Shadowmagic - Sons of Macha (12 page)

‘What have you done to me?' I said, desperately trying to move my legs.

‘That fluid I placed in your mouth was horse … well you are better off not knowing what part of a horse it was but now that you have ingested it, I have control of your body. Sit,' she commanded and I dropped hard on my butt. ‘See?'

‘What do you want?'

Ruby squirmed and then Macha pulled her hand away in pain. Ruby had obviously bitten her. As she started to scream again Macha gave her a hard slap. Shock and then tears came to the poor kid's face. She went instantly from the woman-child that bosses me around to an all-too-fragile twelve-year old.

‘What I want,' Macha said, looking at her bitten hand, ‘is this child to be silent.' She reached into her pocket and produced a handkerchief. ‘Come over here, Conor, and gag her.'

I almost laughed. There was no way I was going to do that but even as the smirk hit my face my body stood up, took the handkerchief from my puppet-master grandmother and pulled it across the child's mouth.

Macha said, ‘Make sure it's tight,' and, despite every cell in my brain telling me to stop, I pulled it tighter before I tied it in the back. A muffled cry of pain came from Ruby and the only thing I could do was say ‘Sorry.'

Macha went back down onto the floor and recommenced ripping up the skirting boards. I looked to the door and felt that with Macha's attention elsewhere I could pick up Ruby and make a break for the door, but when I tried Macha said, ‘Don't even think about leaving.'

‘What are you doing?' I tried to ask and was surprised to find I could.

Macha didn't stand up but from the floor said, ‘Do you know whose room this is?'

‘Yes, it's my mother's.'

‘Do you know whose room this was before your mother?'

‘No.'

There was another sound of splintering and wrenching of wood. I heard Macha exclaim, ‘Ah ha,' followed by the sound of scraping. Macha then reappeared from behind the desk in a plume of dust and loudly dropped on it – a leather-bound manuscript. ‘This room was once Ona's lair.'

Holy cow, I said to myself. A manuscript chock full of Ona's predictions. As if her prophecies hadn't caused enough problems – here were a stack more.

‘Where are they keeping Lord Lugh?'

I didn't want to answer her but found myself saying, ‘The guest chambers, one floor down.'

‘Come. Bring the girl and make sure you are not seen.'

My possession was the strangest thing. I was still able to do ordinary things as long as they didn't seem to contradict the will of Macha. Before we left the room I picked up Ruby's sunglasses and put them on her face. I pushed her hair back and told her everything would be OK just before I gruffly dragged her by the arm. I stuck my head through a crack in the door and saw a guard on his usual patrol. I tried to shout to him but instead I unwillingly ducked back inside the room and waited for him to pass. When he had gone I led us past my room and down the servants' staircase.

The floor had been cleared of all guests except Lugh. There were two guards posted outside the door and another two walking a patrol. Macha waited for one of the patrol guards to come past and blew him hard into the wall with her fan. I was surprised his head didn't crack open.

Macha pointed to the unconscious guard and said, ‘Take his sword and kill the other one.'

‘No,' I said. I was proud of myself when that came out. All the way down the steps I had been incanting a Fili meditation chant and was beginning to think I was getting control again.

Macha spun on me, ‘I said … take his sword and kill the other guard.'

I felt a strange nauseous pressure building in my stomach and chest. ‘I … I will not … not kill one of my … my own guards.'

‘Kneel, Conor,' Macha commanded and I dropped to my knees. ‘You will …'

With all of my will power I struck at her. I wanted to get her in the head and hopefully knock her out against the wall but she hissed, ‘Stop,' just as I began to move and I only succeeded in slapping Ona's manuscript out of her hand.

‘You cannot breathe,' she said to me and instantly the breath that I had been taking at that second stopped in my throat. My lungs and diaphragm seemed to still be working but nothing could get past my throat. She rolled me on my back and said, ‘You will kill that guard or I will have you strangle the little girl. Do you understand?'

I nodded, clutching my throat, I couldn't even gasp. Tears flooded from under Ruby's Ray-Bans as she whimpered, lost in this confusing darkness.

‘Good,' Macha said, ‘then breathe.'

Precious air filled my lungs as I propped myself up on all fours.

‘Now hand me the manuscript and kill that guard.'

I did as she commanded and handed her Ona's book from the floor, then went to the fallen guard. As I reached for his sword I said, ‘Please Grandma, don't make me do this.'

‘Fine,' she said, ‘take the stick. Just get it done.'

I walked the length of the hall past the two guards at the door and met the second patrolling guard around the corner. He was an Imp and was surprised to see me.

‘Prince Conor,' he said, ‘I … I don't think you are supposed to be here.'

‘Relax, I'm the Prince of Hazel and Oak,' I said and then pointed behind him saying, ‘and he's the King of Duir.'

The guard looked around and I clocked him high in the neck with the banta. I caught him before his head hit the stone floor. I wished I had a willow tea bag to put in his pocket for when he woke up.

I was just about to walk back to the guest room/cell when the two guards sailed past me in the air and smashed into the wall in front of me. Two more victims of my grandmother's hurricane fan. Since Macha was out of vision I felt I could make a run for it but just as I took my first steps to leave Macha said, ‘Conor,' and I could do nothing but follow that voice. Macha was at the door holding Ruby in front of her by both shoulders.

