The Raven Queen (18 page)

‘Yeah, I remember,' said Danny, glaring at Nero. ‘I think I still have the scars.'

‘I apologized for that, didn't I?' said Nero.

‘We influence this place,' said Roisin. ‘I've done it three times now. It's built on human imagination and it responds to it – that's the way the magic in here works. So if my imagination is strong enough, I think I can trap Liadan in a story.'

‘That's what we are depending on?' said Danny. ‘You having a
really
vivid imagination? No offence, but I don't have total confidence in this plan.'

‘It's kept us alive so far, and it's the only chance we have of rescuing Fenris,' snapped Roisin. ‘So unless either one of you has got a better idea …?' She looked between the pair of them. ‘No? Thought not, so shut your gobs then.'

They sat in silence as they left the sea and entered the mouth of the river.

‘What about Maddy?' asked Nero. ‘How are we going to get her out?'

‘I don't know,' said Roisin miserably. ‘We don't even know where she is.'

‘At least we know she is still alive,' said Danny.

‘For now,' said Nero.

A shout went up from the boats at the front of the flotilla and Roisin craned her head to see what the excitement was about. She could feel shimmering waves of heat and the smell of woodsmoke drifting downstream toward her. For a horrible moment, she thought the forest was on fire again. But as the oars pulled them through the water and she could see the bank ahead more clearly, she realized that the Autumn Tuatha had built a massive temporary forge. Now she could clearly hear the sound of hammers striking iron and as the boats pulled close to the river bank she could see the Tuatha craftsmen hard at work, stripped to the waist in the searing heat. They wore huge gloves that stretched almost to their armpits to protect them from the poisonous iron.

As their boat drew alongside the bank, a Tuatha helped Roisin and Danny out and took them straight to the Morrighan. The Raven Queen had changed her clothes before they had left her isolated castle and now she stood clad head to foot in silver armour and black leather, her chasing silver dragons embroidered on to every surface, her face still veiled. She pointed to the pieces of casket that littered the grass.

‘Is this what you had in mind, little one?' she asked.

Roisin quickly scanned the pieces. ‘Will it hold
together, if it's being built in such a short space of time?'

‘It will hold,' said the Morrighan. ‘I have the final piece you asked for.'

She reached inside her black cloak and held out a big, shiny red apple.

‘Oh, that's not for me,' said Roisin. ‘That's for you.'

‘For me?' said the Morrighan, her voice loaded with suspicion. ‘What kind of trickery is this?'

Roisin took a deep breath. ‘I need to tell you a story …'

The mist led Maddy, stumbling and slithering on rocky, barren ground, to the gates of the forbidding castle. Rough-hewn and unadorned, it was very like the Blarney castle. It had the privilege of being inhabited and it stood square and firm, unlike Blarney Castle, with its crumbling teeth for battlements and its rotten interior where whole walls had fallen away.

There were guards, mac Cumhaill's Fianna, on the walls, their upper faces hidden by helms, long spears in their hands. They wore blue plaid with leather breeches and their arms and necks were ringed with bronze. One of them leaned over to call down to her.

‘Is that you back again, Hound?'

‘It is,' said Maddy. ‘I need another favour.'

‘Is that right?' said the guard. ‘The last favour you asked of Finn mac Cumhaill got nearly half of us killed by lightning strikes and angry trees.'

‘He got his dog back in the end, didn't he? But you'll love this one,' said Maddy. ‘This time you get a chance to be impaled on the pointy end of a sword in battle. Against Tuatha.'

The guard thought about it for a bit. ‘We heard the Tuatha were on the move. Is it true the Morrighan is awake?'

‘It is.'

‘And is it true you were the one who woke her?'

‘It is,' said Maddy, crossing her fingers behind her back against the lie. The Fianna wouldn't be impressed by a rambling explanation of who did what.

The guard gave a low whistle of admiration and his comrades on the wall laughed, their teeth flashing white in bearded faces. ‘You picked a proper fight this time, Hound,' he said. ‘Fair play to you. That's worthy of Cú Chulainn himself.'

