The Embers are Fanned in Cruachan Page 5

  Unconsciously, Pádraig reached up to his chest and fingered an item that hung about his neck beneath the red apprentice wizard’s mantle—his mother’s necklace. The crude carving on the stone was comprised of a double-headed war-hammer and an open hand in the center of a tríbhís, the dwarf runes for ‘Protection’ and ‘Service.’ It was the symbol of the Watchmen—Protection of and Service to the Confederation of the Three Kingdoms.

  * * *

  As each member of the company left the sacred grove, he or she took one of the rowan-wood bowls that had been provided and scooped up a portion of ashes from the now-spent pyre, scattering them over the creek that ran from the sacred spring, the holy water carrying them along toward Salmon River.

  “The earl would have come himself, had he been here, Finn,” Tuama, Reeve of Tulach Shire, said as he exchanged forearm grasps with the farrier and his son.

  Although not all that sure about the veracity of the reeve’s statement, Finbar simply replied, “But, he left Dúnfort Cruachan before we did. Paddy and I checked out his retinue’s mounts the day before he got underway.”

  “Not to come here, though,” Tuama said. “He, the countess, and the Lady Máiréad were to spend a few weeks at Ráth Árainn before returning to Cathair Tulach.”

  Eógan had been Chieftain of Árainn Shire before being elevated to the position of Earl of the Western Shires. The appointment had been purely political and not based on any familial affection.

  * * *

  After Seamus, King of the Western Shires, convinced the other two kings—Hugh of the Eastern Shires and Conlaoch of the Northern Shires—to agree to the Confederation of the Three Kingdoms, and together, with help from the elves and the dwarfs, they managed to drive the occupying Northmen from their island in the War for Independence, the Assembly of Shire Chieftains unanimously elected Seamus as the first High King of Cruachan.

  Although severely wounded in the final battle at North Head, Seamus moved his headquarters to Dúnfort Cruachan and designated his son, Diarmuid, as deputy king. Diarmuid then ruled the Kingdom of the Western Shires in Seamus’ absence.

  Within a month after that final victory, though, the High King succumbed to his wounds and passed over to The Otherworld. With Seamus’ passing, Diarmuid then became Chieftain of Tulach Shire and, as deputy king, acceded to the throne as King of the Western Shires. He was also promptly elected unanimously by the Assembly of Shire Chieftains as the new High King.

  Because of how soon his father had passed, Diarmuid felt the need to demonstrate a continuity in leadership within the fledgling Confederation. Although he and his wife had no children, he did have two nephews—the elder, Eógan, Chieftain of Árainn Shire in the North, and the younger, Déaglán, Chieftain of Ceanannas Shire in the East.

  Everyone naturally expected that Diarmuid, in keeping with tradition, would name Eógan, the elder of his two nephews, as deputy king. Instead, perhaps seeing something in the makeup of the two men, Diarmuid broke from that time-held custom and bestowed the title on Déaglán.

  This appointment was seen as a slap in the face of every citizen in the Kingdom of the Northern Shires. They had suffered the most and the longest during the occupation of the Northmen, being the first kingdom conquered and the last to be liberated. And, this divisiveness showed itself eventually after Diarmuid passed over to The Otherworld.

  With Diarmuid’s passing, Déaglán gave up his title of Chieftain of Ceanannas Shire to become Chieftain of Tulach Shire, and acceded to the throne of the Kingdom of the Western Shires. However, the election of the new High King was not unanimous, as had been the case for both Seamus and Diarmuid. The five chieftains in the Northern Shires voted for their own king, Cabhan. The remaining chieftains, nine in the West and eight in the East, voted for Déaglán.

  The citizens of the Northern Shires felt that they had been disenfranchised. They reasoned that, had Eógan been chosen as deputy king by Diarmuid instead of Déaglán and acceded to the throne of the Kingdom of the Western Shires upon Diarmuid’s death, he would have brought along the votes of all nine Western Shires’ chieftains in the Assembly, and that Cabhan would then have been elected High King by a fourteen-to-eight-vote margin.

