John Lenahan - Prince of Hazel and Oak

‘No, that was my idea. I thought if I wiped clean the slate of The Land, that finally Tir na Nog would be free of the cage that Ona has put us in.’

I laughed at that. ‘So you wanted to free The Land by destroying it? I think if you asked, a few of us would have objected to that.’

‘Your precious free will is an illusion. You too are doomed to follow Ona’s puppet play whether you know it or not.’

‘So you’re back in The Land-destroying business again.’

‘No, I have learned my lesson. Ona’s will is not to be denied. I now only seek to regain the Oak Throne. As long as I am the King of Castle Duir, I will be safe. That is why I must do this.’ He reached into a pouch on his belt and took out the gold-rimmed glass vial. I looked down to where Graysea had sealed the vial of dragon’s blood into my robe. There was a slit cut into the living fabric. Cialtie undid the stopper and began to tilt.

‘No, please,’ I begged.

He stopped. ‘Turlow told me that you sought dragon’s blood, but he told me you failed. Where did you get this?’

‘I stole it,’ I lied. I didn’t want Graysea to be dragged into all of this.

‘From where?’

‘Duh – from a dragon.’

He looked as though he was going to hit me again but then just said, ‘No matter, my spies in Castle Duir have told me that Oisin is much worse. It will not be long.’ Then he lifted the corner of the carpet and poured the blood into the dirt below.

I tried to scream, I tried to tell him that I was going to kill him but nothing would come. As if I had been punched in the solar plexus, I had no breath. When finally I could speak, I found I had no strength to do it. You can only lose hope so many times before life is no longer worth fighting for. I dropped my head to my chest and waited for the sword that I knew was going to come, not even caring.

I think I actually dozed off then. I had a vision that I was dead – riding a dragon off into a heavenly sunset filled with red and gold clouds and beams of light like you see in the paintings on the walls of Italian churches. I sputtered awake as hot liquid slipped down my throat and exploded my senses. I opened my eyes to see Cialtie holding a bottle of poteen.

‘I thought you had killed me already,’ I said with the husky voice of an alcohol-burned throat.

‘I have not decided what to do with you yet,’ he said, sitting back into his chair. ‘I’ve won you know. The Brownies and the Banshees are loyal to me. The Faeries, without your father, will splinter back into a squabbling mess. The Pookas will all turn again into dogs once I destroy the Tree of Knowledge. That only leaves the Imps and the Elves. The Elves, as usual, will scamper up their trees and wait to see what will happen – and the Imps… well, the Imps fight like farmers.’

‘We’ll stop you.’

‘Or you could help me. You know I’m right, you know I will win. You don’t have to like me but you can see that if you stand by my side we can avoid this war. You can save your friends and The Land much heartache.’

‘What do you know about heartache? You have to have a heart for that.’

Cialtie stood and returned Ona’s book to its box. Without looking around he said, ‘When one’s entire lifetime is presented to you in an afternoon then one experiences a lifetime of pain – in a day. Oh, nephew, I know heartache.’ He turned back to me. ‘Think about what I have said,’ and then he left.

As much as I wanted not to do as he commanded, thinking is pretty much the only thing you can do when left tied to a pole. I didn’t believe it was possible but I felt a little sorry for my uncle. I tried to imagine what life would be like if I knew everything that was going to happen to me and I had to admit it would be a nightmare – especially if my life was like Cialtie’s. I also had to admit that he had a point about my family and friends being in trouble – things didn’t look good. I wanted to laugh at the cliched ‘Join me and together we can rule the universe’ speech but I’d be lying if I wasn’t tempted. Don’t get me wrong, the idea of spending any time with Cialtie made my stomach churn but the thought of all my loved ones getting massacred in the Hazellands made it churn more. I had seen the young troops that Dahy had put together, I had trained with them and if I was brutally honest – they weren’t up to much. They were no match for a well-trained armyf Banshees and Brownies. If I was certain my friends were going to be killed, wasn’t it my duty to save them? But then I imagined Essa and Dahy’s faces as I rode in at Cialtie’s side. It wouldn’t make any difference – they would never give up. The only difference would be that before they died they would hate me and I was pretty sure that Essa would find a way to haunt me for the rest of my life.

Cialtie knew what he was doing; he had left me alone to think and that was the cruellest cut of all. In the end I came to the conclusion that, preordained or not, Cialtie was a monster I could never join with. I had failed my father, my friends were almost certainly doomed and I would soon die. Cialtie didn’t need to torture me – I was doing it to myself. I would like to be able to say that at that moment I welcomed death but the truth is I was afraid. I decided that when my uncle returned that I would accept his offer just so I could survive the day and maybe find a chance to escape later.

‘You were not thinking of accepting his offer were you?’ I heard a familiar voice say from behind me and then I felt the ropes being cut from my wrists.

‘Not me,’ I said, as a spark of hope returned to my soul and blood returned to my hands. I silently groaned as I stood and turned to see a very welcome face covered with camouflaging dirt.

‘I myself would have accepted,’ he said, his white teeth shining in his dark face, ‘and then looked for a chance to escape.’

I started to say, ‘Actually that’s what I was going to do,’ but then just decided to say, ‘That’s why they call you Master Spideog.’ I bowed and then hugged him.

‘I think we should get out of here,’ he said, crossing the tent and opening Cialtie’s wardrobe.

‘What are you looking for?’

‘You need to wear something that is a bit darker than that bathrobe.’

‘Hold on, let me try something.’ I concentrated. This time the robe cooperated and turned a dark bark brown.

‘Impressive,’ the old archer said while throwing me a pair of my uncle’s shoes.

I was still putting on the left shoe when he grabbed me by the collar and I hopped out of the slit he had cut in the back of the tent. There was more moon than we would have liked as we tried to keep the vegetation between us and the roving soldiers. Spideog held a staff but no bow. Seeing him without a bow was like seeing a zebra without stripes. It made me want to ask what had happened to him in the Yewlands but this was no place for a chat.

He led me through the spooky vegetation and then pointed into the gloom. In the distance I made out a horse corral with two guards. We snuck in closer, then Spideog offered me a knife and pointed to the guard on the left. I looked at the deadly weapon.

‘Can’t I have your stick?’ I whispered.

His face showed his displeasure at the breach of silence, then he surprised me by saying, ‘No.’

‘I can’t just stab a man in the back.’

‘Conor, we are at war.’

‘Because it is mine. Now do you want to get out of here or not?’

I knew by the tone that this was the end of the conversation. I took the knife and as I crept up on the guard I repeated to myself, ‘We are at war… we are at war.’ But the closer I got, the less my resolve became. While I was still in the open, the clueless soldier bent down, picked up a rock and batted it into the night with his staff. This was just a kid and then when I got closer still I realised it was a kid I knew. What were the odds? Like he was the only Brownie in all of the Reedlands – it was Frank. I came up behind him and placed the knife onto the front of his neck but I couldn’t kill.