The Embers are Fanned in Cruachan Page 18

  at North Head - How? And Why?

  Turning it over, he read what was written on the back:

  No unnecessary chances

  Only if can be done covertly

  “Where is Pádraig now?” Odhran asked, a vein in his temple throbbing.

  “Murchú believes that he’s on his way to North Head. However, he’s riding a mule, Venerable Sir. So even if he headed out the same day that Sléibhín left for Ráth Árainn, then today is the soonest he would have been able to get there.”

  “Mount up and ride to the garrison immediately. And remember, our young apprentice wizard is to be captured and contained, not killed or unduly harmed. But do not, under any circumstances, underestimate him. His powers are great. Perhaps even equal to your own. Sedate him, so that he can’t use them.”

  “And then what, sir?” Neasán asked.

  “Bring him here under cover of darkness and lock him in the dungeon. But don’t let anyone see him. I’ll place a magic-blocking spell on the lockup down there, and we’ll continue to keep him sedated, so that he’ll be unable to interfere with our plans.”

  “For how long will we detain him?”

  “That’s yet to be determined. He may be of use to us, depending on how smoothly our venture goes.” Since they were standing in a public corridor, Odhran did not raise his right arm in the air with a closed fist. Softly, but fervently, he whispered, “Long live the Northern Alliance!”

  Neasán gave the master wizard a nod, then whispered in return, “Long live the Alliance!” However, the journeyman’s response was simply perfunctory, without any enthusiasm whatsoever.

  * * *

  Sitting there at the table, Labhrás still unconscious by the wall, Máiréad’s thoughts returned to her shouting match with Odhran before the two journeyman wizards had entered the great hall:

  “What enemy?!” Máiréad asked. “You’re forever talking about an enemy. Enemy this. Enemy that. Since my graduation from the Academy, all my training has been directed at defeating some sort of enemy. Is that all magic is good for? What about using it to help people? When do we start that phase of the training?”

  What about using it to help people? She repeated to herself.

  And as she continued to sit there, it was if a chunk of daub from her wattle-and-daub memory prison let loose, and another recollection from ten years earlier seeped out from the recesses of her subconscious:

  Pádraig and Liam had been engaged in a foot race around Fox Pond. When it became clear to her that the young farrier was deliberately letting the prince win, she had caused the root of a willow tree, that had grown into the rough trail around the pond, to raise itself about two inches from the ground directly in front of Liam, sending him headlong onto his belly, ripping the front of his fine-woven, white tunic from neck to belt, as well as the sleeve where his elbow hit the ground. The young noble had lain there, writhing in pain.

  Assisting Liam to his feet, Pádraig had taken the elbow, protruding from the ripped sleeve, put both his hands around it, closed his eyes for a few seconds, and dispelled the pain.

  As if it were yesterday, Máiréad remembered how she had chastised Pádraig for not using his gift to win the race:

  “You’ve been given a gift, Paddy. Why don’t you use it?”

  “I don’t believe An Fearglas gave it to me to use as a toy or for personal gain, Meig.”

  They both bowed their heads slightly, performing the ritual touching of their foreheads, chests, and mouths.

  “A most noble sentiment for a commoner. But were you given this gift, so that you could squander it on sick horses and healing scrapes on the donkey-prince?”

  “Relieving suffering is hardly squandering.”

  “Paddy, Paddy, Paddy,” she said. “You are so naïve.”

  Pounding her fists into her temples, she attempted to banish the thought. Stop thinking about him! Stop it! Stop it! Stop it!

  But as the mental image retreated to where it had come from, she couldn’t help but reflect on what she had said to Odhran:

  Is that all magic is good for? What about using it to help people?

  And then, she realized that it was not all that different from what Pádraig had said to her, those many years ago.