‘So are you going to let me in so I can talk to Finn mac Cumhaill?'

‘What, so you can drag us all into a battle that will result in certain death? I don't think so.'

‘Go on, you know you'll enjoy yourselves.'

The Fianna roared with laughter on the battlements. ‘I'll say one thing for you, Hound – you have a fine tongue in your head,' said the guard as he signalled for the gate to be opened. ‘Mind you don't cut yourself with it.'

Maddy squared her shoulders and walked into the stronghold of Finn mac Cumhaill and the Fianna. They were the last mortals left who would ever stand up to the Tuatha. The Sighted adults in Blarney were too frightened, too cowed from all the years they had spent hiding away on Halloween night and then cleaning up the mess afterwards. Finn mac Cumhaill had been the greatest hero Ireland had ever known. True, mac Cumhaill preferred to brood in his fortress rather than fight. But Maddy knew she just had to make him angry enough and then steer him in Meabh's direction.

When she walked through the heavy wooden gates into the courtyard of the fortress her spirits lifted. This might be easier than she thought.

The last time she had been here it had been like the castle of the dead. Mac Cumhaill's longing for his lost wife, his lethargy, his rejection of everything outside of his own misery had infected the place like a cancer. Not even noise had been allowed. When she had last walked through the Fianna stronghold her footsteps had hit the packed earth with a dull noise that had faded instantly. The Fianna themselves had been dull-eyed and listless, men whose world had passed them by, marooned in time.

But now the Fianna gathered around her, laughing, slapping her on the back so hard that she was almost
sent sprawling face down in the dirt as they crowded close. There was colour in their faces again and their eyes sparkled with life.

‘You all look … um, you're looking …' Maddy desperately groped for the right word, one that wouldn't offend the notoriously touchy warriors.

‘Alive?' said one.

‘Like real men again?' said another.

‘Well, yeah,' said Maddy. ‘What happened?'

‘I think we needed to be reminded of who we were and get a taste of it again, even if it was only for a wee while,' said the guard who had ordered the gates open. ‘It felt good to ride in the woods again, to be on the track of a foe …'

‘… to be half killed by lightning strikes and angry trees?' said Maddy, remembering his words on the gate.

The Fianna roared with laughter again. It made Maddy a bit twitchy, they had changed so much.

‘That too,' he said. ‘There is nothing like the risk of death to remind you how good it is to be alive. When you come through on the other side, everything feels better, louder, sweeter, saltier.'

‘Right,' said Maddy. ‘And how is mac Cumhaill?' she asked as the guard swung the wooden double doors to Finn mac Cumhaill's hall wide for her.

The guard lowered his voice. ‘He is better,' he said.
‘Like us, he remembered what it was like to be really alive and not have your spirit trapped between the pages of a book. He came back to himself a little bit. But he still grieves. His grief has always kept him bound.' The guard shook his head. ‘I have heard you have a honeyed tongue, little Hound, but you will have trouble bringing mac Cumhaill around to your way of thinking. He is still a High King and will only do what suits himself.'

‘I have to try,' said Maddy. ‘You haven't heard what Meabh has planned.'

She was about to walk through the doors when the guard stopped her with a hand on her shoulder. ‘If it all gets too much for you, little Hound, there is a place here for you among our ranks. It's a sore responsibility to place on the shoulders of one so young and you have our respect.'

Maddy was shocked. She had always assumed the Fianna thought she was trouble. A warm feeling spread in her belly and she could have hugged the sombre-faced guard.

‘Thank you,' she said. ‘Really, I mean that.'

The life in the courtyard had seeped into the Fianna's great hall as well. A soft light filtered through the mist of dreams, bathing the shields and swords hung on the walls. Brightly coloured banners were draped in soft folds around the hall and the floor was strewn with
green rushes that gave off a sweet scent as Maddy walked on them. Cleanly scrubbed long benches spanned the width of the hall and the men who sat at them were laughing, talking, mending clothes, cleaning weaponry. All of them looked bright and alive.