‘Search the guards for keys,' she said and I obeyed.

I tried not to give the keys to her but was unsuccessful in operating my hand. I did manage to get a question out. ‘Why are you doing this?'

‘Why am I following Lugh's plan? Because dear boy, he is a god and not to would be a sin.'

‘But you also helped Cialtie, didn't you? Why help him?'

Macha turned the key in the lock. We walked in and then opened the inner doors that had been newly constructed to prevent any wind from entering the room when the outer door was opened. Lugh was chained to the bed. A muslin cloth across his mouth stopped him from even whistling and his hands were shackled in silver gloves. Macha pointed to him.

‘I did not want to take sides when it came to my children,' Macha said, ‘but Lugh insisted on helping – his son.'

C
ialtie is not Finn's son, he's Lugh's son. He's Dad's half-brother. I imagine news like that would shock some people but as soon she said it I thought,
that makes sense
. Sure Dad and Uncle Cialtie looked alike, but I could never get over how differently their minds worked. Now that I had met Lugh and then heard this news – it all started to make sense.

Lugh, still under the influence of one of my mother's specials, was awake but looked pretty out of it. Grandma ordered me to unlock his custom-made silver gloves and chains. Macha then stood over him and fanned his face like a trainer between rounds in a boxing match. The more the wind hit his face the clearer his eyes became until he reached out and grabbed her fan. Macha backed away as Lugh ripped the sheets from the bed. In one hand he fluttered the fan towards his chest. Even to me, uneducated in the ways of wind magic, it looked like he was building up energy. In his other hand he swirled the sheet around his head. He then turned to the window that only days before had been bricked up and let loose a scream. A blast of air blew the bricks and the window right out into the night.

‘Open the doors,' Lugh commanded.

Macha looked to me and said, ‘Well? Open them.'

I opened the inner and outer doors and a breeze flew through the room. Lugh stood on the bed feeding on the air. The colour returned to his cheeks and lips; it almost looked like he grew muscles and a couple of inches. He took in a huge gasp of air, then turned and vomited out of the blown-out window. He turned back to us, wiping his mouth on his sleeve and smiling.

‘Excuse me, my love, I had to purge the poisons that that Shadowwitch had filled my body with.'

Macha let go of Ruby and ran into Lugh's arms. As they embraced, Ruby made a pitiful attempt to find her way out of the room. Macha saw her as Lugh's embrace spun her around. ‘Stop her,' she said and I did.

‘I'm sorry Ruby,' I whispered, ‘she has control of me but I'll find a way to get us out of this. I promise.' She buried her face in my stomach and hugged me. I hugged her back, glad that I could at least do that but desperately wishing I could do more.

I looked up to see Macha kissing Lugh. If there was any part of me that wasn't sure that these two were in love and in league with each other, it was dispelled then. Anybody that kisses someone immediately after seeing him puke … well … that's true love.

‘How long have I been here?' Lugh asked.

‘Not even a day, my love.'

‘And so soon you have found the girl, Ona's writings and the bows?'

‘The girl came to me as I was searching for the book. As for the bows – they are in the armoury. Not far from here in the north wing.'

‘What do you want with Ruby?' I said.

Lugh looked shocked and turned to Macha. ‘I thought you had him under your control.'

‘His body and will are mine, my love, but that impudent tongue is harder to subdue.'

Lugh laughed. ‘Well, he is your grandson. Would you prefer if I killed him?'

I felt Ruby's shoulders begin to shake, or maybe it was me.

‘There is no need, my lord, he knows no more than they will deduce when we are gone.'

‘He is a loose end and you know how I hate loose ends, but I understand your sentimentality, I will do it.'

‘No,' she said, and for a moment I thought she was about to fight for me until she said, ‘Let me. Sleep.'

I felt my knees buckle but then I heard her speak again and my body stopped its race to unconsciousness just long enough to hear my own grandmother say, ‘Sleep and
never
awaken.'

Sleep and never awaken.
That refrain followed me down into the well of unconsciousness.
Sleep and never awaken.
Unlike the well of despair the oak tree had dragged me into, this well had no sides, no bottom, no top. No nothing. Calling it a well was wrong. I wasn't falling, because falling would imply I fell from somewhere and there was no longer a somewhere to fall from. As I existed in a void so lacking anything, my mind tried to grasp onto thoughts. Thoughts of a world where senses actually sensed things. Things, tangibles, objects began to be impossible for me to even imagine. As I fell … no, drifted … even words to represent anything were slipping away from me. I forced myself to at least remember where I was.

I remembered going to an old cemetery once when I was a kid and seeing names on gravestones where underneath it said ‘Sleeping', and I remembered thinking,
they're not sleeping – they're dead
. But now I was doomed to an eternal sleep and I thought maybe those stonemasons got it right. But I didn't think that for long because my thoughts were fleeting. Or maybe my thoughts were long thoughts and just seemed fleeting because I had thought them for a long, long time. Never is a long time to not awaken. What is time when the last hour on the clock – is for ever?

It was only a matter of time in that un-land of timelessness before I would go mad. Either that or sail into nothingness.
Madness or nothingness, here's a choice you don't get every day
, said the man existing in a realm with no days.