want to go anywhere until she found out what he meant by not having any further use for her. Was she banished from
Tír Na nÓg
forever, or was he simply sending her away until she could confirm Rónán had not returned to this reality?

Trása’s claws dug into the soft earth as she landed and she willed herself to return to her true form.

Nothing happened.

She tried again, but although she could picture her true shape in her mind, it would not form. Her tiny heart pounding, Trása realised she had lost the power to break out of her bird form.

Panicking, she squawked and flapped as she tried to force the change, but the magic simply dissipated as if it was being absorbed by an invisible sponge.

Trása was trapped.

Marcroy wandered across the grass toward her until he was standing over her.

‘It’s no use, my dear,’ he informed her. ‘You are an owl and you will stay that way until I decide otherwise.’

No!
Trása flapped and squawked in protest, but could not speak.

‘I’ve left you a loophole, though. That’s the law, you see, when turning someone into something else. There always has to be a way out of it. In your case — because what I lack in humour, I make up for with a truly devastating sense of irony — you may be free of the trapping spell if you can convince one or the other of the Undivided to release you.’ He folded his arms across his chest and admired his handiwork. ‘Of course, you’re going to have to make one of them realise who you are first, and then one or the other of them will have to figure out if they have the power to release you, but that’s your problem. For the moment, you need to find Rónán for me, and you need to tell me where he is, and when he and his brother are going to be together again. And you’re going to have to do it before
Lughnasadh
. If you can’t bring me the information I need before then,
a Stóirín
, you truly are of no further use to me.’

Even in her bird form, Trása understood the threat. She beat her wings in protest, but Marcroy remained unmoved. After a few more moments of helpless flapping, she knew that if she kept this up, she would have no energy to fly, so she launched herself into the air, wishing birds could weep so she could give voice to the hurt and fear that threatened to overwhelm her.

With a final plaintive screech, she turned and headed west, to find out if Rónán of the Undivided had somehow found his way back to this realm and with no notion of how she could do anything about it if he had.