But Finn mac Cumhaill still brooded. Although some of the colour had come back into his face, he still sat on his dais, silent and unsmiling on his tall wooden throne that was draped in animal furs. He wore the same blue plaid as his men, his dark curling hair tumbling about his shoulders. Bran, his faithful wolfhound, was in her customary place by his knee. He no longer looked exhausted, but his grief was etched plain upon his face and his weeping women still sat at the foot of his throne. There were three of them, all with tears streaming down their faces. Their cheeks were marked with grooves where the water had worn a path, while the front of their dresses and their laps were dark and marbled from the salt. Mac Cumhaill would not weep for his wife so he used the magic of Tír na nÓg to make these women weep for him, day and night, even when they slept, for the whole of their long existence in this place.

‘Welcome, little Hound,' said Finn mac Cumhaill. ‘I see you come to grace my hall again.'

‘I do, lord, but also to ask for aid,' said Maddy.

Finn nodded. ‘It was always thus with Hounds. They always came to me with their hands outstretched.'

‘But they did not do it for themselves, lord, but for others,' said Maddy.

‘Does it matter? The point is they asked and always took. It made me grow weary,' said Finn.

Maddy looked at the weeping women, condemned to be weighed down by another's grief for the rest of their lives. ‘You did it once yourself, lord, until you forgot who you are,' she said, her eyes sparking with anger.

Finn glared at her. ‘You have big teeth for a little Hound, but tread carefully – pups can be drowned.'

‘Is that a threat?' said Maddy. ‘Because if it is, please, go ahead, let's just get it over with.' She flopped to the floor and crossed her legs, bracing her elbow against her knee so she had something to rest her head on.

‘I haven't slept for days, as usual, I smell, as usual, and this time the problems are bigger and I am completely on my own,' said Maddy. Her voice cracked with unshed tears but she didn't care. It was all too much. She started crying, noisily and snottily, like a toddler. She knew she looked ridiculous and was probably ruining her reputation among the Fianna as the hard-nosed, brave Hound. ‘You're still as crazy as you were the last time I was here and I can't be bothered wasting hours persuading you to do what you
know
is
the right thing to do. What's the point? Even if I end up saving the world again, there'll just be another problem tomorrow. I mean, if you, with your big army, can't be bothered to get off your great backside to help out your own people any more, why the hell am I bothering?' Maddy hiccuped and wiped at her wet face with her sleeve.

Finn got up and slowly walked down the steps of his dais and over to Maddy, his feet soft in the rushes. He crouched down to look into her face and said, ‘What do you mean, that I am crazy?'

‘Seriously?' said Maddy. ‘LOOK at them!' She pointed at the weeping women. ‘Who does that to someone else? So you miss your wife. OK, we get it, but you are actually forcing other people to grieve for her alongside you, and not just for a little while – oh no! Those poor women have been grieving for centuries. Do you not think they might have something else they would like to be doing?'

‘Like what?' asked Finn.

‘ANYTHING!' Maddy screamed.

Finn looked over his shoulder at the women. ‘That is the way you are, Maddy. That's why everything around here is so attracted to you; it's not just the fact that you are the Hound. All that grief and rage, it's powerful stuff in a place like Tír na nÓg. You know that, you've known
it for nearly two years now. You cry out that all you want is a normal life and still you hang on to it. You're no better than me.'

‘Oh no!' said Maddy. ‘See, that was the old me. I'm not going back to being like that, not if I get out of here alive. I love my parents so much, but if grieving for them every day and hanging on to the past means that I end up like you … no way. Life is for living, and if grieving too long turns you into the walking dead then I am going to start enjoying what I've got.' Maddy cried harder. ‘Would your wife have wanted you to live like this? Would she? I know my parents wouldn't have wanted this much pain for me. And if you keep picking at the scab, the way you do with those poor women, the pain never gets any better.'

Finn sat back on his heels and looked at her. Maddy stopped crying for a moment and looked at him hopefully, but his expression was unreadable.

‘So what do you need to do?' he asked.

‘I need to get out of here, in one piece, and pick up my two cousins on the way,' said Maddy, sniffing back snot in a loud snort that would have her granny reaching for a hanky.

‘And what do you need to do that?'