John Lenahan - The Shadowmagic Trilogy

‘Like a spear from Aunt Nieve,’ I said, ‘or Uncle Cialtie’s sword.’

‘If Cialtie had gotten someone else to cut your hand off …’ she said.

‘Then Dad and I would be bookends.’

‘Yes. Also,’ she said, ‘it only works for one battle with each relative.’

‘So next time Aunt Nieve decides to make a Conor kebab – I’m on my own?’

‘What’s a kebab?’ Mom asked.

‘That’s right,’ Dad said, ‘that’s what the rothlú amulet is for.’

‘What’s it do?’

‘It’s only to be used in an emergency,’ Mom said. ‘All you have to do is place your hand over the amulet and say “ Rothlú ”. Then you’re somewhere else.’

‘Like on the edge of a cliff,’ Dad said, ‘or a snake pit.’

‘There are no snakes in The Land,’ Mom retorted. ‘Oisin here is not a fan of this spell.’

‘It’s dangerous, Conor, you can end up anywhere and it hurts like hell. Did she mention that?’

Mom nodded reluctantly. ‘But it may save your life. Make sure you do not use it unless you really need it.’

‘Is this that Shadowmagic I’ve been hearing about?’

They both seemed to jump a little bit when I mentioned Shadowmagic, like I’d blurted out the plans of a surprise party in front of the birthday girl.

‘No,’ Mom said. ‘This uses gold. It’s Truemagic.’

My fifty next questions were stopped dead by the next course. I had never had roast rabbit before but I can tell you right now, I’m never going to be able to watch a Bugs Bunny cartoon again without salivating. Breakfast finished with an apple each. I thought it was a bit of an anticlimax but Dad took his apple like it was a gift from God. He held it in his hand like a priest holding a chalice, and when he bit it, a moan escaped from his throat that was almost embarrassing. I looked at my apple anew. It looked ordinary enough but when I bit it – I’ll be damned if the same moan didn’t involuntarily pour out of me. What a piece of fruit! It hit you everywhere and all at once. This was real food, not the fake stuff that I had been wasting my time eating all my life. This is all I will ever need – this is the stuff that makes you live forever. This was forbidden fruit!

‘Wow,’ I garbled with my mouth full, ‘I feel like Popeye after his first can of spinach.’

Dad thought that was funny. Mom looked confused.

‘Come,’ Mom said, ‘we cannot stay here any longer – I would like to reach the Fililands before tomorrow night.’

Dad packed up the mugs and the water skin. Mom placed the bones and the apple cores on the burning wood and then placed her hands in the flames. The fire died down and then went out. The charred wood and earth seemed to melt into the ground until only a dark circle remained.

As he left, my father placed his hand on the trunk of the willow we were under and said, ‘Thank you.’ My mother did the same.

When I started to walk to the boat, my mother said, ‘Are you not going to thank the tree for his shelter and wood?’

Feeling a bit stupid, I went up to the tree and placed my hands on its bark and said, ‘Thank you.’

I swear the tree said, ‘ You are welcome .’ Not with words – it felt like it spoke directly into my head. I will never make fun of a tree-hugger again.

I got back to the boat to see Dad rooting through the supplies. He found a belt with a sword in a leather scabbard. Without any of the clumsiness that you would expect from a one-handed man, he withdrew the sword from its case and replaced it with the one I had taken from Cialtie.

‘You’re taking your sword back?’

‘Actually, I think you should have it,’ he said.

He handed me the belt and I buckled it on. He reached for the hilt and withdrew the sword, holding the perfectly mirrored blade between us. It made for a strange optical illusion. I saw one half of my own face reflected in the blade, while the other half of the face I saw was my father’s weathered countenance.

‘This is a weapon of old,’ he said with gravity, ‘it belonged to your grandfather Finn of Duir. It is the Sword of Duir. It was given to me and stolen by my brother. He was foolish to lose it.’ He turned the sword horizontal, breaking the half-father, half-son illusion I had been staring into. ‘I want you to have it.’

‘Are you sure?’ I said as I took the blade.

‘Yes, I’m sure. To be honest, I would be glad not to have it hanging around my waist – reminding me.’

‘Reminding you of what?’

‘That’s the sword that chopped my hand off.’

I was so stunned I couldn’t speak. Not until we were well under way and I had gotten the knack of paddling did I blurt out, ‘You lost your hand in a sword fight?’

‘I find it hard to believe,’ Mother said, ‘that you never told your son how you lost your hand.’

‘Dad told me that he lost it in a lawnmower.’

‘What is a lawnmower?’ she asked.

‘It’s a machine that they use in the Real World to keep the grass short,’ Dad said.

‘What is wrong with sheep?’

Dad and I smiled.

‘OK, Pop, tell how you lost your hand – the truth, this time.’

‘I refuse to let you tell that story while we are in a boat,’ Mom said, ‘and we are approaching Ioho – we should not be talking in the Yewlands.’

‘Why not?’ I asked.

‘Because it disturbs the trees and you do not want to disturb a yew tree.’

Under normal circumstances, I would have thought about calling a shrink and booking her into a rubber room, but I had just had a little chat with a tree myself. ‘What could a yew tree do? Drop some leaves on us?’

She gave me a look that made me feel like a toddler who had just been caught with his hand in a cookie jar. It was going to take a while to get used to this mother and son stuff.

‘Yew trees are old. The oldest trees in Tir na Nog. We of The Land think we are immortal, but to the yew we are but a spark. To answer your question, if you wake a yew, it will judge your worth. If it finds you lacking – you will die.’

‘What will it do, step on me?’ I said, and got that same icy stare as before.

‘It will offer you its berries, which are poisonous,’ she said, in a tone that warned me that her patience was thinning, ‘and you will be powerless to resist.’

‘I find that hard to believe.’

‘Please, Conor,’ she said, ‘do not put it to the test today.’

I didn’t have to ask if we were in the Yewlands, I knew it when we got there. Heck, I knew it before we got there. We rounded a bend in the river and ahead I saw two huge boulders on opposite sides of the bank. On top of them were the most awesome trees I had seen yet. They weren’t as big as the oaks, but these were definitely the elders – the great-great-grandfathers of all of the trees and probably everything else in creation. The roots of the yews engulfed the rocks like arthritic hands clutching a ball. It seemed as if these two trees had just slithered up onto their perches to observe our approach. It made the hairs stand up on the back of my neck. Past the guard trees we entered a thick forest that stretched as far as the eye could see. A dense canopy turned the world into a dark green twilight, and there was no light at the end of this tunnel.

The first corpse was just inside the forest. Within ten minutes I must have seen fifteen of them. On both sides of the bank, human remains in various states of decay adorned the base of one tree or another. Some of them were clean, bone-white – others were still in their clothes. Many of them had quivers with arrows on their back. All of them were looking up, open-mouthed, as if to say, ‘No!’ or maybe, ‘Thy will be done.’