  By elevating Eógan from a shire chieftain to Earl of the Western Shires, a member of royalty, Déaglán hoped to smooth over some of that discord within the Assembly and gain the loyalty of the chieftains in the Northern Shires.

  * * *

  What’s going to happen to Eógan after Liam and Meig are married? Pádraig wondered. Surely, with Liam being deputy king, the newlyweds will move into Cathair Tulach. Will Eógan then return to Árainn Shire and resume his tenure as chieftain there? He never did give up that title. Ruari has only the title of Steward of Árainn Shire in Eógan’s absence. And, even if Eógan does, my guess is that Meig will most certainly insist that Liam lobby Déaglán to allow her da to retain his royal title of Earl.

  The young wizard pondered the situation further as he, Finbar, and the two elves left the sacred grove for their wagon and mounts. Although no direct evidence was ever uncovered to tie Eógan to Liam’s kidnapping and the murder plot of ten years ago, Eógan would have been the only one to gain by it. Maybe now that his daughter has secured her place within the royal family and will see to it that her parents remain royals, we can all rest a bit easier on that front.

  Hazelday - Bear 5th

  Tulach Shire

  “What are you going to do with those?” Finbar asked, as Pádraig climbed up onto the farrier’s wagon with his set of elbow pipes.

  “Store ’em in the wagon. Lairgnen’s set is better than the one he gave me. I thought I’d take his with me, instead of mine.”

  “What about Lairgnen’s lute and tin whistle? I see you’ve got those over by the mule.”

  “I’m taking them with me, as well.”

  “But you don’t know how to play them, Paddy.”

  “I’ll learn.”

  Finbar gave a small shake of his head in resignation. “And what about Lairgnen’s hand-and-a-half sword. I see you’ve got it in the scabbard on the mule’s saddle.”

  “I’m taking it, too.”

  “Are you sure you’re okay, Paddy? You’ve got Lairgnen’s mule, his pipes, his whistle, his lute, and his sword, which you don’t know the first thing about how to use. Do you want to talk about it?”

  Pádraig turned toward his father. “If I don’t take them, what will happen to them, Da?”

  Finbar shrugged his shoulders. “I’m not sure.”

  “Exactly. Those were Lairgnen’s prized possessions. He was our friend. He’d want them to go to a friend, so I’m taking them.”

  Seeing that his son had made up his mind about it, Finbar raised a hand in acquiescence. “Okay, Paddy.” Attempting to lighten the mood, though, he added, “But, I draw the line at the hat. You’re not taking that ridiculous hat of his.”

  Just thinking about the blue, short-tailed dagged hood with a red border that the elderly troubadour used to wear brought a smile to Pádraig’s face. “Agreed,” he said. “Also, the blue tunic would probably clash with my red mantle. And, the brown knee-high huntsman’s boots aren’t my size.” He disappeared inside the wagon to stow the elbow pipes.

  * * *

  They left Fortress Tulach together—Finbar driving his farrier’s wagon and Pádraig astride Killian the mule. When they reached Fox Pond, however, the twosome split up. The father headed northward to resume his farrier’s duties for the Kingdom of the Western Shires at Fort Iorras. The son made his way to the northeast toward the Central Federal Region, planning to spend the next two nights at Fort Lorg and Fort Luíne before arriving at the citadel. From there, he would ride up to Árainn Shire and begin his five-month stint of extended learning in the Kingdom of the Northern Shires.

  After Fort Iorras, Finbar would make the circuit around the Kingdom of the Western Shires, stopping at each garrison along the western and southern coasts, then up the Boundary Road that separated
the Kingdom of the Western Shires from the Kingdom of the Eastern Shires, finally stopping at Fort Lorg before once again returning to the Central Federal Region.

  Pádraig waited until Finbar’s wagon was out of sight before continuing on. He then nudged Killian alongside the brook that fed Fox Pond. There was someone whom the young wizard needed to see before starting out on his journey.

  * * *

  Long before he reached his destination, Pádraig’s enhanced auditory senses, a by-product of his ‘gift’ from the Deity, detected the sound of splashing water coming from upstream. He smiled, and urged Killian on from the mule’s normally slow to a moderately-slow pace.

