When the Stars Threw Down Their Spears: The Goblin Wars, Book Three (32 page)

It was holding its grief up like a petition. She could feel the pain of Mag Mell echoed by the tree, pain over the broken ones, and longing for the Fir Bolg—the missing menders and tenders who should be helping her. And she could feel splinters of cold iron in Mag Mell’s side. Teagan had brought one of them herself, and she’d told Mag Mell that she’d use it to take Fear Doirich away so that Aiden could return. The other was the knife Finn carried now. Mamieo’s knife. Mag Mell hadn’t even tried to stop him from carrying it in, because she was in too much pain for it to matter anymore.

Abby pulled her away from the tree and back onto the path, and they walked again, Teagan almost numb with the pain and grief of the trees piled on top of her own.

Now and then they passed another ancient one that had fallen, and all of them recently enough that the soil had not yet eroded around the holes they left. This was new, a symptom of the death of a world. The path led along the rim of a deep ravine until they reached one of the fallen giants that crossed the gap, and they walked across on a trunk as wide as a one-lane road. The rain stopped as they reached the other side.

Here, all of the trees were giants, and there was no undergrowth. The dimming light was caused by more than just the trees above them. The sun was setting, and bright floating jellies rose from the forest floor.

“I don’t think she’s taking us to Yggdrasil,” Finn said as the path turned again.

“Have you ever been here before, Gil?” Teagan asked, but the phooka just pressed his hands to his heart and shook his head, as if he were walking in the Holy of Holies and dared not make a sound.

“May I sing a song for you, Choirboy?” Seamus asked. “I’ve been thinking about it while we walked.”

Abby’s eyes narrowed. “This isn’t some Irish song, is it? ’Cause that’s all he needs.”

“No,” Seamus said. “It’s a Scottish lullaby.”

“A lullaby? Like you sing to babies?”

“My mother used to sing it to me as she rocked me to sleep,” Seamus assured her, and he began:

“Speed, bonnie boat, like a bird on the wing
,

Onward! the sailors cry;

Carry the lad that’s born to be King

Over the sea to Skye.”

His voice was surprisingly good. There wasn’t a glimmer of
draíocht
in it as far as Teagan could tell, but the trees went still, listening. And then they cried out with one voice:
Send him. Send the king
.

Teagan expected everyone to jump at the sound, but Seamus just went on with his lullaby. No one else had heard the cry of the trees.

“Though the waves leap, soft shall ye sleep
,

Ocean’s a royal bed
.

Rocked in the deep, Flora will keep

Watch by your weary head
.

Loud the winds howl, loud the waves roar
,

Thunderclaps rend the air.”

That resonated with the trees, and they begged for the storm. There was nothing left of the storm that had been building except potential, still unformed.

Seamus’s song wasn’t making magic or changing the world. He was just telling a story the trees had been waiting a very long time to hear.

“Baffled, our foes stand by the shore
,

Follow they will not dare.”

Abby glanced back at the ravine. “I like that part.”

Seamus nodded, and went on.

“Many’s the lad fought on that day
,

Well the Claymore could wield
,

When the night came, silently lay

Dead in Culloden’s field.”

Abby stopped so fast he bumped into her.

“Who puts dead people in songs for babies?” she demanded.

“The Scots, apparently.” Finn had turned around.

“It’s not that bad,” Seamus insisted. “The lad born to be king got away, after all.”

“Must have been a McGillahee, then,” Finn said. “Born to live, while others fell around him.”

“He was a Stuart, actually. Charles Edward Stuart. Also known as Bonnie Prince Charlie.”

“The Young Pretender,” Abby said.

Finn looked at her in surprise. “I can’t believe you knew that.”

“So, you knew it, too?”

“No, I didn’t. I just wasn’t expecting—”

“Me to know anything?” Abby glared at him. “I’m an artist, right? This famous painting by Maurice-Quentin de La Tour was supposed to be Bonnie Prince Charlie, so people paid, like, a million dollars for it, but it was his brother, Henry.”

“The Stuarts believed in the divine rights of kings,” Seamus said. “They thought that the thrones of England and Scotland were rightfully theirs because of the royal blood in their veins.” It was so much like something John Wylltson would have said that grief rushed through Teagan, fresh and hot.