  Yewday - Bear 49th

  Béarra Shire - North Head

  Pádraig walked along on the beach below North Head, playing a tune on the tin whistle against the onshore wind and swirling snow. Gulls squawked and fought each other for scraps of beach litter that had been washed ashore by the waves. The young wizard paused every so often to pick up a flat stone and skip it across the water where the Sea of the Dawn and the Sea of the Evening came together, seemingly just a lone figure, huddled down in a gray wool, hooded cloak, out for a stroll on a winter’s afternoon.

  Nearing the beachhead expansion—four docks, like four fingers on a hand, stuck out into the sea twice the length of the natural beachhead—he slowed his pace and looked over at the cliffs, wondering where it was that Lairgnen had fallen or had been pushed to his death. Pádraig missed the elderly man. In retrospect, even though he had appropriated the troubadour’s mule, hand-and-a-half sword, and musical instruments, he wished, now, that he had taken the blue, short-tailed dagged hood with a red border as well. Not that he’d consider wearing the garish headgear, he just wished that he had it.

  Two buckskin-clad workers in tan wool, hooded cloaks shoveled up scree from below the cliffs, where rocks were being continually calved off of the cliffs by weathering, placing the debris into wheelbarrows. Pádraig had glimpsed the two men from a quarter league away when he had come down a steep trail to the beach to the east of the garrison, but couldn’t figure out then what they were doing. Now, upon closer inspection, he could see exactly what was going on. They would fill their barrows, push them to the end of the expansion, and dump the rubble into the sea, adding to the new man-made area. There didn’t seem to be any sense of urgency to their labor.

  Adjusting his pace so as to cross paths with one of the workers, Pádraig stopped playing the whistle in order to let the man with the barrow pass in front of him, nodding to him and remarking, “Hard work.”

  “Tell me about it,” the barrow-pusher grunted in reply. Ice crystals hung off the edge of his hood from the blowing sea-mist.

  Pádraig gestured to the expansion. “How long have you been at this?”

  “Since the last month of Autumn,” he answered, stopping and shoving his hood back off his head, so that he could mop his brow with a rag. Even in the cold, he was perspiring profusely from exertion.

  “Too bad you couldn’t have waited until Spring.”

  “Not my choice, friend. We just do what we’re told, when we’re told. And we’ve been doing it for over two months, now.” He pulled the hood back up, lifted the barrow’s handles, and resumed his trek to the sea.

  ‘We just do what we’re told, when we’re told,’ the young wizard thought. Hmm. On a hunch, he said, “Is that the garrison commander for the Security Forces of the Northern Shires?”

  The worker dropped the barrow’s handles and snapped to attention before turning around.

  “No, guess not,” Pádraig said. “Just one of the guards up on the bluffs.”

  The man looked up, but saw no one.

  “He’s gone, now,” the apprentice wizard told him. “I really feel for you. That’s a lot of rock to move.”

  After a “Humph!” the worker again started for the expansion area.

  Pádraig continued on his way, thinking, Didn’t Section leader Irial or anyone else ever consider that they were simply getting rid of the scree and using it to expand the beachhead? It sort of makes sense, when you think about it. Even though soldiers are charged with the task, I can’t see that there’s anything sinister going on up here.

  A sea-currach flying the insignia of the Security Forces of the Northern Shires had come up on the expansion area. Just before reaching it, two of the oarsmen quickly pulled down the sails while th
eir four colleagues lowered their oars into the water and maneuvered the craft toward the second of the five boat slips created by the expansion.

  Once the currach had been secured, the sailors followed their section leader over to the cliffs, where they trudged, single file, up the small, winding path to the garrison.

  Pádraig picked up on his earlier thought. Besides, even though the Northmen would be able to bring in skeið-class longships to these new slips, each one carries about seventy warriors. It isn’t like that many Northmen plodding up that path in single file aren’t going to get noticed this close to the garrison. A handful of bowmen would be able to pick them off one at a time with no problem whatsoever. I don’t understand.

  The young wizard hadn’t gone too much farther when he saw a large pile of logs that had been dumped over the side of the cliffs onto the beach. Four more buckskin-clad workers in tan hooded cloaks loaded some of the logs onto a wagon harnessed to two mules. Once the wagon was full, the workers hopped up on it, drove it over to a cave opening in the side of the cliff, and guided it inside the cave. On either side of the opening, two soldiers dressed in the livery of the Security Forces of the Northern Shires stood guard.

