Kevin Hearne - Trapped

“Return the sword as you promised and leave,” Brighid said.

“There’s an effort!” the Morrigan crowed. “You managed a line of pentameter.” She rested the flat of the blade on top of her shoulder, holding it casually, the way a baseball player might while walking to the plate. With seeming indifference to Brighid, she strolled to her left toward Manannan Mac Lir. She knew Brighid wasn’t going to move off her hill; she’d effectively trapped her there. If Brighid left, she’d surrender all her advantages in battle—and you needed every advantage you could get if you were going to cross swords with the Morrigan.

Manannan stood from his chair and waited, his hood up and his arms crossed underneath his cloak. The entire Court grew still and strained to hear whatever might be said, for Manannan did not speak often in public. The Morrigan paused in front of him and brought the blade down horizontally in her hands, holding it chest high in a clearly ritualistic way, reminiscent of the formal transfer of possession practiced in Japan.

“Manannan Mac Lir, I am here to return Fragarach to you as I promised the Druid Siodhachan Ó Suileabháin I would. Its original scabbard was lost long ago. Will you accept it?”

“I will,” he said, disappointing everyone who was hoping for some more drama. I thought the Morrigan would have had a few more shenanigans up her—well, not up her sleeve. She didn’t have a stitch on. But then I flicked my gaze over to Brighid and realized what the Morrigan was doing. Brighid still stood as if she expected the Morrigan to charge her at any second. The Morrigan’s sudden appearance with the sword had goaded her into a defensive position, but now that the Chooser of the Slain was behaving in a completely nonaggressive and even polite manner, Brighid looked as if she had overreacted at best and like a frightened coward at worst.

The Morrigan placed Fragarach gently into Manannan’s outstretched hands and said, “It is done.” Then, without a farewell or even a backward glance at Brighid, she morphed into her crow form and flew into the grove surrounding the Court. She’d followed Brighid’s curt instructions precisely, and now Brighid looked ungracious on top of everything else. The ball of flame still glowed redly in her gauntleted hand, and all eyes swiveled to her and registered that she was ready to fight a nonexistent threat. Realizing this, she muttered a couple of words, and the armor and ball of flame disappeared. To Perun’s great delight, she was once again clad—if one could call it that—in nothing but wispy, transparent gauze.

She was seriously annoyed, however. Her eyes blazed with a glowing blue light. “How long has she had Fragarach?” she growled.

“About twelve years, I suppose. But I thought she’d returned it.”

“And what of the amulet?”

I shrugged. “I’m sure she’s been working on it, but you could see as well as I that it’s not finished yet.”

“The point,” Brighid said, her eyes cooling while her voice took on three notes of creepy, “is that it will be finished someday. And I would rather that day never arrive.” The unspoken bit we both understood was that Brighid did not want the Morrigan to be immune to fireballs hurled by the goddess of fire, as I was.

The two black wolfhounds near the base of the hill had remained stationary and quiescent all through the Morrigan’s visit; now they rose to their feet, bared their teeth, and growled. At me.

Oberon said.

Stay silent for now , I told him.

“If you have naught but threats for me, Brighid, I will take my leave.”

“You may leave when I allow it.”

“We are none of your subjects, and you guaranteed us safe passage.”

“True, but I did not specify how long it would take you to pass through.”

I made a mental note to demand a fixed time period in any future negotiation with the Tuatha Dé Danann. Being duped twice by the same loophole in the space of a few minutes will drive a point home. Now you can growl , I told Oberon, and he did so with gusto.

“You and I had a conversation once, if you recall”—I raised my voice over the din of three growling hounds—“about the finer points of hospitality.” She could take that one of two ways. She could remember that I had completely outmaneuvered her, take it as a warning that I had similar plans laid now, and calm down. Or she could listen to her pride, already wounded by the Morrigan, and flare up. The building blue glow in her eyes pointed toward the second option, and my heart dropped as I realized I’d have to kill somebody to get out of here.

Oberon said.

“BWAH-ha-ha!” someone laughed amongst the Tuatha Dé Danann. I darted a glance that way and saw everyone looking at Manannan Mac Lir, who had clapped a hand over his mouth. Flidais threw in a girlish titter, and then they all erupted—which gave everyone else permission to laugh as well, though they had no idea what they were laughing at. What had happened is that the Tuatha Dé Danann had “heard” Oberon’s comment. My eyes slid back to Brighid, and her mouth was quirked upward on one side; as I watched, her hounds subsided and sat down. I told Oberon to lay off as well.

You might have just saved our bacon there , I added.

Oberon asked, a hopeful note in his voice.

“Please explain, if you will,” Brighid said in a much more cordial tone, “why you found it necessary to conceal your existence from me and the rest of the Tuatha Dé Danann.”

“I needed some assurance that I would be undisturbed for a span of years, for I have been hard at work training an apprentice. You may remember her.” I gestured over my shoulder. “Granuaile MacTiernan.”

Brighid bestowed a nod of recognition, and I assumed Granuaile returned it. A murmur of appreciation rippled through the Tuatha Dé Danann. A new Druid would be most welcome.

“She is not yet bound to the earth,” Brighid noted, seeing no tattoos on Granuaile’s right arm.

“No, but she is ready. I was on my way to begin the process when we were interrupted.”

“On your way where, if I may ask?”

“I was searching for an appropriate place in Arizona.”

Brighid frowned. “You cannot bind a Druid to the earth in the New World.”

That set me back on my heels a bit. “You can’t?”

Brighid seemed as bemused as I was. “It may be done only in Europe. Only the Eurasian plate has agreed to participate in the ritual. I thought you knew this.”

“No.” I had never tried to bind an apprentice elsewhere—in truth, I had bound precious few apprentices to the earth in the first place. All three Druids of my “issue” were dead now. Two had been ambushed—or perhaps assassinated, shot in the back—and another had died in the civil war that resulted in the dissolution of the Carolingian Empire. I hadn’t attempted to train anyone since the death of Cíbran, my last apprentice, in 997. And so it was no wonder I had never discovered this particular proviso to a Druid’s binding, but it made sense. All levels of the earth, from elementals to plates to Gaia herself, must be involved, and the plates were notoriously loath to get involved in anything but their own slow movements and ceaseless grating against one another.

Manannan spoke up. “Brighid, if I may interject?” She waved at him to continue, and he rose to address me. He commanded everyone’s rapt attention. “I cannot speak for all, but I hope I speak for many of the Tuatha Dé Danann when I say we welcome Granuaile MacTiernan to Druidry, and I, for one, would like to see you train many more apprentices. Druidry has been neglected far too long on the mortal plane.” Emphatic nods among the Tuatha Dé Danann supported his statement.