“Were they?” Finn asked.

“Not according to history. Charlie’s attempt to take them failed. That’s what the song is about.”

“So, Scottish people sing lullabies about dead people and failures,” Abby said. “Lame.”

Seamus brushed a fly away from his face and Lucy zoomed after it, snatching it from the air.

“We love the grand attempt, I suppose. The fight for a noble cause. What do
you
think of the song, Choirboy? Any
draíocht
in it?”

Aiden didn’t say anything, but Finn shook his head.

“There wasn’t. Even I could tell that, McGillahee. What were you expecting?”

“I don’t know.”

But he had been hoping for something. Teagan was sure of it.

They walked silently for a time, then Seamus spoke again.

“I still have your whip, Choirboy. Do you want to learn how to use it?”

“He tried,” Abby said. “He couldn’t make it work. You’re not making anything better, McGillahee. You’re, like, rubbing salt all over cuts.”

Seamus ignored her. “I’ll show you. Can we stop for a rest, Mac?”

“I want to check my arm before it’s too dark to see,” Teagan said. Her fingers were starting to feel tight, as if the blood was not circulating well. Finn nodded.

Seamus stood Aiden up on a tree-size fallen branch, and put the handle of the whip in the little boy’s hand while Finn came over and untied the bandanna for Teagan.

“That don’t look so good,” Abby said. “Do they have antibioticals in Mag Mell?”

“Not that I know of.” Teagan pressed a finger against the swollen flesh.

The blood didn’t well, but the wound didn’t look good, either. The edges were already puffy with infection. Dump Dogs’ mouths must be filthy, and hiking through sewers couldn’t have helped. She turned her attention to her little brother.

“Now, it doesn’t matter how small you are,” Seamus was saying. “I know you can do this.” Teagan shivered. Seamus had power in his voice again. He pulled Aiden’s hand back, then moved it smoothly forward. “That’s the motion. Now you do it.”

Aiden tried, and to Teagan’s amazement, the whip cracked. He nodded to himself and did it again.

“Now I’ll show you a trick.” Seamus jumped up on the log and took the whip from Aiden. “This is a fast figure eight.” The whip cracked in front of him and then behind him in the same swing.

Gil sniffed the breeze and turned wild-eyed to Teagan. She’d felt them, too, seconds before the wind shifted.

“Cú Faoil,” she announced, just as they came into sight.

“What are those things?” Abby asked. “Horses?”

“Hounds,” Finn said. “The fighting hounds of the Fir Bolg. They were left in the last battle, set to fight goblins, and they’ve been at it ever since.”

Gil squeaked as the huge beasts bounded into the clearing. A flight of sprites came with them, and Lucy rose, eyes flashing, prepared to fight for Aiden.

Finn started forward to meet them, his hands spread.

The Cú Faoil seemed to break in mid-jump, turning aside from Finn, but one of the younger males didn’t manage to stop in time and knocked Finn to the ground. It pulled its lips in an apologetic smile. This pack had walked with them once before, on the other side of Fear Doirich’s city. Cú Faoil’s noses were not as keen as other hounds’. They clearly hadn’t recognized Finn in the gloaming.

“I’m glad to see you, too,” Finn assured them, and the pups gamboled around him. The alpha male watched tolerantly, but the female had her eye on Gil.

“Mac,” Teagan said warningly as she started toward him.

The whip cracked before Finn could respond. “Down,” Seamus said. The Cú Faoil dropped, every one of them, and looked toward him. The alpha female whined eagerly. “Good dogs. Come on.” They crawled toward him on their bellies.

“You never mentioned your father’s name,” Teagan said. “Was it Mac Rónáin?”

“It was.”

“Who?” Abby asked.

“Caílte Mac Rónáin,” Teagan said, “was the hound master of the Fianna. These creatures fought goblins beside Fionn’s men.”

Seamus jumped down from the log, and the alpha male approached him.

“I’ve been dreaming of you all my life, you big, beautiful beast,” Seamus said. The Cú Faoil wiggled like a happy puppy when he touched it. “I’m sorry we left you to fight alone so long. I’m back, and I’m not going to leave you again.”

