John Lenahan - Shadowmagic

‘Sister Nieve, I must say I’m surprised to see you with a knife to my young nephew’s throat and it looks like you’ve paralysed him as well. If I didn’t know you any better I would think you were on my side.’

Nieve didn’t move a muscle.

‘Oh, and you must be Princess Essa of Muhn,’ Cialtie said, addressing Essa who had backed up next to us. ‘I have been longing to meet you. You are even more beautiful than I had heard.’

Essa didn’t say anything, she just pulled her banta stick out of her belt and assumed an en garde position.

‘Ooh, feisty. I like a girl with spirit.’

I wanted to kill him but judging from the sound that came out of Essa’s throat, it seemed like I would have to get in line.

The rumble in the chamber abruptly stopped. Cialtie looked past us.

‘Well, well, my son told me what Oisin was attempting. I could hardly believe it, but what do you know, it looks like he did it.’

Nieve spun herself around and me with her. Mom and Dad were at the far end of the archways. The pyrotechnics had stopped. I could see them clearly. They were standing on either side of the stone table. Both were looking at Dad’s right hand. The gold bangle that had been on Dad’s wrist was gone, presumably used up to fuel the magic that made possible the reattachment-because reattached it was! I followed the line of Dad’s right arm down and I’ll be damned, there was a hand on the end. I gasped as Dad opened his fingers. It worked! In his palm was a rune. He tilted his wrist down and it fell to the table. Mom did the same, and an amber-glowing rune dropped on the stone surface next to Dad’s. They were ecstatic, but their ecstasy was short-lived. They looked to us and their faces filled with horror. I felt so sorry for them. Dad ran towards us but the Third Muirbhrucht sparked to life and threw him back, like a tennis ball off a racket. I heard Cialtie laugh at that.

Then I felt the needle leave my neck. Nieve whispered in my ear, ‘Don’t move.’ I felt the sensation returning to my body. It took all of my will not to stretch at the relief but I pretended to stay frozen. Nieve turned back around and I spun with her, Dahy’s knife still at my throat.

‘They will take ages getting out of there,’ Cialtie sighed. ‘Oh, what a shame, all of that effort and I’m just going to have to cut it off again. I wonder if I can convince Deirdre to preserve it a second time before I kill her.’

‘You said you weren’t going to kill anybody,’ Fergal said.

‘Oh my, my,’ Cialtie said. ‘Fergal, was it? You are as gullible as your mother. She actually thought I was going to make her a queen. Can you imagine-a Banshee queen? You know, I was shocked when I learned that you survived after I lopped her head off, but now that I know you, I’m astonished you have had the wits to live this long.’

There it was-the truth. It was awful watching Fergal learn it the first time-this time it nearly killed me. The realisation of it hit him in waves, like a baby standing hip-deep in the ocean. I could almost read his mind: first came the pain of reliving his mother’s murder, next came the shame of being so easily duped, and then came the horror at the realisation that he had betrayed his friends. He wasn’t broken, it was more like he was shattered.

Cialtie pushed him and he crashed into me. ‘I think you should stand over there with your friends.’

Fergal crumpled to the floor. He hugged my legs and made a noise that I had never heard from a person before, and never wanted to hear again. Tears poured out of his clenched eyelids, and his mouth hung open, saliva spilling out of it. ‘I’m sorry,’ he whimpered. ‘I’m so sorry’

‘Pathetic,’ Cialtie said.

Never in my life had I wanted so badly to do two things at once. I wanted to put my arms around my poor cousin and tell him it was OK, and at the same time I wanted to tear Cialtie limb from limb-with my bare hands. I didn’t do either. I don’t know how I did it, but I stood perfectly still. Cialtie thought I couldn’t move. It was the only advantage that we had.

‘You know, I suspected you were here, even before my sprog showed up and spilled the beans,’ Cialtie said. ‘You know what gave you away? It was that rinky-dink army. I’ve seen bigger circuses. I thought to myself, What could that tiny gaggle of stumpy people do, other than disturb my sleep? And then I realised it must be a diversion. Oh well, I’m glad they are here. I’ll enjoy seeing them all dead.’

As if I hadn’t had enough shocks for a day, Cialtie reached into his pocket and removed a crystal vial that was filled with gold. It wasn’t the vial that shocked me, it was what was attached to the top of it-a red button. It was the only Real World-looking thing that I had ever seen in The Land, other than my clothes. I almost craned my neck to get a better look, but I managed to remain perfectly still.

‘Ah, nephew, I see you recognise this. I wondered if you would. I had a dream a little while back, it was a good one. You had it too, didn’t you? I thought you must have, because in it was the strangest little device that was completely foreign to me. I liked it so much, I had my goldsmiths whip one up. Now all I have to do is push this little red thing and that pesky army will pester me no more.’

‘Cialtie,’ Nieve said, ‘don’t do it, you will destroy everything.’

‘Oh, sister, I’m disappointed in you. I thought you clever in the ways of magic. I won’t destroy everything- we will be fine. All of the rest of The Land will be wiped clean, but I never really liked them anyway. Everyone and everything I need is right here inside my Golden Circle. Trust me, The Land will be a better place when I rebuild it in my own image.’

He had his thumb on the button. I didn’t know what to do. Even if I surprised him, by being able to move, he was still too far away. I wouldn’t be able to stop him from pressing it.

‘I’m waiting,’ Cialtie said. ‘Is this not someone’s cue to tell me I’m mad?’ He looked around. ‘Disappointing.’

That’s when Araf burst into the room and all hell broke loose.

Araf didn’t know what was going on. He instinctively went for one of the armed guards first, not my uncle. Cialtie had time to press the button-and he did. The entire chamber lurched to the sound of a huge explosion. Burning candles toppled all over the place and everyone lost their footing.

It worked! Not from Cialtie’s point of view, but from ours. The explosion meant that the Leprechaun goldsmiths had done their jobs. Mom had explained to me, that if the Golden Circle went off the way Cialtie wanted it to, we wouldn’t hear anything in the castle-but if the Leprechaun goldsmiths succeeded in crafting spikes in a section of the Golden Circle, the explosion would blow out the whole east wall of the castle. It did, and that’s what Lorcan’s army was waiting for.

All of the guards let loose their crossbow bolts. Two of them were way off the mark, one from a soldier that fell down from the explosion, the other from the guy that Araf had just clocked with his banta stick. Two bolts unfortunately were right on the mark. One came directly at Essa’s chest. With skill that must have made Araf and Dahy proud, she actually deflected the bolt with her banta stick-then she performed one of her head-over-heel manoeuvres. That was the last thing her attacker saw.

The other bolt flew straight at my chin. I think The Land has given me two special gifts: one is dreams and the other is the way time seems to slow down in a crisis. I actually saw the bolt spring off the bowstring. I had time to remember what Mother Oak had said to me, ‘ You are oak and hazel, you will know when to be strong and when to bend.! ’ It was time to bend. With flexibility that a Russian gymnast couldn’t duplicate, I arched my back and watched the bolt sail past my face. Nieve wasn’t so lucky. It got her in the shoulder, but not before she could flick my knife at the archer. Her throw was wide of the mark but due to the extraordinary properties of Dahy’s golden tip, it honed back on its target like a guided missile. The heartbeat it took for all this to happen was the guard’s last. I didn’t stop bending, I went right over like an upside-down U. How I stayed on my feet, I will never know. I kept going until I planted my hand on the stone tabletop-right next to the Sword of Duir. In that upside-down world I grabbed the Lawnmower and reversed the process.