  Wizard and mule continued to follow the brook; and, as the small stream made a turn to the right, a pool and waterfall came into view. Along with the water features, something else also caught Pádraig’s eye—a stunning black filly, perhaps two years old, and twelve-and-a-half hands high at the withers. The horse stood a ways off from the pool, pawing at the ground with its right front hoof and bobbing its head, showing no fear at all of the approaching strangers.

  Pádraig suppressed a laugh, thinking, So I’m not the only one who needs to practice.

  Reining in Killian about eight rods from the filly, he dismounted and tied the mule to a river birch. Approaching the horse on foot, he reached into the pocket of his breeches and withdrew a lump of raw sugar, one of a few that he had left over from helping Finbar tend to the horses at the citadel.

  “You are really sleek looking,” he said, drawing near to the filly. “Your coat positively shines. Did you just have yourself a bath in that pool over there? I’ll bet you did.” Pádraig pulled a few strands of dark-green water-grass from the animal’s mane.

  The horse continued to paw the ground and bob its head.

  “Ahh, ready for a ride, huh? I can see that. Would you like some sugar?” Placing the lump of sugar in the palm of his hand, he extended the hand toward the animal. “This is sort of a peace offering,” the young wizard said. “So that you won’t throw me if I climb onto your back. You wouldn’t throw me, now, would you?”

  The horse’s yellowish-brown eyes focused on the sugar and it stopped bobbing its head. Stretching out its neck, the animal’s soft lips plucked the lump of sugar from Pádraig’s hand and its teeth made short work of it.

  “Okay, then,” Pádraig said. “Let’s go.” He grasped the horse’s neck and swung himself up onto the animal’s back. “But remember, a deal’s a deal. You took my sugar, so don’t you go throwing me off, now.”

  Recognizing a member of the Hidden Folk when he saw one, Pádraig knew that the last thing on the water-horse’s mind was to throw him off. No sooner had he finished his admonition than he felt his hands become stuck to the side of the animal’s neck, and the black filly made a bee-line for the pool.

  Pádraig, now grinning broadly, waited until the very last second, then silently cast two different spells. With the first, he became unstuck from the water-horse and slid off its back just as the animal leapt from the bank into the pool. With the second, he prevented the filly from shape-shifting back to its other form.

  The water-horse came back up to the surface, scrambling out of the water and snorting in an attempt to clear its nostrils.

  Sitting on a large boulder up from the bank, Pádraig laughed heartily.

  The waters in the center of the pool started to roil, and from the churning water rose the torso of an alluring and scantily-clad woman. Droplets from her long, jet-black tresses, crowned with a wreath of woven, dark-green water-grass, splashed onto the bare shoulders of her ebony skin; and, as she continued into the shallows toward a flat rock some two feet from the bank, her curvaceous figure, in a black, mid-thigh, skin-tight gown, revealed itself.

  “All right, Paddy,” she admonished the young wizard in a seductive throaty voice, as she shook the water from her pointed ears, “You’ve had your fun. Enough, now. Remove the spell.”

  Pádraig made a small motion with his right hand, and the young filly, still snorting and sneezing, immediately changed into a miniature version of his phooka friend, Siobhán.

  “Are you all right, dear?” Siobhán asked the former black filly, now a young, dark maiden.

  As a filly, the young water-horse had appeared to Pádraig to be about two years old. Now, in her non-shape-shifted form, she looked about twelve.

  How does the age of a phooka work, the young wizard wondered. I know Siobhán is much older than she appears, but I’m not sure of the correlation. Is a phooka’s true age in horse years or as they appear now? And why hasn’t Siobhán ever mentioned that she had a daughter? I’ve visited here quite regularly during the past seventeen months.

  “What did he do to me?!” the young girl screamed. “He almost drowned me!”

  Siobhán shook her head and crossed over to Pádraig, who made room for her next to him on the boulder. “He wouldn’t have drowned you. No more than you would have drowned him. He just gave you a good dunking. A taste of your own medicine.”

  “But how, Ma? How could he do that?”

  Her dam simply pointed at Pádraig’s red mantle. “You need to be careful, dear, with whom you choose to play. An apprentice wizard is not to be trifled with.”