  So this is what they’re doing with the trees they’ve clearcut, Pádraig realized, and he altered his course so that it brought him close to the cave.

  “Whatcha doing with the logs?” he asked, innocently.

  “They’re for heating the garrison,” one of the guards replied. “We stockpile ’em here in this cave to keep ’em dry until they’re needed.”

  “Why not store them up at the garrison?”

  “We’ve got long winters up here. That storage area’s full. As it becomes depleted, we haul more logs from here up to there.” He thumbed over his shoulder in the direction of the garrison above the cliffs.

  “Too bad you don’t have a larger area topside. This looks like a lot of work.”

  “Feels like it, too,” the guard replied. He snickered and pointed to the cave opening through which the workers had disappeared. “At least, it does to them.”

  “You playing at the tavern tonight?” the other guard asked, pointing to the tin whistle.

  Pádraig shook his head, apologetically. “Not this trip, I’m afraid. I’ve got a booking just over the border in Cairbrigh Shire tonight.”

  “Oh, really? Where?”

  Glad that he had seen the tavern on his trip up to North Head, the young wizard replied, “The Pig and Whistle.” Waving the whistle at the guard, he said, “I’ve got the whistle. I sure hope they provide roast pig.”

  “Well, you be careful, troubadour,” the first guard told him. “And stay away from The Uplands after dark. There are reports that Am Fear Liath Mòr is out and about.”

  At the mention of The Big Gray Man, Pádraig snickered, as he thought about the legend of The Bog Man from his home in Tulach Shire. Cocking his head and looking skeptically at the guard, he said, “Yeah. Right. Down in the Western Shires where we have an abundance of wetlands, the grandmas tell the kids about An Fear Portach to keep them in line. Am Fear Liath Mòr sounds pretty much like the same thing.”

  “Maybe. But, some grown men have disappeared up there, as well as a few others, who have heard his footsteps behind them, but have lived to tell about it. You mark my words, lad. Give The Uplands a wide berth on cold, foggy nights like we’ve been having of late.”

  “Warning taken,” the young wizard replied, giving the guard a little salute with his tin whistle.

  Yewday - Bear 49th

  Béarra Shire - The Uplands

  Shouldn’t have spent so much time at North Head, Pádraig realized, as the sun dipped below the horizon on the Sea of the Evening and night began to close in around the forest.

  He had hoped to retrieve Killian prior to nightfall, but still had at least a half hour to go before reaching the stables in the clearcut area where he had left the mule.

  With nightfall, a mist began to rise from the snowy forest floor, enveloping the young wizard in a cold fog. That, combined with only first quarter phases for both Golden Owl and Silver Nightingale, limited visibility to barely enough for him to see the path through the woods. In the relative darkness, he’d have to rely on instinct to determine when to leave it and wend his way over to the stables.

  As he continued on, Pádraig’s enhanced olfactory sense became aware of the faint odor of smoke.

  Campfire? he mentally speculated. Man, I could sure go for something hot in my belly right now.

  Turning from the trail, he followed his nose through the trees, like a hunting dog, attempting to locate the source of the smell. He quickly came to a halt, though, as he detected multiple points of origin.

  Several campfires? he wondered, eyebrow raised.

  Zeroing in on the strongest of the numerous scents, he isolated it from the others and followed to where it led.

  It actually led nowhere. There was no campfire. In the dimness, the young wizard could make out just a wisp of smoke rising from the ground that the breeze quickly dispersed.

  He got down on his knees. The relative warmth of the area from where the smoke arose had melted the snow around it, revealing a hole about a span in diameter.

  Back on his feet, Pádraig sniffed the air and separated out a second scent. It, too, led to a hole in the ground.