“I remember now,” Abby said. “Thomas said this Caílte had an affair with Mab. And you were worried about . . . Rosebud and Mac? Your own great-great”—she waved her hand in the air—“whatever grandfather had a child with Mab!”

“No relation to me,” Seamus said quickly. “The old man had several children by more respectable women. The Mac Rónáins were always womanizers. I, however, am a McGillahee.”

“I don’t think the hounds believe you,” Finn said. “I’m not sure I do, either. Whatever the case, we’d best be moving. It’ll be dark soon.”

Seamus had to tell the Cú Faoil only once not to eat Gil. They still fawned over Finn, but bristled at Teagan and Aiden, and completely ignored Abby.

“Do you want to ride one?” Seamus asked Aiden as they started out.

Aiden just shook his head. Twilight seemed to linger longer in Mag Mell, and the light was still with them when the path disappeared at the edge of a clearing. There were a few low bushes, but their dark, clustered leaves didn’t hide the pool in the center. Teagan stepped closer.

She had seen pools in Mag Mell before, had swum in them past Yggdrasil’s roots, had seen lights of other worlds, and heard the Song of Creation when she touched the water. But this pool was dark. It didn’t reflect the bright jellies that drifted above it, the sky, or even Finn standing beside her, just her own reflection. Looking at it into her own eyes was . . . frightening. Seamus’s eyes slid away from the pool, like Aiden’s slid from the eyes of strangers. Abby and Finn had stepped back as well. “We’re not ready to look straight into eternity. Not yet.” The words Finn had spoken in the cemetery echoed in her mind.

But the Cú Faoil lapped at the water unafraid, so Teagan knelt and touched it. A song filled her, and a rushing wildness like the roar of mighty waves on a rocky shore.

The waters the Almighty parted when he set the worlds in place?

“Gil,” she whispered. “Where are we?”

Twenty-nine

“W
HERE
are we?” Teagan repeated.

Gil took a step closer to the pool. “A place that phookas aren’t supposed to be.”

Abby gasped, and Teagan turned to look.

The moon had been creeping up the sky behind the giant trees, and now it came out above them, so brilliant that it washed away the stars. Teagan and Finn had seen the mountains and mares on it the last time they had walked in Mag Mell, but Abby, Seamus, and Aiden were seeing it for the first time. More time had passed here than in Chicago. It seemed like only two days ago it had been less than a half moon, but now it was full.

The dark leaves of the bushes around them caught the moon’s light, and it turned each tight cluster into a silver rose.

“Oh, my god,” Abby said. “This is the most beautiful, terrifying place in the universe.”

“Multiverse,” Teagan corrected automatically.

“Don’t start, Tea.” Abby didn’t notice that she’d used Teagan’s name, but Teagan doubted that it mattered here. “Don’t start explaining how all this works. I don’t care. No wonder your mom painted the way she did. She’d been here, right? All of this was inside her. All of this! God,
I need my sketchpad!
”

“It’s the First Grove,” Seamus said. “It must be. This is where the Creator of Creation stood when He sang Mag Mell out of the waters.”

“Now, how do you know that?” Finn asked.

“How do you not know it? This world belonged to your people once, after all.”

“Been a little busy all my life,” Finn said.

“This”—Seamus spread his hands—“is the heart of Mag Mell. It makes sense that she brought us here. This is where Aiden needs to sing.”

Aiden shrank back against Abby, shaking his curly head.

“Hey, don’t worry about it,” Abby said. “Nobody said you have to sing now, right? Why don’t you practice with your whip? Show me how you make it crack, okay?” She led him away.

The Cú Faoil threw themselves on the ground, dividing their attentions between Seamus and Finn, who started arguing about what to do next.

Teagan sat down on the mossy bank of the pool. The last time she’d seen her reflection in a pool of Mag Mell, she’d been bilocating. She’d heard the first Song of Creation in that pool, powerful, joyful, and
right
. But she’d turned away from the sight of her own molten eyes . . . away from the hunt, choosing to be a healer instead.

Her whole body had resonated with the song when she’d dived into that pool. The roots of the ancient trees around her would be twined with those of Yggdrasil beneath the surface of this pool, too, remembering the song they had once heard, playing it back to the waters like an Aeolian harp still vibrating from the voice that had passed over it.