  The girl’s yellowish-brown eyes grew large as she realized her oversight.

  “Paddy, this is my filly, Uaine,” Siobhán continued. “Uaine, you’ve heard me speak of my friend, Paddy.”

  “Some friend,” Uaine grumbled, stepping out into the water and stomping over to the flat rock, where she sat, cross-legged, glowering at both her mother and Pádraig.

  “You never mentioned a daughter before,” Pádraig said to Siobhán. “Who…I mean…how…I guess I do mean who is Uaine’s sire?”

  “We phookas don’t discuss those things, Paddy,” she replied with a shake of a forefinger. Moving her head so that her lips were closer to his ear, she whispered, “It could have been you, had you wanted it to be. Who knows, maybe the next one?”

  “Eeew!” Uaine spoke up. “I heard that. That’s just plain gross.” With that, she rose and dove fluidly into the phooka-pool.

  Although Pádraig’s face had turned scarlet, he replied, “That’s all this world needs is a member of the Daoine Dofheicthe, a capall uisce, no less, with the added powers of a gifted one.”

  Siobhán gave a non-committal shrug. “Better a phooka than a kelpie.” Then she changed the subject. “The last time I saw you, you were on your way to the Eastern Shires. How did your education go, and where are you headed this time?”

  “I learned quite a bit, actually. Now, it’s off to the Northern Shires for the next five months.”

  “I still have bad memories of the Northern Shires from years ago, Paddy. I hate to think of what might have happened to you had you not had the presence of mind to summon me. Even though Yseult took good care of you, it was a close call there for a while.”

  Pádraig thought back over ten years to when he and Prince Liam had been kidnapped and held captive at the rebels’ encampment in Cairbrigh Shire:

  Overhearing a plan by the rebels to kill Liam—once the High King had paid a ransom for him—in a daring move, Pádraig had convinced the prince to switch places with him. He then had convinced the rebel guards that, in order for the High King to pay the ransom, they needed to let Liam (whom they thought was the farrier) go, so that he could provide an eye-witness testimony to the prince’s (Pádraig’s) proof of life.

  That winter night, after the rebels had released Liam, Pádraig had escaped the confines of his prison and had led his captors on a chase about the compound, which culminated in him nearly dying from being submerged in a frigid pond as he eluded the kidnappers.

  Found by Yseult, a wood-nymph, she had pulled him from the pond during the night, taken him back to her cave beneath a hawthorn tree, and nursed him back to health.

  Before losing consciousness in the icy waters, though, Pádraig’s thoughts had gone out to Siobhán. Because all the waters
in Cruachan are interconnected, the water-horse, leagues away in her phooka-pool, had picked up on those reflections and had ridden to his rescue.

  Also arriving at the rebel encampment were Finbar, Liam, Máiréad, Lairgnen, and the elves, Brynmor and Cadwgawn.

  During the ensuing battle between the rebels and the rescuers, Pádraig had escaped the compound on the back of Siobhán, in her black-mare form.

  “Apparently there are still some suspicious happenings going on up North,” Pádraig replied to Siobhán. “Do you remember my friend Lairgnen, the troubadour?”

  “The elderly man in the funny clothes?”

  The young wizard chuckled. “That’s the one. He was killed almost a week ago while investigating some of those goings-on up at North Head.”

  She put a consoling hand on his arm. “I’m so sorry to hear that, Paddy.”

  “Aside from wanting to stop by and see you before going up to the Northern Shires for the next five months, I’ve brought a witness with me who may know something about Lairgnen’s death. I need you to find out for me what, if anything, he knows.”

  “Why me?” Siobhán asked. “Why won’t he talk to you?”

  “I’m afraid I don’t speak his language.” Pádraig simply pointed over to where Killian stood tethered to the river birch.

  “The mule? You want me to talk to a mule?”

  “Can you? I mean as a capall uisce. Are you able to talk to him?”

  “We phookas can converse with each other after we’ve shape-shifted. And, I must admit, Paddy, I’ve spoken with quite a few stallions and a stag or two in my time. I honestly don’t know about a mule, though.”

  “Will you try, Siobhán? It’s really important.”

  “Of course I’ll try. What is it you think he knows?”