  Standing there perplexed, a memory from a conversation he had had with Isla came back to him. She had been explaining how the dwarfs extracted the gold, silver, and copper from the rocks in their mines beneath the Sawtooth Mountains:

  “Yuh see, laddie, we build a huge fire down in the mine up against the wall that we need tuh bust down. The fire heats up the wall, then we pour water from a mountain stream ontuh it. The cold water causes the hot wall tuh crack and split intuh chunks, and the workers use sledges and picks tuh extract the ore from the chunks. What’s left over—the waste—gets dumped out here.”

  “Isn’t it dangerous to be in the mine with the smoke from a fire?” Pádraig asked.

  “Air shafts, laddie. We got air shafts all along the mine going tuh the outside for ventilation. Yuh canna see ’em now; but, when there’s a fire burning, yuh’ll see smoke coming out of the mountainside.”

  Pádraig also recalled the conversation he had had with Siobhán, the phooka, about five-and-a-half weeks before. He had asked her to see if Killian knew anything about what had happened to Lairgnen at North Head:

  Siobhán returned from talking to the mule and sat back down next to Pádraig. “You were right, he was there, but didn’t have line-of-sight to your friend, who, by the way he really adored. The troubadour tethered him to a tree by a small pool of water where there was some grass, then continued alone on foot. That was the last Killian ever saw of him. The only other thing he remembers was an occasional rumbling from beneath the ground. He seems to think that interested Lairgnen.”

  “That’s it?”

  “Pretty much. Oh, and Paddy, he’s developed a liking for you, too. He thinks you’re funny. Sort of like the troubadour. He told me he hopes that nothing bad happens to you like what happened to Lairgnen.”

  “An occasional rumbling? From underground?”

  “That’s as close a translation as I can give you. Sorry, that’s all I could get from him. He doesn’t know anything else.”

  And then, it all started to come together for the young wizard.

  They aren’t storing logs in that cave in order to keep them dry. They’re using them to start fires inside—heating up the rock walls, then pouring cold water on the walls, so that the rock breaks and splits. They’re expanding the cave. These holes are air shafts! And the rumbling that Lairgnen heard? That was the sound of the rock wall breaking inside the cave. When he went to investigate further, he got himself killed.

  Also, the soldiers with the wheelbarrows shoveling up scree are just a ruse. Why didn’t I see it before? There’s scree all over the base of those cliffs. If that’s what had been used to expand the beachhead
, there’d be no more scree left for leagues in either direction by now. It’s the rock that’s being broken up inside the cave and brought out under cover of darkness. That’s what’s being used to expand the beachhead. Am Fear Liath Mòr, my foot. What better way is there to keep people out of The Uplands at night? ‘Watch out, lassies and laddies, Am Fear Liath Mòr will get you, if you aren’t careful.’

  Isla was so right to call me a dunderhead. That’s what I feel like right now. I’ve been so intent on practicing magic, I’ve forgotten how to use good, old-fashioned common sense.

  When King Cabhan’s Northmen allies land, they don’t have to trudge single file up a cliff trail, they can secrete themselves in the cave. They can probably carry their skeiðir in there as well. Once all the Northmen troops are in place, they and Cabhan’s security forces can mount a coordinated attack, knocking out the small contingents of Cruachanian Defense Forces at the North Head and Cathair Béarra garrisons, and then fan out over the entire Northern Shires, attacking defense forces troops at will. Before an alarm can be raised, they’ll have complete control of the North and declare their independence from the Confederation.

  With horses waiting here in The Uplands, and who knows how many other sets of stables there are, that means there has to be a large outlet from the cave somewhere near here. I’ve got to find Killian and get back to Dúnfort Cruachan. I don’t know how much time we have, but Liam and the High King have to be made aware of the situation. And the sooner, the better.

  The mist had settled on top of the snow blanket, freezing into a thin shell. As Pádraig set out again toward the path, his hurried steps made crunching sounds as his boots broke through the hardened crust. He stopped, then moved along more slowly. Still, the frozen layer crunched underfoot. But what was more disconcerting to the young wizard was the sound of footsteps behind him.